Against the Odds. The Life and Times of Betty Lane: the first woman to be granted a No. 1racehorse trainer licence by the Australian Jockey Club.

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The aim of my research project is to produce a biography of Betty Lane, with an accompanying exegesis. Betty Lane was the first woman in NSW to be granted a No. 1 trainer's licence by the Australian Jockey Club (AJC) (the governing body of racing in NSW) to train and race thoroughbred race horses at Sydney's metropolitan racecourses.

The significance of that event is that it did not occur until 1982, some 140 years after the AJC was founded. The AJC and racing in NSW was a male-dominated domain until Betty Lane succeeded in cracking the AJC's glass ceiling.

To this day, Betty Lane's pioneering achievements at the highest level in a male-dominated industry are known only within a dwindling circle of horseracing professionals, and remain virtually unrecognised outside the racing community.

While my research project is intended to add Betty Lane's biography to Australian racing bibliotheca, my research methodology will be designed to ensure the biography and exegesis are identifiable as a scholarly work that makes an original literary contribution in the Creative Arts.