Jockeys | Horse Racing Free Tips

‘I’m A Very Blessed Guy’: Orlando Mojica Registers Career Win No. 2,500

In only the second day of action for the 2021 season at Indiana Grand in Shelbyville, Ind., jockey Orlando Mojica hit win 2,500 aboard Sky Judge in the afternoon's seventh race Wednesday. It was Mojica's only mount of the day and only his third start of the season thus far in Indiana.

“I thought I was going to get it at Oaklawn (Arkansas) and I came really close, winning my 2,499th race there,” said Mojica, who has several leading jockey titles to his name at Indiana Grand. “This is very exciting day for me. I'm a very blessed guy.”

Mojica won the jockey title at Indiana Grand during the inaugural season in 2003 and then returned for back-to-back wins in 2008 and '09. The multiple graded stakes-winning jockey has garnered success at nearly every racetrack he has ridden at, including Canterbury Park in Minnesota, where he recorded his 2,000th win in 2016. The native of Puerto Rico also won leading rider titles at Ellis Park and at Hoosier Park before all Thoroughbred racing was moved to Indiana Grand in 2013.

Mojica also scored his 1,000th career win at Indiana Grand. He is still ranked third on the list of all-time winning jockeys at Indiana Grand. Since his riding career began in 2000, he has ridden in more than 17,700 races and accumulated in excess of $45 million in purse earnings.

The 19th season of Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse racing extends through Monday, Nov. 8. Live racing is conducted at 2:25 p.m. Monday through Wednesday with first post on Thursday set at 3:25 p.m. In addition, six all-Quarter Horse racing dates are set on select Saturdays starting June 5 at 10 a.m. A special Indiana Champions Day highlighting the state's top Thoroughbred and Quarter Horses will be held Saturday, Oct. 30, beginning at 12 p.m. More information about the 2021 racing season is available at www.indianagrand.com.

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Jose Ortiz Bags Five Winners From Six Mounts At Aqueduct

Jockey Jose Ortiz won with 5-of-6 mounts on Sunday's nine-race card at Aqueduct Racetrack in Ozone Park, N.Y., topped by a win aboard Regal Glory in the featured $100,000 Plenty of Grace.

“I do pretty well here at Aqueduct. The New York trainers have been a big supporter of my career since I started here. This is my home,” said Ortiz.

Ortiz won with his first four mounts taking the day's first race with Always Carina [No. 5, $3.90] for four-time Eclipse Award-winning trainer Chad Brown, capturing the maiden special weight sprint in wire-to-wire fashion.

He teamed up once more with Brown in Race 4, the Plenty of Grace, guiding Regal Glory [No. 5, $3.40] to a half-length score in the one-mile turf test for older fillies and mares.

Ortiz partnered with trainer Orlando Noda to capture Race 5, a state-bred maiden claiming sprint, with Rainbow Gal [No. 5, $9.20] and one race later guided Three Jokers [No. 3, $16.80] to a 7-1 upset for trainer John Terranova in a one-turn mile allowance.

The veteran rider concluded a memorable day by piloting Big Tony's Girl [No. 11, $5.30] to a maiden claiming score in the final race on the card for trainer James Ryerson.

The rider's lone non-winning effort came with a fourth in Race 7 aboard Spitball.

The five-win day puts Ortiz at the top of the Big A spring meet jockey standings with 16 wins, four more than his brother Irad Ortiz, Jr., who was riding at Keeneland this past week. The 11-day spring meet comes to a close on Sunday, April 18.

“You want to win every meet that you can but Irad wasn't here this week and I'm sure he'll come back and be competitive next week,” said Ortiz. “I have to keep the momentum going. I had a good beginning of the meet. Hopefully, I can finish up strong.”

Live racing resumes Thursday at the Big A with an eight-race card. First post is 1:20 p.m.

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Family First: Victor Espinoza Back At Santa Anita And Raring To Go

Victor Espinoza does not plan to retire anytime soon.

The affable native of Mexico, his smile as imminent and bright as the sunrise, burst onto the international racing scene with the fairytale horse California Chrome seven years ago, swept the Triple Crown on American Pharoah a year later and became a global celebrity, appearing on “Dancing with the Stars” and “The Tonight Show,” with lucrative commercial offers his for the taking.

A member of the Hall of Fame since 2017, Espinoza's honors could fill a mansion's mantle, among them Santa Anita's George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award, three ESPYs as best jockey, three Kentucky Derby wins and the “Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly Award” presented by the ABC Network.

But it's not all take. He understands it is better to give than to receive, which is why Espinoza has been donating 10 percent of his sizable income to the City of Hope pediatric research and treatment center in Duarte to aid children stricken with cancer.

All that became relatively meaningless, however, on July 22, 2018, when he suffered a severe neck injury during a workout spill at Del Mar.

The damage was career-threatening, but Espinoza labored through it and was back riding and winning seven months later.

But on May 23 he turns 49 and today appears to be merely a dot on racing's map. He has ridden in only 22 races at Santa Anita this meet, winning two, the last coming aboard Stella Noir on March 19.

But figures can be deceiving. This is not to say elder statesmen in the jockey colony find mounts hard to come by this meet, since fellow Hall of Fame members Kent Desormeaux, 51, and Mike Smith, 55, ride here too, fulfilling one vital requirement: you must be present.

Victor Espinoza still has a passion for the game and his priorities in order.

“He had to step away for a while,” said his agent of eight years, Brian Beach, explaining Victor's sparse participation this meet. “He went to Mexico to help his mother, who is in her 80s and required some medical attention, but we didn't want to publicize it. He kept a low profile and it cost him time.

“While all that was going on, just about every horse he had been riding ran, and since we had kind of a small circle of business to start with, it's been kind of tough.

“We're trying to get back to riding, but with two and three days of racing a week and short fields, it's been difficult.

“But Victor is healthy and ready to go. He's a workout fiend and been posting his workout videos on Instagram, so we're looking for the right opportunities to come along.”

Don't bet against them. Victor Espinoza always looks at the glass as half full, and with career purse earnings approaching $205 million, safe to say racing needs Victor more than Victor needs racing.

Little wonder he once called himself “The luckiest Mexican on earth.”

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‘He’s Like A Son To Me’: Agent Moran Reflects As Paco Lopez Approaches 3,000th Win

Popular and personable jockey Paco Lopez, an Eclipse Award winner and twice the leading rider during Gulfstream Park's prestigious Championship Meet, is on the verge of reaching a career milestone.

Lopez, 35, captured the eighth-race finale aboard Kahiko ($5), his lone victory from six mounts, as live racing returned to Gulfstream Thursday. He enters Friday's nine-race program (1 p.m. post time) with 2,998 career Thoroughbred wins according to Equibase statistics, which also noted one quarter horse win in 2009 at Hialeah. Lopez is named in six races Friday and 10 of 11 races Saturday.

“Just the thought of winning 3,000 races and being with him from the start is pretty phenomenal,” Lopez's agent, Cory Moran, said. “We've been together through this and it's been amazing.

“There's riders that get to 3,000, but I just think it's amazing we did it together. I'm grateful and blessed through this journey,” he added. “The journey has had its ups and downs but Paco's a good guy and a good rider, and I think we appreciate each other.”

Lopez is one of six children that grew up in poverty in Veracruz, Mexico, leaving home at age 12 to live with one of his sisters. He was shining shoes and working in a car wash for $30 a week when a customer offered him a ranch job. Soon he was riding in quarter horse races at bush tracks with incredible success, including winning all 13 races over a single weekend.

In 2006, Lopez relocated to South Florida to further his dream of becoming a jockey, working on a ranch in West Palm Beach and riding unsanctioned quarter horse races. He began exercising Thoroughbreds at Palm Meadows, Gulfstream's satellite training facility in Palm Beach County, and launched his professional career in June 2007 at the former Calder Race Course.

“Since the first time I met him, I just thought there was something special in him. He just had those hungry eyes,” Moran said. “He was like a little boy standing there. Bill White introduced me to him. He was the leading trainer at the time and he loved him.

“He introduced us and I decided to take him the day I met him,” he added. “It's been a constant win machine from that day. He's been like a whirlwind, and it's not slowing down. He's done a lot of remarkable things.”

Lopez rode his first winner July 13, 2007, at Calder and finished with 20 for the calendar year. He won 229 races, nearly $4 million in purse earnings, a Calder meet title and the Eclipse Award as champion apprentice in his first full season of 2008.

Overall, Lopez has won 200 or more races nine times ranked in the top 10 in North America in wins five times, including third in 2019 with a career-best 283. That year he also reached a personal high of $10.9 million in purses earned.

Lopez won back-to-back Championship Meet riding titles in 2010 and 2011, and is one of only four jockeys (Javier Castellano, Irad Ortiz Jr., Luis Saez) to win 100 or more races at Gulfstream's elite winter stand. He also won the 2019 Gulfstream Park West crown and owns 11 riding championships in New Jersey, eight of them at Monmouth Park where he spends the summer and early fall.

“In the early years, when he was having success at Monmouth and he won the Championship Meet twice, there were other agents trying to get him. But, Paco stayed loyal,” Moran said. “He believed in me and I believed in him. There's been riders that have been available and I don't even call them. He's such a good rider. I don't even think about it.”

Three times in his career, Lopez has won seven races on a single card. He did it twice in 2014 at Monmouth and again March 21, 2020, at Gulfstream, each time sharing the track record. Lopez earned his 2,000^th career win Dec. 4, 2016 at Gulfstream.

Overall, Lopez has won 89 career graded-stakes, eight of them Grade 1, including his first with South Florida-based Itsmyluckyday in the 2014 Woodward as well as the 2018 Breeders' Cup Sprint aboard Roy H. Last winter, he piloted Swiss Skydiver to victory in the Gulfstream Park Oaks (G2); Swiss Skydiver would go on to beat males in the Preakness Stakes (G1) and be named champion 3-year-old filly.

“I've seen riders win seven [races] in a day here and there, but he's done it three times,” Moran said. “We've just had phenomenal success. He won a Breeders' Cup. He's won so many stakes from coast to coast. It's been like a whirlwind with him and his success.

“I'm just very fortunate to run into a rider like that and he turned out to be that way,” he added. “I've been an agent for a long time and I've had leading riders and stuff like that, but this is a long run with Paco. He's like family. He's like a son to me. It's been a good run.”

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