Kayla Stra with her mount prior to a race (yausser)

Hello Googlers! It’s come to my attention (by way of Google) that you might interested in learning more about Chantal Sutherland and Kayla Stra. While you won’t find any sexy, naked or bikini pictures here, I do have some good news!

Both lovely and talented jocks were in the money this weekend and Stra even brought home a 8-1 shot in the 5th on Sunday! What does that mean? It means at least a few of the horses they were riding finished 1st, 2nd or 3rd, also known as win, place and show or “in the money”.

When the jock is riding the winning horse, they share a percentage of the winnings, known as the purse. In show “Jockeys, Win or Die Trying” they make it seem as though the Jockeys take the whole purse, not the case. The jockeys, along with the trainers, take a percentage of the winnings. Of course, jockeys then have to pay their agents a percentage. And in some cases the purse is split up among the finishers.

Thanks to commenter Bob Lee for providing this reference from Chris McCarron’s North American Racing Academy (jockey school!):

Jockeys are paid on a per mount (race) basis. The fees are between $30 per mount and $100 per mount depending on the purse structure at each particular track. Those are the fees jockeys receive if they do not finish first, second or third. The jockey of the winning horse receives an amount equal to 10% of the winning owner’ s share of the total purse. (The winning owner in most states receives 60% of the total purse.) The second place jockey receives 5% of the owner’ s share of the second place purse money. (The second place owner receives 20% of the total purse in most states.) The third place jockey receives 5% of the owner’ s share of the third place purse money. (The third place owner receives 15% of the total purse in most states.) The most successful jockeys can earn over a million dollars a year. The least successful will make less the $20,000 per year. The record for purse earnings in one year by a jockey is $23,354,960.00* set by Jerry Bailey in 2003. *These are the earnings of the horses, not the jockey. As a rule of thumb, a jockey’ s real earnings are approximately 7% of the horses’ earnings.

For example, in the the aforementioned 5th on Sunday, Ju Ju Baby ($18.40) won a $16,300 maiden claimer in which $9,000 went to the winner, $3,000 went to the 2nd place finisher, $1,800 to the third, $900 to the fourth and $400 to 5th-8th (there were 8 horses running in this race). Figure 10% for Stra of Ju Ju Baby’s winnings and some percentage of that for her agent (15-25% maybe?). Worst case scenario she made $675 and best she made $765.

On Saturday Stra also placed (came in second) with long shot Goodlookindude in the 10th, a maiden claimer with a purse of $17,000. She got 5% of $3,000 less the agent’s fee for somewhere between $112.50 to $127.50. While obviously not fabulous money, ya gotta start somewhere and she’s starting to 1) build relationships and 2) get a rep for bringing home long shots . . . both are good.

Sutherland hit the board for 3rd with long shot Victory Pete ($17.40) in the Strub, a Grade II with a $250,000 purse. The winner took home $150,000, second took $50,000, third took $30,000, fourth took $15,000 and fifth took $5,000. So Sutherland’s take was $1,500 less her agent’s fee for somewhere in the range of $1,125 to $1,275.

If you want to keep an eye on how Sutherland, Stra, Mike Smith, Joe Talamo, Jon Court or Aaron Gryder are doing, you can always go to the Daily Racing Form to see the results. Scroll down to Santa Anita and click on a date (or if you don’t see Santa Anita, look for Hollywood Park or Fairplex… these are the southern Cali racing circuit tracks). Here are the results for this past Saturday and Sunday. If you want to find out when they’re racing, check out the entries!

In other Lady Jock news, I noticed over the weekend that there’s another new racing film called The Boys Club about hall of fame jockey Julie Krone. There’s not a ton of detail about the production but it says that it will be filming on location in 2009… does this mean we’ll the cast and crew at Belmont and Saratoga? I hope so!

There’s also Jock, the Movie in production, or perhaps even post-production, about the first generation of women jockeys. And let’s not forget Female on the Horse, a site that features hundreds of interviews with female jockeys.

But if you just wanted to look at pictures of Sutherland and Stra, you can do that too!