On June 15, 1971, Cheryl White found herself at the starting gate at Thistledown Racetrack aboard a horse named Ace Reward. It was her first official raceand she was extremely concentrated.
“I just wanted those gates to start,” she informed me recently. “I was not nervous and knew I’d be out and get the lead.”
Cheryl was ideal. She took control in the 2,600, six-furlong event, and for nearly half the race, she looked like a winner. However, Ace Reward and White would finish dead of 11 horses. However, Cheryl White had made history with her ride, getting the first African American female jockey of our time.
Cheryl grew up around horses and other creatures that were countless.
“We moved to the country once I was really young, so I always recall being around horses and being very comfortable around them. And we’d all types other creatures,” she explained.
White came from racing stock that was good. Her father, Raymond, began his career as a jockey in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1924 and rode in Chicago, Cleveland and Cincinnati, among other areas. Raymond started training horses toward the conclusion of the riding career as well as conditioned two horses that ran in the Kentucky Derby. Cheryl’s mother, Doris, was an owner whose horse’s often conducted at Thistledown.
Cheryl was thinking about becoming a jockey, and her parents were mostly supportive.
“They encouraged me, but with my dad being in the horse business, he wasn’t exactly in favour of female riders,” she said. “My Dad was just old school and did not believe, like many old timers, that women belonged around the racetrack. There was a time when women weren’t even allowed on the backstretch after five o’clock. But my parents didn’t try to talk me out of it, either.”
White didn’t do any better in her second outing and ran dead last again, but it did not faze her. She had been awarded an apprentice permit on June 26, 1971, and two weeks later, it occurred. White rode her first winner on September 2, 1971 in Waterford Park on a horse called 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 at Atlantic City in 1972. She won on the longest shot on the board at a field of 14. But the race wasn’t without controversy, as fellow riders Mary Bacon was mad at White after the race and accused her of coming over on her horse. But the two girls were friends and finally put the issue behind them.
White continued riding in her recognizable circuit and held her own, but she wanted more. While visiting friends in California in 1974, she chose to ply her trade in the warm and sunny Southern California tracks. However, Santa Anita, Hollywood and Del Mar were just plain tough venues to compete , and few female riders found significant success on the California circuit.
“I probably should’ve stayed in the east rather than heading west,” she told me. “I think that the tracks on the East Coast and Midwest were more accepting of women riders, at least thoroughbred-wise. There were always five or six at any course I had been at. Successful female jockeys on the East Coast, well, I do not think they would have done as well at the western paths. They simply wouldn’t have gotten the (great ) mounts and the chances that female jockeys had back east and west in the Midwest.”
White shifted her attention to riding Quarter Horses, Paints and Appaloosas at the California County Fairs. She had a reputation for being fast out of the gate and was in high demand on the California Fair circuit. She awakened the rider standings and earned the Appaloosa Horse Club’s Jockey of the Year 1977, 1983, 1984 and 1985 and has been inducted into the Appaloosa Hall of Fame in 2011.
Cheryl White also became the first female jockey to win two races in two different states on the same day when she rode a winner at Thistledown in Ohio at the afternoon and scored again in the night at Waterford Park at West Virginia. She was also the first female jockey to win five races in 1 day, accomplishing that feat at Fresno Fair.
Back in 1989, White dislocated her hip and began making plans to find an easier way to create a living. Back in 1991, she handed the California Horse Racing Board’s Steward Examination and rode her final race on July 25, 1992 at Los Alamitos and just happened to go out a winner. She’s since functioned as a racing official in a variety of functions at many distinct racetracks. Since her retirement, White has ridden many times in charity events, competing with fellow retired female riders.
Now, White works happily as a placing judge at Mahoning Valley Race Course at Ohio. She has a brother and nephew that have an advertising firm, Kabango Media. It gives the household pleasure to observe the name of the business, as it had been named after one of Cheryl’s father’s favorite horses, Kabango.
Although it seems White was seriously underrated, she did get some coverage and awards. Back in 1994, she was honored as one of the”Successful African Americans in the Thoroughbred Racing Industry” from the Bluegrass Black Business Association in Lexington, Kentucky. She was respected 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 quite a long and relatively successful career winning 750 races. I must retire on my own terms and of my choice and essentially in 1 piece. I was 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 very long road, but it has been an interesting and very lucrative and fun street,” she said. “I wouldn’t exchange it for anything”
When I asked about any possible plans of retirement, Cheryl said,”Retire? Retire from this? I had been a race track brat as a child, and I am likely going to expire on the track!”
Cheryl White was a true pioneer in our sport, and one can just imagine the hurdles she overcame to pursue her career. She was young and determined, ignored the drama along with the bigots, and just put her head down and rode. She paved the way for many individuals to pursue their own fantasies, both on and off the racetrack.
It is really fitting that Cheryl White went out a winner in her last race, as she’s certainly a winner in my book.
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