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A Winner of 7,396 Races, Jockey Dave Gall Passes

The fifth-leading rider of all time in wins, David Gall passed away Sunday at the age of 79.

The news was confirmed by his former agent, Mark Cooper.

Riding primarily at Fairmount Park (now known as Fanduel Sportsbook & Horse Racing) and now-defunct Cahokia Downs, two lower-level Illinois tracks that serve the St. Louis area, Gall rode for 43 years and piled up 7,369 wins, more than Hall of Famers like Chris McCarron, Angel Cordero Jr. and Jorge Velasquez. Yet, because he never ventured to the major tracks, Gall's accomplishments went largely unnoticed outside of the St. Louis area.

He had 41,775 career mounts. He was twice leading rider in the country, winning 479 races in 1979 and 376 in 1981. He once won eight races on a 10-race card at Cahokia Downs.

Despite all his success, he never tried to break in at higher- level tracks. According to equineline.com, he won only one graded stakes race, the 1993 GIII Fairmount Derby.

“In my mid-30s, I realized I wasn't going to make it big,” he told the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame, of which he is a member. “I never joined the rat race because I don't like rat races. I like horse races.”

“He would have been a decent rider on the major circuits,” said Dave Johnson, the announcer at Fairmount and Cahokia from 1965 through 1971. “At Fairmount and Cahokia, he could ride rings around the other jockeys. He was just better than the regular riders. And when the kids or the apprentices showed up, he would fool them in the stretch. He would make them think that his horse was finished and they were going to win it. Then he would speed up and win the race. He undressed them. Remember, these were the bush tracks, a big step down from Arlington Park.

Born in Rose Valley, Saskatchewan, Canada, Gall lied about his age so that he could begin riding professionally at age 15. He started off at the tracks in Western Canada before making it to St. Louis. He said the Illinois tracks were not his final destination and he wanted to try major tracks elsewhere, but he decided to stay because he immediately started winning races and making money.

It was there that he earned the nickname “The General.” It was given to him by track announcer Todd Creed, who noticed that when Gall's name was abbreviated as “D. Gall” it sounded exactly the same as renowned French General Charles de Gaulle.

He last rode in 1999, calling it a career at age 57. At the time, he trailed only Bill Shoemaker, Laffit Pincay Jr. and Pat Day for total career wins.

“It's not as much fun as it used to be,” he said when announcing his retirement.

He turned to training and won 157 races in his new profession. He left training in 2011.

He is also a member of the St. Louis Sports Hall of Fame and was the 1966 recipient of the Avelino Gomez Memorial Award.

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Newly-Turned Journeyman Charlie Marquez Keeps Up His Momentum At Pimlico

A quick look will show Charlie Marquez still on top of the rider standings at historic Pimlico Race Course during its extended Preakness Meet, a spot the teenage sensation has held for weeks, but a closer looks reveals one significant change.

Marquez's name no longer appears in the program with an asterisk, known as the “bug” in racing parlance, meaning the 18-year-old Columbia, Md. native has graduated from apprentice to journeyman. Nearly three weeks in, the transition has been seamless.

“So far, it's been pretty straightforward. I had to swap agents because they're not allowed to have three journeyman,” Marquez said. “So far we've done a good job, just trying to work hard every day and win as many races as we can.”

Marquez hired Tom Stift, who also represents injured jockey Alex Cintron, to be his agent after having success with Marty Leonard, who books mounts for champion riders Sheldon Russell and Jevian Toledo.

“They all have the stigma when they lose the bug. Trainers will all watch the first couple weeks,” Stift said. “He really had a great first two weeks without the bug. I'll get a message from a trainer and they'll say, 'But he lost the bug,' and then I'll show them a screen shot of all his wins without the bug and they say, 'Ok, put him on.' He's crossed that hurdle.”

Marquez won on the fourth mount of his first day as a journeyman, May 30, with Tusk for trainer Mary Eppler at Pimlico. Through June 16, he had a record of 7-6-8 from 51 mounts since losing his five-pound weight allowance.

During an apprenticeship that was interrupted for 2 ½ months when Maryland racing was paused from mid-March to late May amid the coronavirus pandemic, Marquez won his first race at 16 (Sierra Leona, Jan. 9, 2020 at Laurel Park), spent the final three months of last year riding in New York under the tutelage of retired Hall of Famer Angel Cordero Jr., and returned to Maryland to start 2021 and earn his first stakes win (21-1 Shackled Love, March 14 Private Terms at Laurel).

A son and grandson of successful jockeys in both the U.S. and Puerto Rico, Marquez has also dealt with his first injury. He emerged from an Oct. 10 spill at Belmont Park with what was initially thought to be a fractured right wrist but turned out to be a sprain. He rode three races Oct. 18 before taking the next four weeks off.

Marquez ended 2020 as the leading apprentice rider in Maryland with 58 wins, ranking seventh overall, and for the year finished with 71 wins and $1,981,358 in purse earnings from 531 mounts. He was not among the three finalists for the Eclipse Award as champion apprentice won by Alexander Crispin, also based in Maryland.

“Other than covid ruining most of it, I thought I had a good bug year and I'm just trying to keep the good luck rolling,” Marquez said. “I just try to study all the riders every day and learn as much as I can. Every day I just try to progress my learning.”

His dedication shows in Marquez's eagerness to ride at various tracks in the Mid-Atlantic region, and with the ease in backstretch restrictions he is able to go to Delaware and the Fair Hill Training Center in Elkton, Md. to exercise horses. He also finished his studies and earned his GED to focus on his career.

“You can tell he's just got natural hands on a horse, that's the biggest thing. And he's just getting better. He's only 18, he's got a good future ahead of him,” Stift said. “He does whatever he's asked, he works hard, he's always early to the barn. It's nice to have a young rider like that who's just happy to ride.

“He's real family-oriented. He's very close with his mom and, bringing him up around the racetrack, you've got to give her a lot of credit,” he added. “A lot of times when they get to the track and they're young and win right away and get the money they get a big head, but he's just a nice kid.”

Marquez maintains a four-win advantage over J.D. Acosta (26-22) at Pimlico and is named in six of eight races for Friday's return of live racing that features a Maryland state record carryover jackpot in the 20-cent Rainbow 6 of $1,093,866.34.

“[My mom Valerie is] like my number one fan. She's with me everywhere I go. She's my right hand. I have to give her credit for everything that I've earned,” Marquez said. “I get asked all the time [about my goals] and it's always the same: I want to win the Derby one day and be in the Hall of Fame. That's just what work toward every day.”

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‘Old-School Guy’ Jose Ferrer Enjoying The Hot Hand At Monmouth Park

Jockey Jose Ferrer will often dust off one of his favorite expressions to make sense of having booted home an improbable longshot, as was the case in last Saturday's Grade 3 Salvator Mile at Monmouth Park, when he won with Informative at odds of 79-1.

One is that the horses can't read the tote board.

The other is that you can't win by staying in the jockeys' room.

These days, he may want to add one more to his list: Age is just a number.

The 57-year-old Ferrer heads into Monmouth Park's Friday twilight card as the track's leading rider after 10 days of the 53-day meet, with 16 winners from 56 mounts (a 29 percent clip). He combined for seven winners last Saturday and Sunday at Monmouth.

“It's been fantastic lately. It's an unbelievable feeling,” said Ferrer, who has ridden 4,575 winners in a career that began in 1982. “You get those times where everything goes right for you, when everything seems to click.

“That's where I feel I am now.”

Ferrer, who won his only Monmouth Park riding title in 2018, sees no reason his early success can't continue through the end of the meet. Overall, he has hit the board with 32 of his 56 mounts.

It's not as if he is riding a majority of favorites either. Nearly half (seven) of his winners so far have paid $12 or more and three have returned $30 or more, topped by the $161.60 win price that Informative produced.

Informative's victory skews the numbers a bit, of course, but Ferrer's average win price at the Monmouth meet is $20.60.

“I've had good stretches where I've won three or four in a day and then came back and won three or four the next day,” he said. “But to win the Salvator Mile, a Grade 3, with such a long shot and to win three other races on the card, two with longshots, and then three the next day … that's a pretty good stretch.”

Ferrer is able to excel at an age when most jockeys are nearing the end of their careers in large part because of his fitness regimen.

It's almost at the point where he is obsessed with working out. He says he is in the best shape of his life.

“I lift a lot of weights. I try to work out and lift twice a day,” he said. “I'll lift before I go to the track and on off days. I ride a bike whenever I can, too. Monday through Thursday I ride a couple of miles with my wife and (two) kids. I know I have to work twice as hard as the younger guys do. You have to put in the work.

“A lot of younger guys spend their time on social media. I'm old school. I don't have time for that. I need to work out and stay fit to stay competitive every day I go out there to ride. I have learned you have to work if you want good things to happen. They don't just happen because you want them to.”

Ferrer also enjoys the role of elder statesman that he has in the jockeys' room at Monmouth, always willing to pass along his accrued knowledge with an inquisitive young rider. In 2018 he won the prestigious George Woolf Award, which has been presented annually since 1950 to a jockey who demonstrates high standards of personal and professional conduct on and off the racetrack.

“It's a blessing to keep riding this long and at my age,” said Ferrer. “I like that some of the younger guys come to me for my knowledge. I am always there to help if I can. Older riders helped me when I was coming up. So I feel like I should share my knowledge and experience.”

Ferrer, who hails from Santruce, Puerto Rico, has also made a seamless transition to New Jersey's strict no crop rule – an adjustment that would seem to be easier for younger riders not as set in their ways.

But the opposite is true, says Ferrer.

“It goes back to being an old-school guy when you would mostly hand ride in the 1980s and 1990s,” he said. “That's when you depended more on pushing a horse with the reins. So it's almost back to the 1980s for me and how I was brought up riding. The stick back then was the weakest link in your riding. I was always hand riding. You didn't use the whip until you absolutely had to use it.

“So this is my foundation. I came up hand riding.”

He also came up winning – something he is still doing, all these years later.

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Delaware: Leading Jockey Carol Cedeno Chasing Record Seventh Title

Three-time defending leading rider Carol Cedeno will be taking a run at history when the 84th live racing season at Delaware Park begins on May 26. The Delaware resident will be going for a record seventh leading jockey title at the Stanton-oval.

Since 2014, the native of Puerto Rico has been the leading jockey every season with the exception of 2017. She is currently tied with another Delaware Park legend Michael McCarthy who won six titles from 1996 through 2000 and 2002.

“I live only about a half-hour from the track and I raise my family in Delaware, so Delaware Park is home to me,” said Carol Cedeno, who is the mother of two children. “I work hard every day to make sure I can be my best for the season at Delaware Park and I take a lot of pride in being the leading rider. Every year it has been hard to be the leading rider and this may be the toughest year because I hear there are a good number of talented jockeys coming, so that just means I will be working a little harder.”

Cedeno has rewritten the Delaware Park history book on a number of other occasions.

She notched seven victories on a single card on July 11, 2018, breaking a record that had stood for more than six decades and was held by six riders. The jockeys who won six races on a single Delaware Park card were Joseph Rocco, Jr., in 2011; Michael McCarthy, who accomplished the feat twice—once in 1997 and again in 1998; Jimmy Edwards, in 1984; Greg McCarron, in 1974; George Cusimano, in 1968; and Eldon Nelson in 1958.

“To be mentioned with those kind of riders makes me extremely happy,” said Cedeno, who notched her 1,000th career victory at Laurel Park on Jan. 2. “Those are some of the best riders in racing, and to be in a group like that is special. I know to keep having success I need to keep working hard. But I love what I do and I love getting up in the morning to go to work at Delaware Park, so I am hoping I can do more.”

Cedeno has nearly 450 career victories at Delaware Park.

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