Lads & Jockeys

Lads & Jockeys follows boys, though there appear to be girls in the program as well. The film abstains from interviews or direct-to-camera explanations, preferring instead to slice in excerpts from Henri Raschle’s 1969 black-and-white film about the industry, which demonstrates how little has changed in 40 years. Stylistically, the choice makes it easier to give in to the hypnotic rhythms of work, riding, and rest on display, but also leaves questions—Where do these children come from? How many of them actually go on to careers in racing? What happens to the rest of them?—maddeningly unresolved. Rather than “apprentice jockey,” one man from a 1969 clip suggests, people should say “apprentice stable-lad,” given that that’s all most of the kids become, which creates the divide of the film’s title. One of the subjects does debut in a race, though it’s unclear what about his riding made him stand out among the crowd.

There’s a bit of unease to seeing children shouldering workloads and expectations better suited to adults, and Lads & Jockeys admirably leans into this tension, not shying away from scenes of a boy tentatively trying to clean the hoof of a nervous horse many times his size, or another crying as he loses control of his mount and she gallops down the track with him barely clinging to her back. But by giving the boys onscreen room to be goofy and immature, Marquet makes the film something warmer than a formal study in discipline and being made to grow up before their time. When one boy sighs, “You gotta admit, horses are a hard line of work,” it’s endearing, not pitiful.