A queen of all trades
From Winnipeg to Toronto to Hong Kong to Hollywood, Chantal Sutherland gets around. And not just as a jockey.
The 34-year-old native of Winnipeg has just emerged from the best season of her career, finishing second in the rider standings at Woodbine racetrack in Toronto, coming close to a mount in the Kentucky Derby, tantalizing the paparazzi at a Hong Kong jockey contest last December, and winning a couple of stakes races in California.
There seems to be a need for speed here. These days, she’s jetting back and forth from California, juggling her job of riding horses at Woodbine with a new acting career in Hollywood, all while sporting a new diamond ring. On Feb. 26, she became engaged to Hall of Fame jockey Mike Smith, based in California.
After shouldering her way into the riding colony in California against the best riders on the continent, many are calling Sutherland a worthy successor to the best female jockey in history, Julie Krone. They’ve dubbed Sutherland the Queen of Long Shots, winning against all odds.
She and a host of female jockeys around the world have come a long way since 1969, when Barbara Jo Rubin, the first female rider to win a race against male riders, shrugged off rebuffs bricks thrown through windows in protest, trainers refusing to hire her, race boycotts by her male peers, fans shouting Go home and make spaghetti!
I just blanked it all out, said Rubin, now 60, from her home in Illinois. Other jockeys get booed.
The Powder Puff Derby has gone the way of the Model T, although those exhibitions for female riders still existed in Australia and New Zealand in the 1970s. It was only in 1978 when New Zealand racing officials allowed female jockeys to ride against males.
Thirty years ago, you wouldnt think of using a female rider, said Hall of Fame trainer Bob Tiller, who gave Sutherland the call for a horse at Woodbine yesterday. It was the wrong thing to do. They said they were too weak. It was a stupid attitude that men had about it.
The Chantals and Emma Wilsons of the world are very successful and strong riders. They have different styles. Emma is very strong and Chantal is more of a sit-still rider. But Chantal finishes good, and shes had a lot of experience in California with the best riders in North America.Horses run for her.
Wilson became the first female jockey to win the Queens Plate, in 2007 with Mike Fox. Sutherland has yet to win Canadas most prestigious race.
Catharine Day Phillips, who also broke barriers when she became the first female trainer to win the $1-million (U.S.) Arlington Million in Chicago, has long been a patron of Sutherland, but she hires her, she says, because Sutherland is a good, hard-working jockey, not because she is female.
Day Phillips said the job is not for every woman with a light frame. The racetrack in general is a tough world, she said. Youve got to have thick skin to be in it, whether youre male or female. You have to be strong and physically up to it, too.
Francine Villeneuve, who holds the record of 934 wins for a Canadian female jockey (Wilson and Sutherland each have more than 700 wins), said she was lucky when she started riding in 1987. She didnt have as tough a task as Rubin, but her path had more pitfalls than what Wilson and Sutherland have today.
People based their decisions a lot on just my ability, she said. There were still some people that would never even consider riding a girl and it still happens today, despite what we think.
Villeneuve was the first Canadian female jockey to ride a horse in the Queens Plate, finishing second with Wilderness Song, a filly, in 1991.
Villeneuve said she benefited from being a female rider, because she got a lot of recognition and publicity from it. But Sutherland is getting recognition in spades. She has her own website. She was named one of People magazines top 100 most beautiful people. She has represented cosmetic companies. Shes been photographed by Annie Leibowitz, riding a horse in little more than her underwear.
Although Wilson was the first female jockey ever invited to a Hong Kong international jockey contest, Sutherland was the second, and quickly became the headliner for the promotion there. Although all foreign riders are given Chinese names, the Hong Kong Jockey Club staged a Name Our Chantal contest. One lucky winner among thousands of entries got a trophy and other graft for naming her So Sin-Tung or Pretty Lady in Pink.
At Hong Kong, the media frenzy surrounding Sutherland was frantic, she said. At one point, photographers were banging into each other, hurting each other, to get the best photo. In Hong Kong, Sutherland was treated like a movie star.
Not that she minds. Over the winter, Sutherland took acting lessons and landed a minor role in a new HBO television pilot called Luck, written by long-time horse owner David Milch, the creator of NYPD Blue and Hill Street Blues. Dustin Hoffman got the star role, while Nick Nolte and Richard Kind (Spin City) have also landed roles.
Gary Stevens, a retired Hall of Fame jockey who starred in the Seabiscuit movie, plays an old, rundown jockey back on the wagon, Sutherland said.
Sutherland portrays an exercise rider with a taste for men. She started working on the pilot on the Monday before the opening of Woodbine and returned for more work on it last Monday and Tuesday. Shell jet back to Hollywood next week to complete it.
Sutherland said shes long dreamed of pursuing an acting career. But her engagement to Smith throws them both into a pickle: Where will they live and ride? Smith, the regular rider for popular U.S. horse of the year Zenyatta, is based in California, where the horse is. Sutherlands family, and the lure of the big purses at Woodbine, bring her to Toronto for most of the year.
For the time being, Sutherland says shell continue to ride at Woodbine. Then theyll see. Wherever we are in the world, Mike and I have decided to stay together, and after this year I think there will be some decisions, she said.
After a six-year courtship, (and a breakup last summer), Sutherland became engaged to Smith, she said, much to her shock.
Weve been through some tough times, but we decided to work things out, Sutherland said. It was a surprise, for sure. Weve got another challenging year ahead of us, but were focusing on making it work. Were going to try to pray that it does.
After this season, when perhaps Zenyatta could retire, Smith could end up riding at Woodbine, Sutherland said. Or she could end up riding in California.
We are just going to take it day by day, she said.
