The following is a letter from Marion Altieri (FP ’88), sent for class notes but we thought it was great to share this on the FP Alumnae website for our entire community to see! If you’d like to contact Marion, you may email her at ThoroughbredWriter@yahoo.com / Filly.Magazine@yahoo.com

Good morning, Ms. Weir,

I’m emailing you this morning to tell you about an extraordinary thing that has happened to me: this falls into the category of Following Mary Lyons’ Orders. (Grin.) Miss. Lyon told her women to “Go where no one else will go, and do what no one else will do.”

The course of my career as a horse racing media maven has seen me going and doing, as you know. But now the latest: starting this Saturday, and for seven Saturdays altogether–I’ll be at the helm of a horse racing radio show on WJKE The Jockey 101.3FM. (Saratoga /Capital District of New York, but online after initial broadcast every week.) 8AM, Saturdays from July 20 – August 31st.

My show is sponsored solely by NYRA – The New York Racing Association. (This is a huge honor, that NYRA would say yes to being sole sponsor. NYRA is the racing organization that hosts three racetracks: Aqueduct Racetrack, Belmont Park and Saratoga Race Course. And Saratoga has the highest-level of horse racing in the WORLD–only the best Thoroughbreds dare come here. And New York has the highest purses (prize money) for races, also on Earth. (Nope, not even at Royal Ascot, Queen Elizabeth’s track, is the purse money or the level of racing higher.)

So for the best horse racing organization on Earth to want to sponsor MY racing radio show–that’s pretty huge.

And we’ve all Googled for several months–and cannot find another woman who’s the sole host of a racing radio show. A couple other women in the US are “sidekicks” to men, but no one whose voice is the first in, first out–and in control of creating the form, content and tone of the show. We think that, as of Saturday, I’ll be the only woman on the planet with her own horse racing radio show.

That, I think, qualifies me as a real Mount Holyoke Woman.

🙂

As everyone who knows me knows, though–I’m NOT doing this for me. Ten years ago, when I met Penny Chenery (Owner of Secretariat, herself a Smithie), she asked me to tell her my dream. I told her that I needed to become the Oprah of Horse Racing–involved in every form of horse racing media. She asked why, and I told her: so that I could help make the sprort more egalitarian for women and girls, and more nurturing for horses. She liked what she heard, and invited me to meet her in her box at Saratoga on Opening Day, to discuss how I’d get there.

My aim is to help women and girls–the majority of the fan base in horse racing–to find their careers and vocations in the sport. To get onto Boards of Directors. Become jockeys, presidents of race tracks, trainers, etc. (e.g., Yesterday the Breeders’ Cup — an international race series in October, based in the US) announced the new members of the Board. Three men, making the total of Board members 14. One of those members is a woman. This is standard in the horse racing industry, and yet women really ARE the majority of the fan base.

So I’m working to kick down the barn door for many other women and girls–and as our gender gets more play in the sport, horses will benefit. Horse slaughter will end. Abuse and neglect will be legally punished. Wherever women are defending the weak–including horses–the weak gain strength, and renewed life.

So this is why I’m doing f!lly Racing Radio, Ms. Weir. Not because I seem to be the only woman on Earth who’s doing it. I’m doing it because Mary Lyon told me to go and do. Somebody’s gotta take the lead in any herd, and it’s always an alpha mare.

🙂
Have a great weekend,
Marion (Altieri)
FP ’88