On June 15, 1971, Cheryl White found herself in the starting gate at Thistledown Racetrack aboard a horse named Ace Reward. It had been her first raceand she had been extremely focused.
“I just needed those gates to start,” she informed me lately. “I was not nervous and knew I’d be out and get the lead.”
Cheryl was ideal. She took command in the $2,600, six-furlong occasion, and for almost half the race, she looked like a winner. But 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 other creatures that were countless.
“We moved into the country once I was really young, so I recall being about horses and being really comfortable around them. And we had all types other animals,” she said.
White came from racing inventory that was great. Her dad, Raymond, began his career as a jockey in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1924 and rode in Chicago, Cleveland and Cincinnati, among other places. Raymond started training horses toward the end of his 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 invited me, but together with my dad being in the horse industry, he wasn’t just in favor of female riders,” she explained. “My Dad was only old school and didn’t think, like most old timers, that girls belonged across the racetrack. There was a time when women weren’t even allowed on the backstretch after five o’clock. But my parents did not attempt to talk me out of it, either.”
White did not do any better in her next outing and ran dead again, but it did not faze her. She was granted an apprentice license on June 26, 1971, and two months 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 encouraged 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. However, the race was not without controversy, as fellow rider Mary Bacon was angry at White after the race and also accused her of coming on her horse. However, the two women were friends and eventually put the problem behind them.
White lasted riding in her familiar circuit and held her own, but she needed more. While visiting friends in California in 1974, she chose to ply her trade in the hot and sunny Southern California tracks. However, Santa Anita, Hollywood and Del Mar were just plain rough places to compete , and several female riders found major success on the California circuit.
“I probably should’ve stayed in the east instead of going west,” she advised me. “I think that the paths on the East Coast and Midwest were much more accepting of women riders, at least thoroughbred-wise. There were always five or six at any track I was at. Successful female jockeys on the East Coast, well, I don’t think they would’ve done as well at the western tracks. They just wouldn’t have gotten the (good) mounts as well as the opportunities that feminine jockeys had back east and 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 in 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 distinct states on the exact same day when she rode a winner at Thistledown in Ohio at the day and scored again in the evening at Waterford Park in West Virginia. She was also the first female jockey to win five races in 1 day, accomplishing that feat at Fresno Fair.
In 1989, White dislocated her hip and began making plans to find a simpler way to create a living. In 1991, she passed the California Horse Racing Board’s Steward Examination and rode her last race on July 25, 1992 in Los Alamitos and just happened to go out a winner. She is since served as a racing official in a variety of roles at several different racetracks. Since her retirement, White has ridden several times in charity events, competing with fellow retired female riders.
Today, White works happily as a putting judge at Mahoning Valley Race Course at Ohio. She has a brother and nephew that have an advertising business, Kabango Media. It gives the household pleasure to observe the name of the company, as it had been called after one of Cheryl’s father’s beloved horses, Kabango.
Although it appears White was seriously underrated, she did get some awards and coverage. 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, introduced by the Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles, California in 2006.
I asked Cheryl if she could sum up her livelihood in a few sentences.
“I had quite a long and relatively successful career winning 750 races. I got to 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. Many individuals just aren’t that lucky. It has been a very long road, but it has been a fascinating and very lucrative and enjoyable road,” she explained. “I wouldn’t trade it for anything”
When I asked about any possible plans of retirement, Cheryl said,”Retire? Retire out of this? I was a race track brat as a child, and I’m likely going to expire on the trail!”
Cheryl White was a real pioneer in our game, and you 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 countless people to pursue their own fantasies, both on and off the racetrack.
It is really fitting that Cheryl White went out a winner in her final race, as she’s certainly a winner in my book.

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