CHANTAL Sutherland, the Winnipeg-born jockey who was one of People Magazine's Top 100 Beautiful People in 2006, had a Canada Day to remember on Tuesday when she rode four winners -- including Executive Flight in her first stakes victory since 2003 -- at Toronto's Woodbine Racetrack.
"It was just all around a pretty good day," Sutherland told the Free Press from Toronto, where she now lives. "But the stakes race (the $100,000 Sweet Briar Too) was really special. All the people I rode for are really good people, so I'm happy for them all."
Jockey Chantal Sutherland is also a licensed pilot and part-time model who has appeared in Vogue and People in her undies.
Just before the turn for home, Sutherland rallied the dark bay to the lead and then braced for the challenge of multiple-stakes winner My List to win by 1 1/4 lengths. Bear Dixiecat was third. "At the quarter-pole, I felt like she was really kicking in," said Sutherland. "This was her best effort."
Her other three wins were aboard Gabrielle's Charm in the fifth, Northern Kraze in the eighth and Gracelicious in the ninth. The Sweet Briar Too was Sutherland's 14th lifetime stakes win and her 29th victory at Woodbine this year. Last year, she had 69 wins. She has never ridden at Assiniboia Downs.
Sutherland has a degree from York University, is a licensed pilot, has done TV commercials for Esquire watches and was photographed by famed celebrity image-maker Annie Leibovitz for Vogue magazine in 2006 -- including one photo of her on a horse at Florida's Gulfstream Park with only her boots and underwear on.
People Magazine photographed her wearing only riding pants and a sports bra, while pulling on her boots.
In 2002, the part-time model, who also rides at several tracks in the U.S., told the Free Press she wouldn't hesitate to use her looks to advance her riding career. "If I'm cute, why can't I use it as an edge to help my career? I like sports like golf or tennis that have sex appeal. Horse racing doesn't have that right now, but I think it could."
She said this week that she's now negotiating with Mistura Cosmetics, which wants to put its name on her riding pants. "That's OK in the United States, but not allowed in Canada. I'm also in negotiations with Animal Planet for a 12-part series on jockeys."
A two-time Sovereign Award winner as Canada's top apprentice jockey in 2001 and 2002, Sutherland said her four wins on Tuesday is the most since she won five in one day in 2003. "My season is going fantastic this year," she said, adding that she doesn't like to dwell on the standings. "I think I'm about seventh right now."
Sutherland didn't become a jockey until after she was finished school at York in 2000. She said she was always an aggressive kid, competing in soccer, field hockey at the provincial level as well as junior World Cup and show jumping.
But her dad Hugh, a standardbred breeder, was against her going to the racetrack. She went anyway and worked galloping horses at Woodbine.
"I kinda just told him I was gonna go to the racetrack whether he liked it or not," Sutherland told www.femalejockeys.com, a female-jockey-only website. "So he decided if I was gonna do it, he was gonna find me a nice trainer that would help me out."
Sutherland went on to train in the U.S. under Angel Cordero, Shane Sellers and Edgar Prado. At Saratoga Racetrack, she worked for Scotty Schulhofer, who she told the website "taught me so much. He showed me how to work horses properly, how to race pace, technical skills."
After a year and a half away from Woodbine, she returned and started racing in the fall. She won four races and then stopped. "As soon as you hit your fifth win, your bug starts, so I went away to the U.S. again, trained some more and came back and hit my fifth win and kept going from there."
allan.besson@freepress.mb.ca
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