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Jockey Edwin Gonzalez Out With Hairline Fraction After Gulfstream Incident

At Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach, Fla, Edwin Gonzalez, thrown from his mount during Saturday's ninth race, suffered a hairline fracture in his right leg. The jockey will be evaluated further this week, according to agent Kevin Meyocks.

Gonzalez, third in the standings during Gulfstream's Spring/Summer Meet with 59 wins and $1.776 million in total earnings, had been named to ride Miles Ahead in the Grade 3 Smile Sprint. Victor Espinoza replaced Gonzalez on Miles Ahead, who won by a half-length.

Gonzalez has 1,506 career wins since coming to the U.S. from his native Puerto Rico in 2013. A multiple graded-stakes winner in Puerto Rico, Gonzalez guided Ghost Hunter for his first graded-stakes success in the 2017 Grade 3 Arlington Handicap.

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Apprentice Andrea Gonzalez Wins First Start At Ellis Park

Andrea Rodriguez had never even been to Ellis Park before, let alone ridden in a race. But the 23-year-old apprentice jockey wasted no time locating the winner's circle.

Rodriguez rode 11-1 shot Artie's Lady to a head victory over 14-1 Midnight Lewis in Saturday's second race for $16,000 claimers in her only mount on the card.

Artie's Lady paid $24.80 to win in taking his second start in a row, with Rodriguez guiding owner-trainer Mark Schwarm's 3-year-old colt to a nose victory May 27 in a $16,000 maiden-claiming race at Indiana Grand.

It's not surprising that Puerto Rico's famed jockey school has produced a promising jockey. Some of the best jockeys in the world — think brothers Irad and Jose Ortiz who are so dominant today, Hall of Famer John Velazquez and the iconic Angel Cordero – are products of Escuela Vocacional Hipica Agustin Mercado Revero. What remains relatively rare are Hispanic female riders. Rodriguez said she was one of two women in her class of 16, though she said the numbers are starting to pick up. They can look to Puerto Rico product Carol Cedeno, who owns six riding titles at Delaware Park, for inspiration.

“We're trying, we're trying,” Rodriguez said with a laugh, referencing Puerto Rican girls who aspire to be jockeys. “Since I was a little kid, I loved horses. My father's family is involved in the horse-racing industry, so I guess I got it.”

Rodriguez started riding in 2019 at Puerto Rico's Hipódromo Camarero before moving on to Tampa and Monmouth Park, finishing the year with two wins out of 47 mounts. Deciding she needed more experience, she began working as an exercise rider for Kentucky-based trainer Ian Wilkes. Rodriguez resumed riding races full-time at Turfway Park, where she struggled but says she learned a lot.

“I knew I needed more time, I needed to learn more,” she said. “So I kept galloping. So when I thought I was ready — and Ian Wilkes thought I was ready – he sent me to the races. I had not a great meet at Turfway, but I learned a lot. When I started at Indiana, I've been doing very good, thanks to that.”

Rodriguez has 12 wins, with five seconds and nine thirds, out of 82 mounts at Indiana Grand, and 15 career victories overall. Her mounts currently get to carry seven pounds fewer than otherwise stipulated in the race conditions, with such apprentice allowances offered to encourage trainers to use inexperienced jockeys. For instance: as a 3-year-old ridden by a seven-pound apprentice, Artie's Lady carried 111 pounds to 122 for Midnight Lewis, ridden by Rafael Bejarano, winner of 4,178 races.

“She's done great,” Schwarm said. “She's rode him twice for me and won both races. I think she has a lot of feel for a horse. She can feel what the horse needs from her, and she doesn't give any more or any less. It seems to be working.”

Rodriguez said Artie's Lady loves to fight.

“He loves to be head-to-head with another horse. So when I saw the No. 2 (Midnight Lewis) coming, I said, 'This is mine.' Because he will fight for it,” she said. “… I can't describe it. It's so amazing, especially when you know the horse you're on and you have that connection with him. I just love being on horses.”

Rodriguez hopes to start riding regularly at Ellis Park (which races Friday-Sunday) in addition to Indiana (which runs Monday-Thursday).

“This is my first mount here, and I got a winner,” she said. “So I hope I get many more mounts here.”

What does she think of Ellis Park?

“I love it!” she said. “I got a winner the first time, so I love it so far.”

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Derbe Glass Breaks Through With First Winner At Monmouth Park

As patient as Derbe Glass said she was trying to be as she waited for her first win as a professional jockey, she was starting to get a little anxious about when it would finally happen.

It did Friday night, on her 13^th career mount, as the 23-year-old split horses in mid-stretch to guide I See the Stars to a neck victory in the final race on Monmouth Park's six-race Friday twilight card in Oceanport, N.J.

“I'm just very happy,” she said. “It's a combination of exhilaration and relief.”

The Wilmington, Del, native, in her first full year of riding, had come close at the Monmouth meet with three seconds and two thirds from her first 12 mounts. This time she found a way to break through.

“The win was important but the key for me is to keep improving and to keep progressing,” she said. “That's how I kept from getting too frustrated, knowing that every ride I've had has been a learning experience.”

Glass rode in two amateur races in 2019, winning one at Parx, and had planned to continue riding on the amateur circuit last year until COVID-19 derailed those plans.

“So I came to Monmouth Park and started galloping horses and I fell in love with the place and the people here were great to me,” she said. “This year I just felt it was time (to ride professionally). I'd been galloping horses for five or six years. I felt like it was time to try. I picked up a good agent (Steve Worsley) and here we are.”

I See the Stars paid $11.20 to win.

Part of the “welcome party” that helped Derbe Glass make her first winner a memorable one

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Hernandez Bags Four Winners At Ellis Park

Jockey Brian Hernandez Jr. won on four his five mounts Friday on Ellis Park's eight-race card in Henderson, Ky., including with the promising 2-year-old colt Tiz the Bomb. The race he lost? Gus Gus, owned by trainer Ian Wilkes' wife, Tracey, and Hernandez's wife, Jamie. The two couples also bred the 2-year-old gelding.

But Gus Gus' second place in a $30,000 maiden-claiming race in his career debut was special in its own right. He's a son of Fort Larned, with whom Wilkes and Hernandez teamed to win the $6-million Breeders' Cup Classic in 2012 and two other Grade 1 races. In fact, Fort Larned gave Hernandez his first Grade 1 winner in Saratoga's Whitney Handicap, after which he was back riding at Ellis Park the next day.

“It was a good day,” Hernandez said of Friday's haul. “We rode five, and the first one was second. Which was pretty cool because it's a horse that Ian and I bred and we race. He was second today in the third race. And the rest of them, they all ran true to form. We got lucky and had a four-win day…. Third day of the meet and to get a four-win day, it's big.”

More on Gus Gus later. Here are the races Hernandez won:

// The fourth race as the Kenny McPeek-trained Tiz the Bomb blew up to a 14 1/2-length romp in a 2-year-old maiden race.

// The sixth aboard the 4-year-old filly Teenage Kicks, winner by three-quarters of a length in an off-the-turf allowance race for trainer Bernie Flint and owner Naveed Chowhan.

// The seventh by 2 3/4 lengths on Joseph Murphy's 4-year-old colt My Man Flintstone for trainer Brendan Walsh in another allowance race.

// The eighth in the $30,000 maiden-claiming race that served as the nightcap and which Island Boy smoked to a 10 3/4-length score for Wilkes and owner-breeder Anita Ebert.

Gus Gus closed from last of seven but was no threat as 9-5 favorite Bueno Bueno rolled to a 7 1/4-length romp. Off at 6-1 odds, Gus Gus finished three lengths in front of the next-closest horse.

Hernandez's streak started the next race, in which Tiz the Bomb led all the way at 3-5 odds in a mile maiden race taken off the turf. In his only other start, Tiz the Bomb finished seventh in a five-eighths of a mile dirt race at Churchill Downs. Undaunted, before the Ellis meet began, trainer Kenny McPeek said he had a really nice horse for the track's $125,000 Runhappy Juvenile Aug. 15 in Tiz the Bomb. Nothing that happened change that.

“He ran big,” Hernandez said after the victory. “We always thought he was going to run like that. The first time was a little short for him. When he got to go the mile today, he showed how good he is. I don't know what Kenny's going to do with him now, but it looks like he'll go forward from here.”

Said McPeek: “He was just a little clumsy in his first race. Nothing went right. He got off a little awkward, and he couldn't run them down. He just needed more ground. He'll definitely go in (the Juvenile), and we'll go from there.”

Tiz the Bomb is a poster boy for McPeek's use of mile maiden races over the Ellis Park turf, the trainer wanting the distance more than the surface and unconcerned if soggy grass moves them to the main track. Tiz the Bomb would seem suited to both surfaces, being a son of 2015 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf winner Hit It a Bomb, now part of Spendthrift Farm's stallion roster. His broodmare sire is two-time Breeders' Cup Classic winner Tiznow.

How Wilkes, Hernandez ended up in the breeding business
Here's how Hernandez found himself in the breeding business: “Ian called a few years ago and asked if we wanted to go in half on this mare with him,” he said. “We bred her to Fort Larned twice. We got the horse that ran today and we have a yearling over in Lexington.”

That mare, Social Amber, went 0 for 3 as a racehorse but is by the popular Claiborne Farm stallion War Front. Her owner at the time, Dennis Farkas, gave Social Amber to Wilkes, who as the trainer also has a free breeding right to Fort Larned.

“I gave half of the mare to Brian, and I had the breeding right,” Wilkes said. “So we got in at the right cost.”

Asked if their wives were “good pay” — racetrack parlance for owners who pay their training bills — Wilkes joked with a laugh, “Hmm, slow. They're tough. After the race, Trace wanted to know why Brian didn't move early enough.”

More seriously, he said, “He was very encouraging today to run second in his first start, because he's no five-furlong horse.”

Hernandez is now out of the breeding business. With Fort Larned moving from Kentucky to Ohio, Jamie Hernandez gave the mare to a friend in the Buckeye state.

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