Maiden King

Jockey Chantal Sutherland heads back to Canada

After moving to Southern Calfornia in time for last year’s Oak Tree meet, jockey Chantal Sutherland is heading back to Toronto today where she’ll ride at Woodbine Racetrack.

Sutherland, who is slated to ride #4 Speedski in today’s eighth at SA, won 18 of her 154 mounts — or 12 percent — since the winter meet at Santa Anita began on Dec. 26. It’s a fair riding percentage, but Sutherland’s popularity soared far beyond her winning percentage, mainly because of her looks and her part in the “Jockeys” television show.

Sutherland, who was named one of People Magazine’s 100 Most Beautiful People in 2006, is dating jockey Mike Smith and their relationship was the one of the main focuses of “Jockeys,” a recently completed doc-u-drama on the Animal Planet network. Smith will remain riding in Southern California and the two plan to visit each other frequently.

As of March 29, Sutherland is ranked tenth in the jockey standings, but she was by far the most searched for jockey or trainer on the Maiden King website. From December until today, search terms including the name “Chantal Sutherland” were used 686 times all together by people who landed on this site.

And records suggest that many searchers were not looking for information on Sutherland’s riding record, as many terms were “Chantal Sutherland bathing suit,” “Chantal Sutherland pics,” Chantal Sutherland photos,” and “Chantal Sutherland nude.”

By contrast, the next most popular jockey is Joe Talamo who had only nine searches for his name. The most searched for trainer is Peter Eurton who had seven inquiries.

Internet searchers plug terms into search engines like Google and websites are listed that carry related stories. When Internet users click on a website, the owners of the site get a listing of what term was used to get to the site.

With Sutherland leaving the United States, and the television show “Jockeys” looking for a new venue, my choices as the favorites to be the next popular hot female jockeys are New York-based apprentices Jackie Davis and Maylan Studart.

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