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" In the hours leading up to the 140th running of the Kentucky Derby on Saturday, the world&amp;#039;s foremost thoroughbred race, Rosie Napravnik will be preparing for the race with all the guys. Although she will be the only woman in the jockey room, she won&amp;#039;t be asking for any breaks. When the other jockeys throw a pie in the face of a napping athlete, she will join in with them. When she gets dirt kicked in her face by a horse on the racetrack, she will wash it off with a bucket of muddy water like all the other jockeys. If she is overweight even by a little (all jockeys must weigh under a certain amount for the races) she, too, will put on a sweat suit and spit in a bucket to shed the extra pounds in a hurry. All she&amp;#039;s ever wanted since she was a 7-year-old girl riding ponies, was to be able to prove she is every bit as good as the men. &amp;quot;You are playing on a level playing field, and you have to be as good as them,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s what it comes down to.&amp;quot; Napravnik, whose bright red hair and high cheekbones sets her apart even from other females, is sure that the only way to succeed in her sport is to act like a man. And so far, her strategy has worked. In 2013 she came in fifth among all North American jockeys for her number of wins (269) and eighth in earnings (over $13 million). This year she&amp;#039;s fourth in wins and fifth in earnings. And she has earned the right to be the first woman ever to be tapped to ride Derby favorite, a gorgeous three-year-old named Vicar&amp;#039;s in Trouble. If she wins, she&amp;#039;ll be the first woman ever to do so, a Jackie Robinson-like moment in one of the most male-dominated of all sports.  Related: How Slam-Dunking, Gender-Bending WNBA Rookie Brittney Griner Is Changing the World of Sports Young girls approach Napravnik all the time, on Facebook and in person, and tell her they want to grow up and be a horse jockey just like her. Napravnik&amp;#039;s response: Go for it, but be ready to find your grit and deal with plenty of disdain. Barbara Jo Rubin, the first American woman to win a horse race in the U.S., told 60 Minutes in April 2013 that jockeys and fans would boo her and one told her to &amp;quot;Go home and make babies.&amp;quot; That was 1969, but even 40 years later Napravnik is still facing sexist scorn. When she first started racing professionally in 2005 she rode under the name A.R. Napravnik to disguise her gender. Jockeys used to intentionally bump her on the track. They&amp;#039;ve tried to intimidate her by closing in on her horse from all sides. She remembers going home after races and complaining to her husband about the sheer frustration of getting this treatment. Why don&amp;#039;t you just hit them, he said. Napravnik thought better of that. Her response was to just &amp;quot;shut up&amp;quot; and earn their respect by beating them on the racetrack. The weight part never gets easy, either. Napravnik, standing 5-foot-2, has to keep her weight at exactly 113 pounds, according to the rules of the sport. That means no lasagna and pizza, and only spare meals during the day to keep her weight down. If she is overweight she puts on an extra jacket or sweatshirt to work out. She is constantly obsessing, taking trips to the scale up to 10 times a day. &amp;quot;It really is an eye opener to how much your weight fluctuates. Sometimes you can lose half a pound by taking a nap.&amp;quot; And then there are the broken bones every jockey must endure. She now has a metal rod in her leg and a plate in her arm from past injuries caused by horses trampling her during a race. Related: Why Graceful, Type-A, Adrenaline-Junkies Make the Best Pilots (And Tend To Be Women) While Napravnik earned the right to ride Vicar&amp;#039;s in Trouble and other top notch horses, she still has to deal with people who attribute her success to some version of sleeping her way to the top. One &amp;quot;veteran jockey&amp;quot; told New York Times Magazine, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m 53 years old, brother. I&amp;#039;m going to walk into a paddock, and I&amp;#039;m going to talk to these owners and their wives and stuff. And there&amp;#039;s little Rosie. She&amp;#039;s going to bounce out of there. A pretty little girl, good disposition\u2026Now, which one of them would you rather leg up on your horse?&amp;quot; Napravnik shrugs off the talk of getting favors for her looks or gender. &amp;quot;If you show your work ethic and professionalism and obvious skill and ability, that is what is going to win somebody over,&amp;quot; she says. Rose Napravnik is grateful for the opportunity she&amp;#039;s had to overcome the critics, doubters and hecklers. She doesn&amp;#039;t see them as barriers, just mere hiccups along the way to more female jockeys in the sport. &amp;quot;We are beyond the days of being boycotted,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;We are beyond the days before Civil Rights. So it has to do with the woman. It has to do with the individual and being able to compete as smart, as sharp as any man.&amp;quot; Related: Model Athlete: Gabrielle Reece on the Double Standard of Beauty and Performance for Females in Sports Photo: Getty Images "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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