On June 15, 1971, Cheryl White found herself in the starting gate in Thistledown Racetrack aboard a horse named Ace Reward. It had been her first official race, and she had been extremely focused.
“I just needed those gates to open,” she told me lately. “I wasn’t nervous and knew I’d be first out and get the guide.”
Cheryl was right. She took command in the 2,600, six-furlong occasion, and for almost half the race, she seemed like a winner. But Ace Reward and White would finish dead last of 11 horses. Nonetheless, Cheryl White had made history with her ride, becoming the very first African American female jockey of the time.
Cheryl grew up around horses and countless other critters.
“We moved to the country once I was very young, so I recall being around horses and being very comfortable around them. And we’d all kinds other animals,” she said.
White came from racing stock. Her dad, Raymond, started 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 his riding career and even conditioned two horses that ran in the Kentucky Derby. Cheryl’s mother, Doris, was an owner whose horse often ran at Thistledown.
Cheryl was interested in becoming a jockey, and her parents were mostly supportive.
“They invited me, but together with my dad being in the horse industry, he was not exactly in favour of female cyclists,” she explained. “My Dad was only old school and didn’t believe, like most old timers, that women belonged around the racetrack. There was a time when women weren’t even permitted on the backstretch after five o’clock. But my parents did not attempt to talk me out of it.”
White did not do any better in her next outing and ran dead last again, but it did not faze her. She was awarded an apprentice license on June 26, 1971, and 2 months later, it occurred. White rode her first winner on September 2, 1971 in Waterford Park to a horse named Jetolara, becoming the first black woman to win a thoroughbred horse race in the United States.
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 plank in 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. However, the two women were friends and eventually put the problem behind them.
White continued 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 in the warm and sunny Southern California tracks. But Santa Anita, Hollywood and Del Mar were just plain tough venues to compete at, and few female riders found major success on the California circuit.
“I probably should’ve remained in the east instead of going west,” she advised me. “I think that the tracks on the East Coast and Midwest were more accepting of women cyclists, 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 don’t think that they would have done too in the western tracks. They just wouldn’t have gotten the (good) mounts and the opportunities that feminine 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 from the gate and has been in high demand on the California Fair circuit. She topped the rider standings and got the Appaloosa Horse Club’s Jockey of the Year 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 states on the exact same day when she rode a winner at Thistledown in Ohio in 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 one day, accomplishing that feat at Fresno Fair.
Back in 1989, White dislocated her hip and began making plans to obtain a simpler way to make a living. In 1991, she passed 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 is since functioned as a racing official in various functions at many distinct racetracks. Since her retirement, White has ridden several times in charity events, competing with fellow retired female cyclists.
Now, White works happily as a placing estimate at Mahoning Valley Race Course in Ohio. She has a brother and nephew that have an advertising firm, Kabango Media. It gives the family pleasure to observe the name of the business, as it was named after one of Cheryl’s father’s favorite horses, Kabango.
Even though it seems White was seriously underrated, she did get some awards and coverage. In 1994, she was honored as one of those”Successful African Americans in the Thoroughbred Racing Industry” by 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 livelihood in a couple of sentences.
“I had a long and relatively successful career winning 750 races. I must retire on my own terms and of my choice and basically in 1 piece. I had been very lucky to have had a job that I loved and had a passion for. Many individuals simply aren’t that lucky. It has been a long road, but it has been a fascinating and very lucrative and enjoyable street,” she said. “I would not exchange it for anything.”
When I asked about any probable strategies of retirement, Cheryl said,”Retire? Retire from this? I had been a race track brat as a kid, and I am likely 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 had been young and determined, ignored the drama along with the bigots, and only put her head down and rode. She paved the way for countless individuals to pursue their own dreams, both on and off the racetrack.
It’s truly fitting that Cheryl White went out a winner in her last race, as she is surely a winner in my book.

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