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Jockey Sheldon Russell Scores Natural Hat Trick Friday At Laurel Park

Jockey Sheldon Russell reeled off three consecutive wins to open Friday's card at Laurel Park and further extend his lead atop the rider standings at the calendar year-ending fall meet.

Russell captured Friday's opener with 1-2 favorite Chloe Rose ($3), a 2-year-old daughter of Twirling Candy making her second career start. He followed up with 4-year-old filly Nana's Shoes ($4) in Race 2 and 2-year-old Bullsbay gelding Maythehorsebwithu ($5.40) in Race 3.

Among his remaining mounts Friday, Russell was third with Remain Anonymous in Race 6, second with Nomo Ron in Race 7.

“It's always nice to start the day off with a win, let alone the first three. It puts you on just such a high,” Russell said. “I knew coming into the day I had a couple of live mounts. You need good trips. We got off to a good start and to be fair all my horses ran well.”

Both Chloe Rose and Maythehorsebwithu, the latter runner-up in the First State Dash Sept. 26 at Delaware Park, are trained by Russell's wife, Brittany Russell, who is tied with Claudio Gonzalez for the fall meet lead with 21 wins.

“We have a great work ethic together. I know what she wants and she knows what she's doing. She keeps me busy in the morning and feel like we both understand her horses,” Sheldon Russell said. “We're both on the same page and we've got a great team behind us. You can just see the horses are well-spotted and they're running really well right now.”

Represented by agent Marty Leonard, Russell has 39 wins at the fall meet, 13 more than runner-up Jevian Toledo with Trevor McCarthy third at 25. McCarthy and his fiancé, jockey Katie Davis, have moved their tack to New York for the Aqueduct winter meet and plan to return to Maryland in the spring.

“I'm just very pleased, riding the right horses. Marty's doing a great job for me in the mornings,” Russell said. “Just want to ride this high out through the end of the month. We've had a fantastic last two months, really. I couldn't be happier.”

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‘I Just Feel Blessed’: Jevian Toledo Records 1,000th Career Win

Pedro Nazario's M. J.'s Lady slipped through an opening on the inside at the top of the stretch and held off Ski Bunny approaching the wire to give jockey Jevian Toledo his 1,000th career victory Friday at Laurel Park in Laurel, Md.

Making her third career start, all since mid-June, M. J.'s Lady ($12) ran one mile in 1:40.60 for the milestone win. It gave Toledo a sweep of Friday's maiden special weight events for fillies and mares 3 and up, also taking Race 3 with Dontletsweetfoolya ($6.80) for No. 999.

He becomes the second rider this year to reach 1,000 wins at Laurel following his close friend, Victor Carrasco, who did it Jan. 26. Carrasco, the champion apprentice of 2013, is currently sidelined for six weeks with a fractured right elbow.

“Whenever you win a race, you feel happy. When you win a thousand, you feel amazing like all the hard work pays off,” Toledo said. “I just feel blessed. I have to thank God. Without him, we wouldn't be here. I have to thank the owners, trainers, grooms, exercise riders, hotwalkers, my agent – everybody does a great job.”

Toledo leads all riders at Laurel's summer meet in mounts (124) and purse earnings ($578,122) and is third behind Sheldon Russell (20) and Trevor McCarthy (15) in wins. Russell, like Toledo represented by agent Marty Leonard, is out 4-6 weeks with a broken wrist.

M.J.'s Lady had only one horse beat through a half-mile as Peachy Between Us set fractions of 23.27 and 46.98 seconds. Toledo moved the 3-year-old daughter of First Dude between horses on the far turn, shifted down to the rail for running room once straightened for home, wrested the lead from Ski Bunny inside the eighth pole and edged clear to win by three-quarters of a length.

“In the beginning my filly give me everything that she had and I feel comfortable how I was going. By the three-eighths pole, she grabbed the bit and I said I think I have a good chance to hit the board,” Toledo said. “To be honest, at the three-eighths I didn't feel I was going to win the race, but coming to the stretch when I found the hole on the inside, she passed the other horses and kept going.”

A native of Puerto Rico, where Carrasco, Manny Franco and Jorge Vargas Jr. were among his classmates at the famed Escuela Vocacional Hipica jockey school, Toledo won 33 races before coming to the U.S. in the spring of 2013. He earned his first domestic win June 8, 2013 aboard Peaceadaaction at Pimlico Race Course.

He led all Maryland riders in wins in 2015 and 2017 and ranked second in 2016, finishing third in 2018 and fifth in 2014 and 2019. Toledo owns five meet titles at Laurel, the most recent coming at its 2018 summer stand.

Toledo won graded-stakes with Divisidero in the 2018 Arlington Handicap (G3) and Miss Behaviour in the 2014 Charles Town Oaks (G3) and has also regularly ridden multiple stakes winners O Dionysus, Sonny Inspired, Las Setas, Name Changer and Talk Show Man.

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Laurel’s Leading Rider Sheldon Russell Out Four To Six Weeks With Broken Wrist

Jockey Sheldon Russell, the leading rider at Laurel Park's current summer meet, will miss at least two months with a broken right wrist suffered in a gate mishap Thursday at Delaware Park.

Agent Marty Leonard said the 32-year-old Russell was hurt after being unseated by his mount Maliceinthepalace, a 3-year-old filly trained by Michael Gorham, as the horses were loading for Delaware's third race. Maliceinthepalace would go on to run fourth under Alex Cintron.

“Walking into the gate the horse just reared up and he came off. When he came off, he landed on the ground and used his hand to brace his fall and that's what did it,” Leonard said. “The second he hit the ground he said he knew it was broken. They went and got X-rays and that confirmed it.

Leonard said Russell, married to Laurel-based trainer Brittany Russell, is expected to be out “four to six weeks.”

“You never expect that to happen,” Leonard said.

Sheldon Russell led Laurel's summer meet, which began May 30 following a 2 ½-month pause in live racing amid the coronavirus pandemic, with 20 wins and $568,391 in purse earnings, five wins ahead of runner-up Trevor McCarthy.

Russell had five multi-win days during the summer stand, including hat tricks June 6, 8 and 12. He is the regular rider for multiple stakes-winning 3-year-old filly Hello Beautiful, under consideration for the Test (G1) Aug. 8 at Saratoga and trained by his wife.

A winner of 1,392 career races, Russell ranked second in Maryland with 93 wins and $3.3 million in purses earned in 2019. The state's leading rider in 2011, he is a seven-time meet champion owning five titles at Laurel and two at Pimlico Race Course between 2008 and 2015.

Though he has been ridden at full health since the spring of 2017, Russell's career has been beset by injuries. He suffered a torn ligament in his right thumb in 2016; torn labrum and fractured shoulder in a November 2015 training accident; broken ribs (2015, 2010), punctured lung (2015), broken foot (2013), broken wrist (2008) and fractured vertebrae (2007, 2008).

“Unfortunately, he's gone through this before. It's never, 'why me' with him. I don't know how he does it, but he takes it well. He takes it in stride. I'm sure he's disappointed, but he's a true professional. He's just going to get healthy and get back to riding again. That's what he does,” Leonard said. “He's a great person.”

Laurel's summer meet, which had been racing Fridays and Saturdays since May 30, will move to a three-day schedule starting Thursday, July 23. Racing will be conducted Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays through Saturday, Aug. 22.

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