FOUR NEW RIDERS ADDED TO BAY AREA JOCKEY COLONY THIS WEEK
Jockeys Julien Couton, Kevin Orozco, Arnold Perez and Austin Solis will be riding races in the Bay Area for the foreseeable future. Couton, Orozco and Solis take their talents to Northern California after successful campaigns at Emerald Downs while Perez moves his tack after a stint working for Southern California trainer John Sadler at Santa Anita.
Julien Couton, a native of France, finished third in the Emerald Downs jockey standings with 68 wins and picked up two stakes victories. When Couton rode at Golden Gate during the Winter/Spring meet, he won a trio of stakes races: the Grade 3 San Francisco Mile with older gelding Flamboyant, the California Oaks with 3-year-old filly Consolida and the Camilla Urso Stakes with female sprinter Mother of Dragons.
“I’m very excited to be back at Golden Gate,” said Couton. “Golden Gate is my home track so it is great to be coming home. We’ll take it one day at a time and go from there.”
Kevin Orozco finished second in the Emerald Downs rider standings with 71 victories. Orozco hit the board with 53% of his mounts and scored at a 21% win clip, which is the second highest win percentage behind leading rider Rocco Bowen. Orozco also won five stakes races at the meet, just one win shy of tying Bowen for most stakes victories by a jockey at the meeting.
“It was a great meet,” Orozco said of his recent success in Washington. “I achieved all of my goals: I won more races and more stakes’ than last year. I finished third in the standings last year but did even better this year and finished second.”
“With that in mind, I am committed to being successful at Golden Gate,” continued Orozco. “It’s good to ride with guys at Golden Gate because the jockey colony here is very strong. You’ve got a lot of talented riders here and you only get better when you compete against really good riders. But I am really hungry to do well here. I’m committed to working hard and doing everything I can to get good mounts.”
Austin Solis, the son of Hall of Fame jockey Alex Solis, won 23 races at Emerald this year. He scored a stakes win earlier in the month with the Blaine Wright trained Fly Far Away and primarily rode for top Emerald Downs conditioners like Wright and Frank Lucarelli. He has ridden at different tracks all over the country, including Aqueduct, Arlington Park and the Southern California circuit of Santa Anita and Del Mar. Before riding in races, Solis worked for Sheikh Mohammed’s Godolphin Racing Operation in Australia.
“I am really looking forward to riding at Golden Gate,” said Solis. “I’ll be giving it my all and working as hard as I possibly can. It’s never easy to break into a new place but hopefully we build up business as time goes on. I’m ready for the challenge.”
Arnold Perez, a 25-year-old journeyman rider, rode at East Coast tracks like Parx and Louisiana Downs from 2013 to 2016 before transitioning to being an exercise rider for the John Sadler barn at Santa Anita. He has worked and developed many stakes horses for Team Sadler including undefeated colt and Breeders Cup Dirt Mile contender Catalina Cruiser. At the end of the day, however, Perez relayed that riding in races is what he wants to do.
“I’m really excited to be at Golden Gate,” said Perez. “I want to ride in races. I’ve been here for a little while and have been working horses for many different barns. I just have to be patient and let the opportunities come as they do.”
Dennis Patterson will represent Julien Couton while Kevin Orozco has hired “Oakland Ron” Freitas to be his agent. Brett Harmon, who begins hustling for apprentice Victor Flores at the fall meet, will also represent Austin Solis. Arnold Perez is still seeking an agent at this time.
NEW STRONACH FIVE WAGER BEGINS FRIDAY
Say hello to a new wager. The Stronach Five, a one-dollar minimum bet that features an industry low 12 percent takeout, will debut this Friday. Racing officials have guaranteed the Stronach 5 pool at $50,000 this inaugural week.
The Stronach 5 is a five-race sequence that will take place every Friday through November 2. All five races are from Stronach Group tracks: Gulfstream Park, Golden Gate, Laurel and Santa Anita. The five races in the sequence will be run within a time frame of 45 minutes to an hour and if there are no tickets with five winners at the end of the day, the pool will then be carried over into the next Friday. Past performances for horseplayers will be available on each track’s website no later than Thursday morning.
Here is the sequence for the Stronach Five wager this Friday:
Leg 1: Laurel Park Race 9 (2:26 PM PT)
Leg 2: Santa Anita Race 4 (2:32 PM PT)
Leg 3: Gulfstream Race 8 (2:38 PM PT)
Leg 4: Golden Gate Race 4 (2:50 PM PT)
Leg 5: Gulfstream Race 9 (3:08 PM PT)
In addition, XBTV will be producing a Stronach 5 handicapping show every week, which will be available to watch on Thursday morning at XBTV.com. The show will feature racing analysts from all of the participating Stronach Group tracks. Matt Dinerman will be representing Golden Gate Fields, Michelle Yu and Megan Devine will be on air for Santa Anita Park, Acacia Courtney will take the mic from Gulfstream and Tim Tullock will discuss Laurel Park. Gulfstream Park on-track talent Jason Blewitt will host the show. The first show can be found at this link: https://www.xbtv.com/video/workout/stronach-5-analysis-for-september-28th-2018/
MANDATORY PAYOUTS THIS SUNDAY
With Closing Day coming up this Sunday, Golden Gate Fields will have mandatory payouts in the 20 Cent Golden Pick Six Jackpot wager, the Early and Late Pick 5’s and the $1 Rolling Super High Five. Heading into Thursday’s card, there is a $19,763 carryover in the Golden Pick Six Jackpot, with track officials expecting six figure new money added into the pool on closing day if the jackpot continues to carry over until Sunday.
FINISH LINES: With four more racing days to go, Irving Orozco has the most wins out of any rider at the current meeting with 24 trips to the winners circle. Orozco holds a 2-win advantage over Abel Cedillo and Juan Hernandez…Winter/Spring meet top trainer Jonathan Wong has posted strong numbers at the current meeting. The Bay Area native sits a-top the trainer standings with 17 wins, seven more than Bill Delia and Victor Trujillo…Apprentice Victor Flores will be out of action for at least 3 weeks after dislocating his shoulder in a spill on Saturday. Flores was riding Underwrite in the eighth race when his mount clipped heels, stumbled and unseated Flores heading into the first turn of the one-mile contest. Underwrite was eventually corralled by an outrider and emerged from the incident unscathed…Live racing resumes at Santa Anita this Friday. On Saturday, Santa Anita holds four Grade I, “Win and You’re In” events for the Breeders Cup in November…Trainer Jerry Hollendorfer will be represented in 3 of the 4 Grade I races this Saturday. Hollendorfer tightens the girth on Brill in the Chandelier Stakes for 2-year-old fillies and saddles recent maiden winner Gunmetal Grey and Grade I placed Rowayton in the American Pharoah Stakes for 2-year-olds. Vasilika, a winner of six races in a row since being claimed by Hollendorfer for $40,000 in February, will start in the Rodeo Drive Stakes for fillies and mares…Happy birthday to trainer Andreas Psarras, Stable Manager Carrie Fawcett and jockey Hugo Herrera, all who celebrate birthday’s in the next 7 days.