Lata Brandisova: The fearless, forgotten hero who humiliated the Nazis on horseback

While women in sport continue to fight for equal opportunities and respect, Richard Askwith has unearthed the remarkable lost story of a pioneering woman jockey whose struggles and achievements on the eve of the Second World War feel uncomfortably relevant today

Carnage at the water jump in the Grand Pardubice, 1934 (Ceska Televize)

Does anyone really want to read a book about horse racing?” asked my Czech friend Anna, when I told her I was researching a biography of a forgotten jockey called Lata Brandisova. “Especially that sort of racing, where horses get hurt? Also,” she added, when I mentioned that my heroine had been a countess, “doesn’t everyone despise aristocrats these days?” These were valid objections. If it hadn’t seemed rude, I’d have mentioned another: English-speaking readers have little interest in stories involving Czechs.

These issues had been bothering me for months. Ever since the project first occurred to me, I’d been trying to talk myself out of it. Where was the sense in labouring to piece together the lost story of a long-dead horsewoman no one had heard of, in a faraway country and an impenetrable language, when most people would take one look at my proposed subtitle – “The countess, the Nazis and the world’s most dangerous horse-race” – and decide that, on the whole, these were not themes they wished to read about?

I resolved several times to drop the idea. But the story wouldn’t drop me. Instead, it kept on demanding to be told. Eventually, I gave in.