Books are a remarkable part of our lives. They bind us together through the joys and struggles of characters, both real and fictional, and offer us new perspectives on our own experiences in ways that few media can. Whether it is horses long gone like Lexington or people still a part of the sport like Julie Krone, the words captured on a page are avenues to new worlds and chances to remind us of our connections.

The book “The Jockey and Her Horse,” by Sarah Maslin Nir and Raymond White Jr., introduces readers to Cheryl White, a young woman driven to make her mark in the saddle, one whose struggles to overcome the obstacles thrown up in her path remind us of what tenacity and perseverance can bring, and shares a story buried by time and revived by the love of her brother and a fellow horsewoman and author.

Rediscovering a Pioneer

“The Jockey and Her Horse” is part of the Once Upon a Horse series of novels from Pulitzer Prize nominee and New York Times reporter Sarah Maslin Nir and published by Cameron Kids. The books are inspired by Nir’s 2020 memoir “Horse Crazy: The Story of a Woman and a World in Love with an Animal,” a collection of stories about horses that the author has loved.

Intended for middle-grade readers (ages 8-12), these novels are based on real horses, people, and events with an eye toward inspiring readers of all ages. This second book recounts Cheryl White’s journey to become America’s first Black female jockey at the age of 17 in the early 1970s.

Jockey Cheryl White (Courtesy Mahoning Valley Race Course)

Like many stories of Black men and women in racing, White’s story has slipped from public view over the years since her pioneering pursuit. Though she rode for 21 years and won 750 races, White, who passed away in 2019, has largely faded from racing’s memory, but Nir, together with White’s brother Raymond White Jr., has crafted “The Jockey and Her Horse” to bring Cheryl back into the light. It is a passion project that brought the authors together through a love of horses and a young woman in pursuit of her dreams.

In “Horse Crazy,” Nir talked about working for a Black cowboy in Harlem named Dr. George E. Blair. “He taught me about the erased legacy of cowboys in the American pioneer era. One in four cowboys were Black, and they’ve been totally removed from the story,” she shared. “But somehow, being this investigative horse girl report, I missed Black jockeys, which really speaks to how deeply underrepresented and erased their story is.”

Talking about Black jockeys brings to mind names like Isaac Murphy and Oliver Lewis, both of whom were star riders in the late 19^th century, but the name Cheryl White rarely comes up, even in her home state of Ohio, where she had gained fame during her early years in the saddle, celebrity that had faded with the years since her debut.

“She was a household name, and everybody knew who she was,” Raymond White recalled. “I got tired of looking at things over the years of this day in Black history. In Cleveland, they do sports athletes or all these different things and no mention of Cheryl White. Cheryl White’s missing.”

That observation became a common one as Nir and White promoted “A Jockey and Her Horse” through television appearances, including an interview with Robin Roberts on Good Morning, America; signings and speaking engagements at the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, Saratoga Race Course, and Keeneland; and other chances to talk with readers of all ages. Even Nir with her lifelong connections to horses had not heard of Cheryl White until she encountered the young influencer Madison Jade, who shared in an Instagram post that seeing a video about White inspired her to pursue horseback riding. From there, Nir reached out to the White family, eager to learn more about Cheryl. That turned into a May 2021 article in the New York Times and now other projects, including “The Jockey and Her Horse.”

“Hey, let’s do a book. We should do a book,” White said of conversations with Nir about his sister and her time in the saddle. “We should do a documentary. We should do a movie. We should do all this stuff.”

In 2023, 50 years after Cheryl’s first win at Thistledown, the story of America’s first Black female jockey emerged from the shadows thanks to this collaboration between Nir and the White family. This book introduces readers to a young Cheryl White, keen on pursuing a dream while learning to deal with the obstacles in her path.

Sharing Her Story

The collaboration between Nir and White, created through interviews about the history of the White family and Cheryl’s years in the saddle, recounts a teenage Cheryl’s quest to be a jockey. Part of a racetrack family that dated back generations, the young horsewoman hears about Kathy Kusner’s successful lawsuit that challenged the Maryland Jockey Club’s policies about granting a jockey’s license to women. This makes Cheryl all the more determined to get a license of her own and ride, but she must face obstacles thrown in her path by her race and her gender and even her own doubts.

Throughout the book, the perspective shifts from character to character, with Cheryl, her younger brother Drew (also known as Raymond White Jr., Nir’s co-author), and Jetolara, a young racehorse that is part of her father’s stable who also becomes the horse she rides to her first win. The choice to shift between characters was purposeful from Nir. “Getting the horse to the starting gate and getting through the finish line is a collaborative effort and you have multiple players right from the groom to the trainer to the jockey to the horse itself,” the co-author shared. “And so, showing that constellation of characters that make Thoroughbred racing what it is and showing that Cheryl and Black people were a part of was always the goal.”

“The flipping around of perspectives was to show that it’s much more than a rider, much more than a horse. It’s something that’s greater than the sum of its parts,” Nir said.

Included in the novel are quotes from White’s childhood friend Eileen Hill as well as stories about growing up on the family farm in Ohio from Raymond White Jr., details that bring readers into Cheryl’s quest, all collected by Nir’s reporting and crafted into a work of fiction. The book seeks to share not only Cheryl’s own struggles to overcome the sexism and racism that has kept riders like her out of the saddle but bring awareness to those erased from the sport’s history, all the way back to the skilled equestrians brought to America as enslaved persons. This effort is ambitious, but Nir’s and White’s efforts are successful, the novel imbuing its text with the same determination that drove Cheryl White over her 21 years in the saddle.

Readers can pick up a copy of “The Jockey and Her Horse” from their favorite bookseller or pick up a gift set from Breyer, the company that has been creating the model horses that Nir writes about in “Horse Crazy.” This addition to Breyer’s catalog, which includes Cheryl, Jetolara, and a copy of the book, is a first for the company, the first Black equestrienne immortalized in its 75-year history. Nir proposed the idea to Stephanie Macejko, vice president of marketing for Breyer’s parent company, Reeves, who jumped at the chance to add Cheryl to their catalog.

All of this is part of the White family’s determination to bring their beloved sister and aunt back into the spotlight, which she eschewed throughout her life. “She wasn’t, as I always say, a self-promoter,” White Jr. remembered of his sister. “She didn’t talk about herself to people. When she went to the West Coast, she kind of faded out of the spotlight. She isolated herself and went out there and rode at Santa Anita. […] But she didn’t find success there and ended up on the fair circuit.” Cheryl found success riding that circuit, becoming a leading rider of not just Thoroughbreds, but also Quarter-Horses and Appaloosas. She is even a member of the Appaloosa Hall of Fame, yet lasting fame and recognition, especially given her earlier celebrity status, has eluded White over the past five decades. This new novel is changing that.

“We’ve had tremendous outpouring of interest from people,” White Jr. said of the book’s reception. “Even when we went to Breyerfest in July [2023] down in Lexington, we had so many people come up to me and say, ‘I had no idea. I never knew.’ We want to change that narrative.”

With the book and Breyer now available, the White family is looking forward to the next phase of their efforts to share Cheryl and her pioneering place in racing with the generations to come. A foundation bearing her name is in the works, with the goal of providing scholarships and other philanthropic efforts. The family hopes to write a second book, a long-form exploration of Cheryl’s life, and are even considering a return to racing themselves. Whatever is on the horizon for the family, Raymond White Jr., has one goal: “I just want to make sure her story is heard, that she doesn’t fade from history, that she’s remembered in this world, whether it’s through a foundation, whether it’s through helping kids achieve. If we help one child achieve something, it makes all the difference.”

Cheryl White may no longer be here to talk about her time in the saddle, but this new book marks a new chapter for this racing family, Black horsemen, and women who persisted in making the sport their livelihood even after it tried to shut them out.

Learning from Cheryl

“A winning Thoroughbred is a product only of its hard work. A girl too,” says young Cheryl White in “The Jockey and Her Horse.” It is a story of America’s first Black female jockey, an exploration of not just the real Cheryl White’s journey from teenage dreamer to professional athlete, but also of the many Black equestrians whose names and feats have been excluded from racing’s history. Their rediscovery adds more dimension to the sport’s centuries-long story and brings an even better understanding of where we have been and where we need to go from here.

What White and Nir create in “The Jockey and Her Horse” is simply more than a novel intended for young readers. Rather, this is a book for anyone who dreams and finds obstacles – external and internal – blocking their path, a reminder of how much faith in yourself, as well as allowing others to show you who you truly are, can knock down anything in your way. Cheryl White belongs among the icons of horse racing as someone who loved the sport so much that she devoted her whole life to it even when it did not return her love in kind.