On June 15, 1971, Cheryl White discovered herself at the starting gate in Thistledown Racetrack aboard a horse called Ace Reward. It had been her first raceand she was extremely focused.
“I just needed those gates to start,” she told me recently. “I was not nervous and knew I would be out and get the guide.”
Cheryl was ideal. She took control in the 2,600, six-furlong event, and for almost half the race, she seemed like a winner. However, Ace Reward and White would finish dead last of 11 horses. Nonetheless, Cheryl White had made history with her ride, getting the very first African-American female jockey of our time.
Cheryl grew up around horses and critters that were hundreds of.
“We moved into the country once I was very young, so I remember being around horses and being really comfortable around them. And we had all kinds other animals,” she explained.
White came from racing stock. Her father, Raymond, started his career as a jockey in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1924 and rode in Chicago, Cleveland and Cincinnati, among other areas. Raymond began training horses toward the end of his riding career and even conditioned two horses which ran in the Kentucky Derby. Cheryl’s mother, Doris, was an owner whose horse often conducted at Thistledown.
Cheryl was thinking about becoming a jockey, and her parents were mostly supportive.
“They encouraged me, but with my father being in the horse business, he wasn’t just in favour of female riders,” she explained. “My Dad was just old school and did not believe, like most old timers, that women belonged around the racetrack. There was a time when girls were not even allowed on the backstretch after five o’clock. But my parents did not try to talk me out of it, either.”
White did not do any better in her next outing and ran dead last again, but it didn’t faze her. She had been granted an apprentice permit on June 26, 1971, and 2 weeks later, it occurred. White rode her first winner on September 2, 1971 in Waterford Park on a horse named Jetolara, becoming the first black woman to win a thoroughbred horse race in the USA.
White received sufficient attention to be invited to the”Boots and Bows Handicap,” an all-female riders race in Atlantic City in 1972. She won on the longest shot on the board in a field of 14. However, the race was not without controversy, as fellow riders Mary Bacon was angry at White following the race and also accused her of coming over on her horse. However, the two women were friends and finally put the problem behind them.
White lasted riding in her recognizable circuit and held her own, but she needed more. While visiting friends in California in 1974, she chose to ply her trade at the hot and sunny Southern California tracks. However, Santa Anita, Hollywood and Del Mar were just plain tough venues to compete , and several female riders found major success on the California circuit.
“I probably should have stayed in the east rather than heading west,” she told me. “I feel the tracks on the East Coast and Midwest were more accepting of women riders, at least thoroughbred-wise. There were always five or six in any track I was at. Successful female jockeys on the East Coast, well, I don’t think that they would’ve done too in the western paths. They just would not have gotten the (good) mounts as well as the opportunities that female jockeys had back east and west in the Midwest.”
White shifted her focus to riding Quarter Horses, Paints and Appaloosas in the California County Fairs. She had a reputation for being fast from the gate and was in high demand on the California Fair circuit. She topped the rider standings and got the Appaloosa Horse Club’s Jockey of the Year in 1977, 1983, 1984 and 1985 and was inducted into the Appaloosa Hall of Fame in 2011.
Cheryl White also became the first female jockey to win two races in two distinct countries on precisely the exact same day when she rode a winner at Thistledown in Ohio in the afternoon and scored again in the evening at Waterford Park in West Virginia. She was also the first female jockey to win five races in one day, accomplishing that feat at Fresno Fair.
Back in 1989, White dislocated her hip and began making plans to find a simpler way to make a living. Back in 1991, she handed on the California Horse Racing Board’s Steward Examination and rode her final race on July 25, 1992 at Los Alamitos and only happened to go out a winner. She’s since served as a racing official in a variety of roles at many different racetracks. Since her retirement, White has ridden many times in charity events, competing with fellow retired female riders.
Today, White works happily as a placing estimate at Mahoning Valley Race Course in Ohio. She has a brother and nephew that have an advertising business, Kabango Media. It gives the household pleasure to see the name of the company, as it had been named after one of Cheryl’s dad’s favorite horses, Kabango.
Even though it appears White was severely underrated, she’d get some coverage and awards. In 1994, she was honored as one of the”Successful African Americans in the Thoroughbred Racing Industry” by the Bluegrass Black Business Association in Lexington, Kentucky. She was also honored by the National Girls and Women in Sports Day, presented by the Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles, California in 2006.
I asked Cheryl if she could sum up her career in a few sentences.
“I had a long and relatively successful career winning 750 races. I got to retire on my own terms and of my choice and basically in one piece. I had been quite fortunate to have had a job that I loved and had a passion for. A lot of people simply are not that lucky. It’s been a long road, but it’s been a fascinating and incredibly lucrative and enjoyable road,” she explained. “I wouldn’t exchange it for anything.”
When I inquired about any possible strategies of retirement, Cheryl said,”Retire? Retire from this? I was a race track brat for a kid, and I’m probably going to expire on the trail!”
Cheryl White was a true pioneer in our sport, and you can just imagine the hurdles she overcame to pursue her career. She was young and decided, ignored the play along with the bigots, and just put her head down and rode. She paved the way for many individuals to pursue their own dreams, both on and off the racetrack.
It’s really fitting that Cheryl White went out a winner in her final race, as she’s certainly a winner in my book.
Read more here: http://blackpresident.us/?p=61468
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