GALLOPING GRANNY DOES IT ALL AT RIVER DOWNS IN CINCINNATI
June 27th, 2009By John Engelhardt
Owner, trainer, jockey Sherry Kirk galloping one of her horses at River DownsJohn Engelhardt/River Downs Photo
Fifty-year-old Sherry Kirk rode Dadoway to a fifth-place finish in the first race at River Downs on Friday. She is quite familiar with the 4-year-old gelding as she is also his owner and trainer. With 12 Thoroughbreds in training at the Cincinnati track, Kirk is no stranger to hard work; she raised six children and has six grandchildren.
“I grew up on the track,” she recalled in the jockeys quarters after her local debut. “My dad was a trainer on a western circuit that included Spokane, Portland and Emerald Downs. I always dreamed of being a jockey and we moved to West Virginia near Waterford Park where I was breaking two-year-olds when I was thirteen years old. I had my own horses then, but I couldn’t get a license until I was sixteen so they ran in my dad’s name.”
Kirk eventually began galloping horses at Waterford and baby-sat for Patti Barton, a trailblazer for women riders in racing.
“I came up behind P.J. Cooksey at Waterford when I started riding at the age of 21,” stated Kirk. “P.J.’s success made it a little easier for some of the girl riders back then. I rode at Penn National, Thistledown, Beulah Park, Detroit Race Course and Erie Downs for about ten years.”
Kirk traded in her silks and whip for an apron and spatula and didn’t ride for 18 years while she raised her six children out west.
As her children grew and moved away from home she elected to return to the life she dreamed of as a young girl.
“I went back to riding when I was 47 and I’ll turn 51 this summer,” Kirk said. “I started back at Portland Meadows and then rode at a lot of the mixed meets at the fairs and bull rings in Arizona. I rode 17 Quarterhorse winners in a month and a half at Prescott Downs.”
A spill in a Quarterhorse race is what prompted her trek back to this region, but not before she won the riding title at Hualapi Downs – and she proudly displays the belt buckle they gave her to prove it.
“My leg got broke in half and I had to have a plate and screws put in that kept me from riding for a year and a half,” she said. “I decided to come back to this area. I started back at Cleveland and at Beulah Park I took out my owners and trainers license. I plan to be here all summer, I do all the galloping in the mornings and I’ve got one guy that comes by my barn to do stalls – other than that, I do it all myself.”
