The Woodbine meeting starts Friday and will run each Friday, Saturday and Sunday until May, when it adds Wednesday and Thursday and continues through early December.
"You can't believe how cold it gets, running on some of those winter days," Sutherland says, adding that winter hangs around a long time in Toronto. "I talked to a friend back there the other day, and she said it was 7-below zero."
The plan is for Sutherland to stay at Woodbine until returning for the next winter meeting at Santa Anita. The plan is also for her to return to Southern California when she is asked to ride a high-quality horse in a big-money race.
Smith says he will see lots of her by flying red-eyes -- Sunday nights to Toronto, Tuesday nights back. (Gamblers beware of plunking your money down on Smith in early Wednesday races).
"We have done the red-eye so often between here and Toronto that the flight attendants started calling us by name," Sutherland says. "Pretty soon, we'd seen all the movies twice."
Smith won't race at Woodbine as much as he will visit. He doesn't have a Canadian work visa and can only ride American-owned horses at that track.
In some ways, it will be better for them to watch each other from afar rather than from a nose or a neck away.
"We argue sometimes about races we are both in," Sutherland says. "In a stakes race [the Grade II Strub, Feb. 7], Mike was on a hot horse named Blue Exit and I was on a 40-1 named Victory Pete. In the stretch run, I got pushed out a little just as Mike was sailing past and we bumped a little. Blue Exit missed winning by about a neck and we didn't speak for three days."
Said Smith: "I remember that stakes race. She [Sutherland] didn't help my chances."
On Oct. 5, 2008, her last day riding at Woodbine before she made the move to join Smith in California, Sutherland rode four winners but missed the winner's circle with her last mount, the aptly named Runoff to LA.
She says she loves it here, loves the weather, had just gotten started with boxing workouts at Freddie Roach's Wild Card Gym in Hollywood -- "I have pink gloves," she says -- and has dreamed of riding at Del Mar.
So don't be surprised if she's running off to L.A. occasionally even before December. She left plenty of clothes at the Smith condominium in Sierra Madre, where she is confident she can always find extra closet space.
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bill.dwyre@latimes.com.
