Jockey Karlsson takes unusual route to Arlington Million

With Karlsson in the saddle, Rahystrada has two victories and a third in his last three starts and the 6-year-old gelding is coming off the biggest victory of his career July 17 in the Arlington Park prep, the Grade III Arlington Handicap.

But horses like this and races like these were alien to Karlsson when she got off the plane in Toronto, carrying a single bag. Everything was foreign. She didn't speak English. She never had even seen a thoroughbred race.

She had quit her job as a gas station attendant back home because she was depressed. She had a house, a car and a dog, but she thought, "There has to be something else out there."

She had learned horsemanship skills during her high school years. So, with the help of a friend, she found job on a standardbred farm in Ontario, working for people she had never met. Three weeks later she was fired.

But just as she had done when she suffered a technical knockout loss in the first of her 20 amateur bouts in Sweden, she persevered. Then, she went on to be ranked No. 2 in Sweden's light flyweight division. This time a standardbred trainer put her in touch with a veterinarian who needed someone to groom and exercise race horses.

That October, Karlsson saw thoroughbred racing for the first time at Woodbine, Canada's premier track in suburban Toronto.

"I saw the jockeys were real small," Karlsson said. "I said: 'That's what I want to do.'"

From there she followed a winding road from Canada to New York to New Jersey to Maryland to Kentucky and ultimately to Hawthorne Race Course, where her career took off in the 2008 spring meeting, when she finished third in the standings.

She won four races on a card twice during the Arlington meeting that year and finished second in Eclipse Award balloting for North America's most outstanding apprentice jockey. She was even more successful in 2009. She won 150 races and her mounts earned more than $2.9 million.

And now Karlsson is set to become the second woman to ride in the Million, trying to succeed with 10-1 shot Rahystrada where Julie Krone failed in 1991 on fourth-place Chenin Blanc.

Karlsson's agent, Penny Ffitch-Heyes, says don't bet against her.

"She used to ride her bicycle around, switching hands with her whip," Ffitch-Heyes said. "She has that drive, that ambition. … She sees her goal and then she goes for it."

Final furlongs: Reports from California indicate that Marsh Side will be scratched from the Million. … Rainbow View, the 4-1 morning-line favorite for the Beverly D., was scratched Thursday by trainer Johnathan Sheppard because of a tendon injury.