At the racetrack, it’s all about decisions: Which horse has the most speed? Which can come from behind? Which trainer does well in certain situations?

For the Hat Lady of New York, the decisions are a little different: What color dress, which coat, which shoes, and, most importantly, which hat should she wear?

“My hats have taken on a life of their own,” says the Hat Lady, also known as Jan Rushton, a 47-year-old former cheerleader and exercise rider who’s parlayed her passion for horse racing – and hats – into a rare commodity: a job she loves.

“People have come to expect me to wear some kind of hat every day,” she adds, taking off the warm fur hat appropriate for a chilly day, shaking out her long blond hair, and flashing her best Southern belle smile. “People get very upset when I don’t wear a hat. You wouldn’t think they’d notice, but they really do.”

They also expect diversity, and Ms. Rushton, a New York Racing Association TV personality whose main job is to give prerace analysis from the saddling paddock, is happy to oblige.

There are the pink and pastel hats – with or without big flowers – for the warm summer days of Saratoga; the warmer and less frilly tones for spring at Belmont, and functional furs in every color from brown to blazing pink for the cold, wintry days of Aqueduct.

“I actually put a lot of thought into it,” she says in her memorabilia-filled office deep inside the grandstand of Aqueduct on a recent day during which she would make nine trips back and forth to the paddock for her prerace commentary.

“Each night before the races, I look at the weather and see what kind of day it’s going to be. I usually start with the hat,” she says. That usually means digging into a room in her Long Island apartment filled with some 200 hats. “Then it’s the dress in summer and usually pants when it’s colder. And don’t forget the shoes. I’ve got close to 100 pairs.”

That doesn’t even take into account the jewelry – chains, rings, earrings, and bracelets she keeps in a set of carefully labeled storage drawers she bought at a Home Depot.

All of that gives her thousands of choices for the day’s ensemble and she usually gets it right. But not always.

“Oh, god! Last Columbus Day I wore this great big gold, two-toned hat that was shaped sort of like a triangle,” she says with a laugh. “I got a lot of angry comments about it. People were mad. Let’s just say it wasn’t very popular.”

Ms. Rushton’s trademark came about the usual way – a combination of practicality, accident, and luck.

Born in South Carolina, she developed a love for horses at an early age and was expertly riding show horses and jumpers by the time she was 13. The she went off to Clemson University to study animal science and – being attractive, blonde, and athletic – be a cheerleader.

When she graduated, she wasn’t quite sure what to do and decided to try her hand at exercising thoroughbred racehorses.

“My parents did not like it one bit,” she drawls. “They saw it as a gypsy type of existence.”

She started at a training center in Camden, S.C., where many big owners send their yearlings and 2-year-olds to begin their careers.

“I figured I’d just do it for awhile and that would be it,” Ms. Rushton says. But one summer, she was sent up to Saratoga to work some horses and she was hooked.

Her first big break came when she started working for Hall of Fame trainer Neil Drysdale, whose big horse at the time was Bold n’ Determined. Then she moved to another Hall of Famer, Claude “Shug” McGaughey, who developed such top horses as Heavenly Prize and Easy Goer.

“That was heaven,” she says. “His horses were so talented. It was just amazing to be riding them every day.”

Then, as she started creeping toward her mid-30s, it was time to try something else. She landed a job at a TV show called “Post Time” in Florida, but still exercised horses in the mornings.

That’s when the Hat Lady was born.

“I’d run in from the track, change my clothes, and head over to the studio or whatever at the track,” she says. “I had that helmet-head look. My hair was a mess and I didn’t always have time to fix it. So I started wearing hats. It caught on.”

Did it ever. By the time she landed a job for NYRA – which includes producing some weekly interview or feature segments – the hats had overtaken everything.

She likes her role – and the chance to play dress-up every day – but the horses and the racetrack life are what she really loves.

“I get to talk to the trainers and the jocks and then try to give the viewers something helpful,” she says, failing to mention that she’s quite good at it and often tabs a longshot winner. “It isn’t really work when you’re having fun, and I’m having a ball.”