By Susan Friedland
Portraits by Sophia Donohue
Former jockey Donna Barton Brothers has one of the most unique jobs in all sports. Tune in to the Kentucky Derby or Breeders’ Cup, and you will see Donna, microphone in hand while on horseback, working as an NBC Sports reporter interviewing the winning jockey en route to the winner’s circle. Becoming an in-the-saddle horse-racing reporter was an unlikely career for Donna, who neither intended to be a jockey nor received a degree in broadcast journalism.
Donna’s earliest racing memory was around the age of 8, galloping alongside her little brother, Jerry, and older sister, Leah, in a field near their home in Chester, West Virginia. Donna’s mother was Patti Barton, one of the first licensed female jockeys in the U.S., and instead of hiring a babysitter, Patti dropped her children off at their ponies’ pasture for the day equipped with three bridles and a can of oats.
“We’d shake that can of oats and there came the ponies,” Donna said. “We’d put bridles on them, get up on them and take off. I don’t remember if we started the race or if the ponies did, but at some point we would end up in a race. I think the ponies’ goal was to get into the woods, and the first one that could jump a log while going under a low-hanging branch and get rid of us won.”
A few years later, a woman in a doctor’s office waiting room recognized Donna’s mother and asked for advice about getting her daughter a horse. Patti said, “Whatever you do, don’t get her a Shetland pony,” and elaborated on how difficult Shetlands were.
When the woman left, Donna asked, “Mom, did you know all that when you got Shetland ponies for us?”
Patti said, “Of course I knew that. I didn’t have you ride with saddles because I didn’t need you getting hung up in the stirrups. Whatever I put you on, you were going to fall off, so I needed something small enough that you could get back on without me being there. You were going to learn to have a good seat on a horse, and you were going to learn horsemanship.”
Aug. 25, 1996 Monmouth Park, Phillip Iselin Handicap
Family and Fast Horses
If Donna’s maternal grandparents had their way, it’s likely no one in Donna’s family would have entered the horse world. Patti’s parents wanted their daughter to be a telephone operator. Instead, their horse-loving daughter carved out a trailblazing, 16-year jockey career with over 1,200 wins. Before she became a jockey, Patti read a library book about trick riding and joined a “Wild West” show. There, Patti met Charlie Barton, a saddle bronc rider. The couple married, and although the marriage didn’t last, the couple’s respective backgrounds forever influenced the life paths of their children: Leah, Donna and Jerry all became jockeys.
During the school year, Donna and her siblings each received an allowance of $5 a week, but when summer arrived, the allowance stopped. The young trio’s options were to mow lawns, babysit or go to the racetrack with their mom to earn their own money. So, at the age of 9, Donna began working at the track. She would roll bandages, clean buckets and do other barn chores. Over time, Donna began to hotwalk and groom racehorses, and when she was older, she started riding them.
Most of Donna’s early experiences with horses were at the track, but Donna recalled riding in at least one horse show on a pinto pony in a leadline class. “I remember coming back and telling my sister that I won a blue ribbon, and I was so excited. She said, ‘It’s leadline; everybody wins a blue ribbon.’ Then I was heartbroken, but that’s what big sisters are for: to keep us grounded.”
Sherman–Ron and Laura Moquette’s stable horse. Churchill Downs, Kentucky Derby coverage for NBC 2017.
In 1987, Donna entered her first race after having been an exercise rider for years. By the time she started the career she never set out to have, her mother, brother and sister had all retired from racing. In the 1990s, she regularly rode for Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas, piloting numerous stakes winners. Over the course of Donna’s 12-year career, she won 1,130 races; yet a day of racing in Minnesota, early in her career, remains special to her.
“About a month after I had lost my apprenticeship, I was at Canterbury Park and they did a jockey challenge,” she said. “It was four female jockeys against four male jockeys. There were four races and you accumulated points by every finish all the way back to fourth.” Donna won two of the four races, one of them on a longshot in a three-horse photo finish. Donna was in the middle and on either side of her were two experienced male jockeys. She won a second race on the turf on a horse who made a late run to victory. Patti happened to be in town for a visit and was on hand to cheer her daughter on.
“I won a Jeep because I won the challenge, and my mom was there. That meant the most to me, I think because it gave me that peace of mind that things were going to be OK,” Donna said. “I was so worried: What if I lose my business? And what if people are only riding me for the weight allowance, since apprentice jockeys carry less weight than their seasoned counterparts? How am I going to be able to convince them that I’m as good as riders who’ve been riding much longer? Winning that jockey championship gave me the confidence that I needed to be able to tell myself that I’m as good as they are, and to be able to sell myself to the trainers who needed to believe that, also.”
Patti told her daughter, “You’re doing everything I’ve ever wanted to do, but you’re doing it better.”
“People always want to have validation from their parents that they’re doing a good job,” Donna reflected. “My mother was the leading female rider in the nation: It was one of the reasons why I didn’t become a jockey at first. I galloped horses in the morning for four and a half years before I became a jockey, because how could I top that? And so to get that validation from not just my mom but the leading female rider in the nation for all the years that she rode was meaningful.”
Even though she retired from racing 26 years ago, Donna still ranks among the top four highest-earning U.S. female jockeys of all time. Patti credits her daughter’s intelligence for her outstanding career. “As a rider, I used my brain the most in a race,” Patti said. “You think of the physical aspect—you have to be very fit to ride races—but more races are won and lost with the brain than with the stick, and she has an excellent brain.”
Donna added, “I learned great lessons as a jockey that have stayed with me throughout my life. One of them is, accept criticism with an open mind. We reflexively bristle at criticism, but as a jockey, you get a lot of it! Some is without merit—from disgruntled bettors—but oftentimes there is something there that, if examined closely, can help you improve your craft.”
Life Pivots and Lifelong Learning
When Donna was racing at Illinois’ Arlington Park in 1993, she and Frank Brothers, a Preakness- and Belmont Stakes-winning trainer, worked out at the same gym. “It was 11 times around for one mile, so if you ran at about the same pace as somebody else and you knew them, it was nice to have a conversation just to get through your 33 laps,” Donna said. “Frank and I ended up chatting. I was 27, he was 46, we started dating and we’ve lived happily ever after.” The couple married in 1998, and shortly thereafter Donna retired from racing, but continued work as an exercise rider.
Around the same time, a conversation while cleaning tack compelled Donna to pivot. Donna asked a fellow exercise rider who rode scared what kept him galloping for a living. He said he didn’t know how to do anything else. Donna thought about his answer, and how terrible a reality that was. She then reflected on how she wasn’t trained to do anything else besides gallop racehorses. In school, Donna had enjoyed her English classes the most. “I was one of those kids that if we had eight books assigned to us to read during that school year, I got through all eight of them in the first three months and was looking for more books to read,” she said. She wanted to go to college when she graduated a year early from high school, but she didn’t have money for the tuition, so she did what she knew: worked on the track. At 36, Donna enrolled at the University of Louisville.
The first year she began attending classes, she did four shows for NBC, a role she accepted after having been a race analyst for Churchill Downs in-house telecasts. Three years later, she was doing 24 shows a year for NBC. “I couldn’t do both anymore. And sadly, final exams still to this day happen Derby week,” Donna said. She left the classroom to continue with her broadcast career. Besides racing, Donna has covered the World Equestrian Games, Kentucky Three-Day Event, Grand Prix dressage, Grand Prix show jumping, the Quarter Horse World Championships and even professional bull riding.
Donna has learned the nuances of each sport to report on them. For example, she attended the summer dressage festival at Gladstone as a spectator to gain an appreciation of dressage. “I wanted to understand it even better, so I took a couple of dressage lessons in Lexington,” she said. “I was still galloping horses, and I thought, I can’t do this. I can’t not ride with a foot forward, because I’ve ridden Thoroughbreds my whole life. I now understand how they do what they do and why they do what they do.”
Three months before the Triple Crown or Breeders’ Cup, Donna works on her computer six to eight hours a day. “I’m reading articles and researching horses and watching races, and reading about those races beforehand, and reading the comments after,” she shared.
Healthy Living and Giving Back
Early in her career as Donna was trying to get physically stronger, she read the book “Fit for Life” and it resonated with her. With a new understanding of food’s impact on organ health, Donna abandoned powdered sugar donuts paired with chocolate milk breakfasts in favor of healthier choices. She continues to read books on health and nutrition, citing the need for periodic reminders and learning the latest research.
“It’s never been my goal to live to be 100. My only goal is to feel good while I’m alive,” Donna said. “I wish more people understood that. People understand that we have billions of cells that die off every day, but I don’t think they put it together that we rebuild those cells with something. And what we rebuild those cells with is the food that we take into our body, our environment—meaning the air that we breathe, the emotions that we feel, the exercise that our body gets. All of that is super important in the quality of our body.”
Around 10 years ago, Donna tried Bikram Yoga after a repeat ankle injury that kept her from running. Yoga’s challenge suited her, and she continues her practice. Donna is also passionate about skiing and has tried heli-skiing, backcountry skiing and cat skiing—guided, off-resort skiing using a “snowcat” as initial transportation.
Today, Donna and Frank, who retired from training in 2009 and bloodstock agent work in 2022, along with their two dogs, Molly and Jackson, divide their time between homes in Saratoga Springs, New York, and Louisville, Kentucky. The couple loves Saratoga Springs, and Donna likened it to a “summer camp” where she rides her bike, attends concerts and hikes in the Adirondacks.
In addition to her physically active lifestyle, Donna is active in supporting organizations she cares about. Donna is a past board member of the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance (TAA), an organization that fundraises and accredits Thoroughbred aftercare programs. Several years ago Donna wrote a book to help fans better grasp horse racing. All profits from “Inside Track” go to the TAA. In June, Donna participated in the “Embrace the Belmont” fundraising event for Therapeutic Horses of Saratoga, a TAA-accredited non-profit utilizing unrideable, retired Thoroughbreds and Standardbreds for equine-assisted psychotherapy.
Donna currently serves on the board of The Brain Injury Alliance of Kentucky, a cause that holds deep significance for her. Throughout her jockey career, Donna experienced several concussions, and her mother’s career ended due to a brain injury sustained during a race. Reflecting on her mother’s incident, Donna remarked, “I thought how nice it would’ve been back when she had that brain injury in 1984 if there was this resource.”
Donna’s journey from Shetland pony adventures to following her mother’s footsteps as one of horse racing’s trailblazing female jockeys, then to her role as an in-the-saddle horse racing reporter and her love of learning and passion to give back, showcases one thing: Like the Thoroughbreds she once rode, Donna doesn’t just accept life’s unexpected opportunities. She runs with them.
For more information, follow Donna on Instagram @brothers.donna, on X @DonnaBBrothers and on Facebook at Donna Barton Brothers
Photos by Sophia Donohue, sophiadonohuephotography.com, unless noted otherwise
