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Jockey Emma Jayne Wilson during a race at Woodbine Nov. 25, 2011.Moe Doiron/The Globe and Mail

A preschool girl in lilac breeches jumped up and down in excitement on the apron at Woodbine Racetrack here on closing day, squealing: "Emma is coming! Emma is coming!"

And so she was. Emma-Jayne Wilson, 30, jockey, had just dismounted from one of the 904 mounts she rode in 2011, and was headed to the jock's room to prepare for another. But she stopped to clasp the tot and made another fan along the way.

Since the beginning of the season, Wilson has thundered noisily onto the scene, as if shot from a starting gate, so much so that she's accomplished another milestone: She's the top female jockey in North America.

Rated 18th overall among all jockeys with 142 wins and earnings of $7,114,076 (all currency U.S.), Wilson of Brampton, Ont., is well ahead of No. 2 female Rosie Napravnik, at least in money won.

Napravnik, sitting in 29th place overall, has won 177 races and $5,963,951. She will continue to ride to the end of the year at Fair Grounds Race Course in New Orleans, where she became the first female rider to win the jockey title last year by a wide margin.

No. 3 female – and 37th overall – is Chantal Sutherland, with 61 wins and $5,054,550, through last Sunday.

All season, Wilson has been riding with a mission, to carve out her territory at Woodbine after missing three months late last year with a lacerated liver.

She's been hungry. Extremely. She didn't watch a single race when she was out of action. "It was too tough to watch," she said. She would watch replays, and cheer for the horses that she usually rode, but it was irksome watching others ride them.

This season, Wilson won her first stakes race in the United States (the Pan American Stakes in Florida with Rahy's Attorney) and she rode to victory in a female jockey's race at Pimlico in Maryland, defeating Napravnik, Sutherland and England's top female jockey, Hayley Turner. She also finished second in her first Breeders' Cup race (in the Juvenile Turf with long-shot Excaper).

Her season got off to a lightning start when she won the Pan American Stakes the week before the Woodbine meeting started. It was not only her first stakes win in the United States, but the first U.S. stakes victory for the horse and for trainer Ian Black.

"Ian and I seem to have had a few firsts," said Wilson, who also became the first female rider to win the Queen's Plate with Mike Fox for Black in 2007.

"We've had a good relationship," said Black, who figures her physical strength is one of her best assets. "She's a very bright girl," he added. "I find I can communicate with her very well, and we can talk about how things will work out."

He showed faith in Wilson by naming her to ride Excaper in the Breeders' Cup when many others would have chosen a U.S. jockey.

The experience, Wilson admitted, was "surreal." She approached the task as if it was a job, like any other race. When she unsaddled the horse later and looked into the roiling grandstand, she allowed herself to get giddy, realizing what she had just done.

She rode the race aggressively, just as she'd handled her career and season. "I came into this year with a little bit more of an aggressive stance, and wanting people to remember that I'm here and I'm here to play. I had my head focused," she said.

Trainer Reade Baker, who hired Wilson many times over the season, said: "I thought at the latter part of the year, she was riding better than anybody. Her off-the-pace style suits a lot of horses. She's very talented and extremely determined."

But Wilson is still not content. When the season in Toronto ended, she was third in the Woodbine jockey standings behind Luis Contreras and Patrick Husbands. She does not want to be No. 3. She wants to be No. 1

"I want to be leading rider every year that I ride," she said. "No holds barred."

Wilson plans to take a little time from work until about the middle of next month, and then head down to Florida to ride by February. And there's always next year.

PERSONABLE PONIES

Toronto Once in a while, Emma-Jayne Wilson finds that a horse she rides in a race gets caught in her heartstrings.

Just Rushing, a horse that earned more than $1-million in his career racing at Woodbine Racetrack for trainer Sid Attard, has retired, and is now eating lots of grass in a field. "I loved his competitive nature," she said. "He wanted to win. He'd never give up. He was emotional, like I was. It's the way I ride and compete."

But the level of success she's achieved with a horse isn't what it's all about, she said. It's their personalities.

When Wilson rode Belle Gully, he was a $20,000 claimer at best. But he gradually sunk to the bottom of the ranks in very cheap races at tracks with small purses.

Wilson tracked him down in the United States and made a deal to buy him. Now she calls him Gus. She's currently trying to give him a job as an outrider's pony and, this past season, he made catches of three loose horses, she said proudly.

"Gus is a dude," she said. "He'd run with his tongue hanging out, slapping up the side of his face. He rubbed me the right way."

Wilson is also a member of the horse committee for the Long Run Retirement Foundation, a group that finds homes for retired racehorses.

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