Chantal Sutherland |
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Chantal Sutherland (born February 23, 1976 in Winnipeg, Manitoba) is a Canadian model and jockey in North American Thoroughbred horse racing. She grew up in the Toronto, Ontario area where her father owns a horse farm. As a young girl she played competitive field hockey and was invited to try out for Canada's junior World Cup team. She rode horses in equestrian events but after graduating from York University with a degree in communications and psychology, decided to explore the opportunity to ride Thoroughbreds in flat racing.
On October 9, 2000 at Woodbine Racetrack in Toronto, Sutherland won her first career race. The following year she was voted the Sovereign Award as Canada's top apprentice jockey, repeating in 2002 when she was one of Canada’s highest-paid female athletes, earning $5.7 million in purses in seven months. She remained in Canada until 2005 when she went to race in Florida and New York where jockeys Angel Cordero, Jr., Shane Sellers and Edgar Prado helped her hone her skills.
From December 2007 into the early spring of 2008, Sutherland competed at Santa Anita Park in California, where she impressed racing fans and insiders. Retired U.S. Racing Hall of Fame jockey Gary Stevens said: "She has become the queen of the longshots. She has won several photos against top jockeys, which shows she is a strong finisher." Allen Gutterman, Santa Anita racetrack's head of marketing, said Sutherland "could become the best female jockey since Julie Krone." Sutherland returned to Toronto for the 2008 racing season where on August 9 she rode five winners on a single race card. As at August 21, she ranks sixth in wins among Woodbine jockeys and has won purses totaling $3,051,100. In the summer of 2008, she rode future Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird to stakes wins in the Silver Deputy, Swynford and Grey stakes at Woodbine and finished 12th aboard Mine That Bird in the 2008 Breeders' Cup Juvenile at Santa Anita.