Growing up on the family farm in Winchester Springs, Ont., Canada, Villeneuve spent a lot of time around the family’s horses. When it was time for college, it was for equine studies — and in 1984 she took a summer job at the Woodbine Racetrack in Toronto as a hot walker — workers who walk horses after exercise or a race to cool them down gradually. By 1987, she was licensed to ride as a jockey.
In June 1991 she was the first female ever to place in the Queen’s Plate, Canada’s oldest Thoroughbred horse race and the oldest continuously run race in North America. She actually had another first just before that: she was the first female ever to ride in the Queen’s Plate. (It is, of course, currently the King’s Plate race.) Two months later she succeeded in being the first woman to compete in all of the Canadian Triple Crown races, adding the Prince of Wales Stakes and the Breeder’s Stakes; no other woman would complete a triple for 16 years.
In her more than 25-year career, she rode 8,131 starts, and was the first Canadian woman to reach the milestones of 1,000 seconds, 1,000 thirds, and the first to show a combined 3,000 times. That was particularly amazing considering she had to take time off for several serious injuries, as well as take four years off to have a son, and to raise him, before returning to work.
She amassed a large number of “first female to” accolades, and in May 2002 overtook fellow pioneer Regina Sealock as the winningest female jockey in Canadian history, which record was only broken after she retired in 2012. In all she had 1,001 wins, 1,019 Places, 1,065 Shows, with $15,471,404 in earnings. She went on to be a trainer, but died June 5, from cancer, at 61.