Cheryl White was just 17 years old when she dared to become the first female Black jockey in history in 1971 at Thistledown Racetrack in Cleveland, Ohio. 

With her chestnut thoroughbred Jetolara, bred and trained by her father Raymond, she went on to become the first female Black jockey to ever win a race too, at Waterford Park in West Virginia on September 2, 1971. Her pioneering feat took place just three years after women sued for the right to ride horses as jockeys, and won. 

Cheryl went on to win over 750 races in her decades-long career, with thoroughbreds, quarter horses and appaloosas, and qualified to be a race steward. She passed away in 2019. 

Cheryl was a pioneer, but also a torchbearer in the long legacy of Black contribution to thoroughbred racing, a sport that in its earliest day was built on the labor of enslaved Black people. Her story is told in The Jockey and Her Horse, written by Cheryl’s brother Raymond Jr. and Sarah Maslin Nir, a New York Times reporter and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.