Park honour for pioneering jockey

Above: Eva Draper, left, during her racing career.

Parkland in Woodford is to be renamed after a historic Queensland sportswoman who blazed a trail more than 100 years ago.

Moreton Bay City Councillors have unanimously voted to change Kauri Court Park, on Ironbark Drive, to Eva Draper Park.

It honours Queensland’s first female jockey, who was born in Woodford and inducted into the Queensland Racing Hall of Fame last year.

The new park sign will say: “Named in honour of Eva Draper, Queensland’s first female jockey, who broke barriers and shaped Woodford’s equestrian history in the early 1900s.”

Council’s report says Eva was taken riding by her mother Ena, a keen horse woman before she could even walk.

By the age of eight she was riding most of the horses in work for her father, a horse trainer.

Eva excelled in various equestrian disciplines including trackwork and show jumping, where she regularly rode more than one horse at events.

She made history on Boxing Day, 1915, becoming the first woman to ride in a registered race in Australia – winning on her father’s horse Mown Hay.

A Queensland Racing report into Eva joining the Hall of Fame last year said Eva’s brother Gordon was listed to ride that day, but fell ill.

Trainer William Draper asked the Chief Steward if Eva could take replace him as she had ridden Mown Hay at the stables and on the track.

Permission was given and at the age of 17, Eva won as a “unregistered jockey” in a registered race.

Her win caused some controversy with attempts to have her disqualified … but they failed.

A long-time resident at Woodford, she married Brisbane trainer Barney King and raced at Kedron, Strathpine, and Coorparoo. Eva died in 1952.