joel rosario | Horse Racing Free Tips

Arklow Surges To Stretch-Running Victory As Hollywood Turf Cup Favorite

The class of the field ran like it Friday at Del Mar as Arklow tracked close to the leaders in the 12-furlong Hollywood Turf Cup, then got the jump on his chief rivals turning for home and went on to an impressive half-length score in the $203,500, Grade 2 headliner at the seaside track north of San Diego, Calif.

The 6-year-old entire horse by Kentucky sire Arch covered the mile and one-half distance on the Jimmy Durante Turf Course in 2:26.31, which established a stakes record and just missed the course record for the distance by 12 hundredths of a second.

Joel Rosario rode the veteran for the first time for trainer Brad Cox and put in a masterful bit of horsemanship on the long-winded bay. Arklow earned a first prize of $120,000 and now sports a sparkling racing record of 31 8-7-2 and $2,666,116 in earnings. The horse races for the partnership of Donegal Racing, Joseph Bulger and the Estate of Peter Coneway. The win was the first in a stakes at Del Mar for Cox.

Finishing second in the seventh local edition of the marathon was Manfred Ostermann's Laccario, who was a half-length ahead of Agave Racing Stable and Sam-Son Farm's Say the Word. Twelve horses ran in the race.

Arklow, who was the 19-10 favorite in the contest, paid $5.80, $3.40 and $2.80 across the board. Laccario, who was the second favorite in the race at 5-2, returned $3.80 and $3.00. Say the Word, the third favorite at just under 7-1, paid $3.80 to show.

“He broke well and we got a good spot,” said Rosario. “I stepped on the brakes a little bit because I was comfortable where we were. I saved ground with him, then moved up a little bit outside. I could tell we were going slow so I felt OK being closer with him. He was running good. When we turned for home, I knew he was a fighter and I knew he's be tough to beat. He finished strong. He's a good horse.”

Acclimate set all the fractions, going :49.64 for the opening half-mile, 1:14.55 for six furlongs, 1:38.78 for the mile and 2:02.62 for 10 furlongs. One of four starters for trainer Phil D'Amato, Acclimate faded to fourth.

“It kind of worked out the way we had drawn it up,” said Blake Cox, son and assistant to the trainer. “Joel (Rosario) was able to get a real good stalking position and then finish strong. What's next will be up to Jerry Crawford and Donegal Racing, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Pegasus World Cup Turf is on the radar. ”

Earlier in the afternoon, trainer Richard Baltas rung up three winners to forge to the front in the local trainer's race. He clicked with Yeng Again ($6.00) in Race 1, Gallovie ($7.40) in Race 3 and Lady On Ice ($4.40) in Race 4. He now has 10 winners at the session after 13 days of racing, putting him one up on rival Peter Miller. Baltas was the Bing Crosby Season leading trainer in 2019 with 11 firsts. Miller has won the fall session four different times. There are two days left in the meet.

Racing resumes Saturday at 12:30 p.m. with a nine-race card.

FRACTIONS:

The time of the race is a stakes record. (Old record 2:27.35.) The course record is 2:26.19, meaning Arklow missed that mark by .12 one-hundredths.

The stakes win was the first of the meet and first in the Hollywood Turf Cup for rider Rosario. He now has 29 stakes wins at Del Mar.

The stakes win was the first at Del Mar for trainer Cox.

The winning owners are Jerry Crawford of Donegal Racing from Des Moines, Iowa, along with Joseph Bulger or the Estate of Peter Coneway.

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‘Like Coming Home’: Rosario Looking To Make Most Of Turf Festival Opportunities In Return To Del Mar

The 2013 racing schedule afforded jockey Joel Rosario time to ride the opening day card at Del Mar on Wednesday then move on for the start of Saratoga two days later.

Rosario, the Del Mar jockey champion from 2009-2011 before moving his summer base to New York, rode four winners from nine mounts on the shore oval's 10-race card.

The following morning, a track official making backstretch rounds ran into a couple of permanent party members of the Del Mar jockey colony and mentioned Rosario's performance. “I gave him a ride to the airport,” one said with a smile. “Wanted to make sure he made it out of town OK.”

Don't look now but, as occasionally happens, heee's baaack!

The 35-year-old from the Dominican Republic will ride all four days of the “Turf Festival” from November 26-29 that closes Del Mar's 15-day Bing Crosby season. There are seven graded stakes during the period that will provide Rosario opportunities to add to the 28 he has recorded locally starting in 2008. There are two Grade 1, $300,000 events: the Hollywood Derby on Saturday, November 28, which he won in 2018 aboard Raging Bull for trainer Chad Brown; and the Matriarch on Sunday, November 29, which Rosario won in 2014 on La Tia for Armando De la Cerda, 2016 on Miss Temple City for H. Graham Motion and 2018 aboard Uni for Brown.

“I'm very excited, Del Mar is like coming home for me,” Rosario said recently by phone from New York. “When I first started a lot of people there had respect for me and gave me some great opportunities. So it's very special. And I love San Diego.”

Rosario's Del Mar riding titles came with win totals of 56 in 2009, 57 in 2010 and 49 in 2011. The 2010 tally is the most in the last 14 years and only Victor Espinoza, with 64 in 2006, has topped it in the last 27 seasons.

As anyone who was around Del Mar from 2009-2011 would have predicted, the move to New York has been a very successful one. His annual purse earnings have consistently been above the $15-million range of his final California years and he has topped the $20-million mark four times with a high of more than $24.9 million last year.

The Turf Festival will feature the top two riders in the country for money won in 2020. Irad Ortiz, Jr., also on assignment from New York for the duration of the event, is No. 1 with 269 wins from 1,150 mounts and purse earnings of $19,761,036. Rosario is No. 2 with 181 wins from 973 mounts and earnings of $17,041,821.

Rosario's “homecomings” to Del Mar since 2011 have produced nine stakes victories – seven of them in Grades Is — and created wonderful memories for local trainers.

In 2017, when Del Mar hosted the Breeders' Cup for the first time, Encinitas resident Peter Miller, one of several original Rosario supporters, enlisted him to ride Stormy Liberal in the $1-million Turf Sprint.

The resultant victory, by a head in the final jump at odds of 30-1, was the first Breeders' Cup win for Miller and the first of two on the day.

“I do remember the Stormy Liberal ride,” Miller said recently. “He saved every inch of ground, sat in the pocket, tipped him out when they straightened away and finished strong. Couldn't have ridden him any better.

“As Chick Hearn used to say, 'He's got icewater in his veins.' Pressure doesn't get to him and he's probably the best finisher in the game.”

In 2018 trainer John Sadler, another early supporter, called upon Rosario to ride Accelerate in the Pacific Classic after Victor Espinoza, inducted into the Hall of Fame a year earlier, suffered fractured vertebrae in a spill. Rosario guided Accelerate to a Classic record 12 ½-length victory.

Ten weeks later, Rosario was aboard him again in a dominating win in the $6-million Breeders' Cup Classic at Churchill Downs a victory that, were it not for Justify's Triple Crown sweep, would have made Accelerate the Horse of the Year.

“He was just an amazing horse,” Rosario said. “John gave me a lot of opportunities early in my career and I was really happy to win for him even though it was unfortunate what happened to Victor.”

Rosario used the word “opportunity” several times in a brief interview. He's happy to have the opportunity to ride Grade 1 winner Decorated Invader for Christophe Clement in the Hollywood Derby and Grade 3 victor Viadera for super trainer Chad Brown in the Matriarch.

And it's that humility, in addition to elite level riding skills, that sets Rosario apart, said his agent. Over 40 years, Ron Anderson has booked mounts for Fernando Toro and Hall of Famers Gary Stevens, Jerry Bailey, Chris Antley and John Velazquez among others. He has represented both Rosario and Velazquez since last February.

“Joel is a great rider, but he's also one of the nicest people I've ever met, bar none,” said Anderson. “You can't help but like and root for him. You don't root for everybody you meet, but if you meet Joel you're going to like him and root for him.

“He's just naturally kind and considerate to everyone. He respects everyone – grooms, hot walkers, trainers, people who hold the ropes on the path to the track – and he's respected by everybody.”

Anderson said he has seen Rosario get angry twice in the eight years they've been a team. Both times Rosario addressed the offender in unmistakably clear terms and the heat was off in a very short time.

The frustrations, hassles and bothers that are a part of life in 2020 – Anderson estimates Rosario and Velazquez have undergone COVID-19 testing 35 times since the pandemic started – haven't affected Rosario's overall outlook.

“It's been difficult for everyone in the industry, difficult for everyone everywhere,” Rosario said. “We just keep doing the best we can and hope things get better.”

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Del Mar’s Red Carpet Stakes Has Eastern Flavor; TVG’s Hoover Savors 2019 Victory By $8,000 Claim

The field of 10 for the Thanksgiving Day featured Red Carpet Stakes includes four horses that last raced in New York or Kentucky on assignment from nationally-renowned trainers. Three of them will have elite Eastern-based jockeys that venture west only when the stakes are most plentiful and highest – as they will be through the four final days of the Bing Crosby Season.

So the Grade 3, $100,000 Red Carpet figures to be a tasty hors d'oeuvre for the feast that will follow—six graded stakes on grass in three days in what amounts to a “Turf Festival” – to the November 29 close of the meeting.

Three notable equine travelers for the 1 3/8-mile Red Carpet marathon for fillies and mares are Orglandes for one of the nation's leading trainers, Chad Brown, Woodfin for Victoria Oliver and Blame Debbie for H. Graham Motion. And Peter Miller has had California Kook, runner-up in the G1 Del Mar Oaks last summer, in training at San Luis Rey Downs for a month since returning from a fifth-place finish in the G1 Queen Elizabeth II Cup on October 10 at Keeneland.

Irad Ortiz, Jr., No. 1 in North America for purse earnings with nearly $20 million, will ride Orglandes, a 4-year-old import from France making her third U.S. start and coming in off a win at Belmont Park on October 9. Joel Rosario, No. 2 in winnings with nearly $17 million, has the call on California Kook. Manny Franco, No. 10 with more than $11.4 million will be aboard Blame Debbie after their initial collaboration resulted in victory in the G3 Dowager at Keeneland last month.

The field from the rail with jockeys in parenthesis: California Kook (Rosario); Never Be Enough (Tiago Pereira); Colonial Creed (Flavien Prat); Orglandes (Ortiz, Jr.); Going to Vegas (Mario Gutierrez); Woodfin (Jose Valdivia, Jr.); Aunt Lubie (Victor Espinoza); Blame Debbie (Franco); Hollywood Girl (Mike Smith), and Quick (Umberto Rispoli).

When TVG commentator Kurt Hoover saw the entries come out for the Red Carpet, he took special interest in looking over the field. Partly out of professional obligation, of course, but also for sentimental reasons.

“It's a race that doesn't mean a hell of a lot to a lot of people, but it does to me,” Hoover said by phone from the Los Angeles area.

Hoover, his friend from high school days Brian Ferguson and Jeff Lambert of Del Mar, a longtime client of trainer Bob Hess, Jr., comprised the ownership group of Zuzanna, an $8,000 claim of theirs that they watched win the 2019 Red Carpet at odds of 23-1.

“I remember watching her cross under the finish line and I remember being in the winner's circle, but I don't remember going down to the winner's circle,” said Hoover. It was the first stakes win as an owner for Hoover, who said he has had pieces of four or five horses with only Zuzanna succeeding at the stakes level.

“I suggested to Bob that we enter because I thought maybe we could hit the board,” Hoover recalled. “If it hadn't been a mile and three-eighths we wouldn't have entered. We were planning on going to the Claiming Crown (event) in Florida with her.”

The traditional Thanksgiving Day feature of the Bing Crosby Season was moved to Saturday in 2019 after rains early in the week compromised the Jimmy Durante Turf Course. That resulted in Paco Lopez, arriving from the east, being able to ride Zuzanna skillfully to a 1 ½-length victory.

After more than 30 career starts, Zuzanna has recently been retired and will be sold as a broodmare in January.

For the first time in 30 years, Hoover has a Thanksgiving Day off from work. But he said he'll be watching the Red Carpet with professional and sentimental interest.

“I like John Sadler's horse Quick,” Hoover said when asked for a 2020 selection. “Her last outing was a really good effort and I think she's ready to run big. Besides Quick, I think Graham Motion's horse coming in from Kentucky, Blame Debbie, will be very tough.”

In Thursday's edition, trainer Richard Baltas has the duo of Going to Vegas and Colonial Creed. Going to Vegas comes in off a runner-up effort, beaten only a neck by Warren's Showtime, in the G3 Autumn Miss at Santa Anita. Colonial Creed was second in the Katherine Crosby Stakes on the opening day of this meeting.

“Going To Vegas ran really good last time with the blinkers off,” Baltas noted. “It's a little far for her, but if she can get the distance, who knows? Obviously she's in a little tough because she's a 3-year-old running against older, but we're going to see because she's training really well.

“Colonial Creed has never been this far either, but she's coming off the pace now more and more, so maybe she will like the distance. I think they've both got a good chance.”

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3,000 Wins And Counting For Joel Rosario: ‘Very Thankful To All The People Who Got Me To Where I Am’

Jockey Joel Rosario notched his 3,000thcareer win in Friday's first race at Aqueduct Racetrack in Ozone Park, N.Y., when he piloted Hit the Woah to a 1 1/4-length victory in a six-furlong maiden special weight. Rosario, who posted his first career win in 2006, has compiled at least 150 victories every year since 2007.

“I knew when I was a couple away, and I thought it might take a long time to get, you know how it goes,” said Rosario, who also won Saturday's opening race at the Big A aboard Halpert in a six-furlong maiden race moved off the turf. “I'm so glad it happened and thanks to all the owners and trainer for the opportunities.”

Rosario's career has included victory totals rich in both quantity and quality, encompassing 13 wins in Breeders' Cup competition and three American Classic victories, starting with Orb in the 2013 Kentucky Derby. His victory aboard Tonalist in the 2014 Belmont Stakes thwarted California Chrome's Triple Crown bid, and Rosario picked up his second career win in the “Test of the Champion” aboard Sir Winston in 2019.

In total, Rosario has accumulated 288 graded stakes wins and 91 Grade 1 scores. The most wins he tallied in a single year was 274 in 2013, which ranked him fourth among North American riders. He twice finished second in earnings, amassing more than $21.5 million in both 2013 and 2014.

“Coming from the Dominican Republic, I'm very thankful to all the people who got me to where I am today,” Rosario said. “All the support from the owners and trainers and all the good horses they've given me, I'm very pleased and very happy to get to 3,000 wins and going forward, I'm looking forward to seeing how many more I can get.”

Besides his success in Classics, the 35-year-old native of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, has thrived in the Breeders' Cup, including a win in the 2018 Classic with Accelerate. He has notched two wins each in the Mile [2016, Tourist; 2019, Uni], Juvenile Fillies [2018, Jaywalk; 2020, Vequist], Dirt Mile [2010, Dakota Phone; 2020, Knicks Go] Filly and Mare Turf Sprint [2015, Wavell Avenue; 2019, Covfefe] and Turf Sprint [2014, Bobby's Kitten; 2017, Stormy Liberal], as well as single scores in the Sprint [2009, Dancing in Silks] and Juvenile [2018, Game Winner].

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