Word: robyn
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Some men might be inclined to belittle these achievements on the grounds that Billie Jean might have trouble taking a set from any one of the world's top 100 male players, and that Robyn may never be another Willie Shoemaker. But those arguments really miss the point: Mrs. King and Miss Smith are, simply and sufficiently, two exceptional athletes who have managed to advance further in their chosen sports than any women before them...
...cause of women in general. But that contribution, each is quick to point out, has been coincidental. Asserts Billie Jean: "I want to be treated as an athlete because that's what I am. I'm doing what I enjoy most and getting paid for it." Echoes Robyn: "I'm not trying to prove anything as a female jockey. I do it because I enjoy it so much, and I think people should do whatever makes them happy...
...because of their sex. For Billie Jean, sexist slights have often been compounded by tennis' traditional snootiness. In her first tournament, as a preteenager in Southern California, she was ordered out of a group picture because she was wearing shorts instead of a tennis dress. No one expects Robyn to wear a skirt while she is riding a horse, but her dressing facilities are inevitably second-rate; at Gulfstream Park, near Miami, she changes in the doctor's office...
...Robyn, on the other hand, hardly thinks about marriage and children. A former Hollywood starlet, she is frequently asked for dates, sometimes by fellow jockeys. But she seldom goes out except for dinner with married friends. Her working schedule leaves little time for a social life: up at 5:30 a.m. to exercise horses, back home briefly to shower and change, off to the track to race and early to bed to rest...
...Rats. Except for an occasional game of golf, her main interest away from horse racing-and her only apparent idiosyncrasy-is caring for her three pet rats-Peanuts, Pepper and Paprika. When she travels to wherever the racing season takes her, Robyn carries the rats in a handbag; at her home on Long Island, N.Y., she keeps them in a terrarium. "They're nice to go home to," she says. "They're very tame and come when called...