| Summary: | This paper investigates attempts by jockeys and apprentice jockeys to regulate their weight for work purposes. Jockeys race at a pre-determined weight, based on the horse’s previous performance, not on their weight categories. As a result, they often have to race well below their healthy weight, meaning they must lose weight brutally, unsupervised. Indeed, neither training academies nor doctors monitor these weight losses, which remain taboo in the world of horse racing. This paper examines the experimental techniques used by jockeys to lose weight quickly and sharply, and analyses the effects of this weight management on the professional careers and social trajectories of these young working-class men as well as the effects of their trajectories on their weight management.
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