At the Gulfstream championship meet, where he was riding against many of the best jockeys in the country, he demolished the competition, winning 140 races, 42 more than runner-up Paco Lopez. Yet, he seems to have taken things to another level this year. He's won the Eclipse Award as the nation's top jockey three years in row and has led the nation in both wins and earnings every year since 2018. He anticipated that she was going to idle and bit and when that happened he was able to get Letruska to impose her will on Monomoy Girl.” When he really set Letruska down was when Monomoy Girl got in front of her. Monomoy Girl does have a tendency, when she gets to the front, to idle a little bit.
“Most good riders know the habits of the horses around them and the other riders around them. He is not getting in her way and he was not using her. Did you see how comfortable she was down the backstretch? He was allowing her to run at her natural gait, where she's just very happy and very efficient. “It was a matter of him not getting in Letruska's way. “I understand that this is horse racing and you need the horse underneath you, but this was one of those races where the rider totally made the difference,” he said. Migliore said that in the Apple Blossom Ortiz made all the right moves at the right time. Irad brings that to the table on a daily basis.” I am a firm believer that horses feed on the energy from the people around them, and when that happens a horse will give his very best.
You can see the enthusiasm whenever he is riding. He loves what he is doing and he's always enthusiastic, and it doesn't matter if it's $10,000 claimer or a Grade I. When it comes to the mental side, he has the mentality of a champion, which is very hard to maintain over an extended period of time. He's very strong, so, from the physical side he is gifted. “You have to have natural ability to begin with, which he has in spades,” Migliore said.”He has incredible natural ability. She responded really well.”Īs an analyst on the “America's Day at the Races” show on the Fox Sports networks, former rider Richard Migliore has seen Ortiz win hundreds of races, many of them coming when he was not necessarily aboard the best horse. She relaxed and I was able to save something for the end. It seemed that Ortiz knew that Letruska had just enough left to make one well-timed surge before the wire. It was not until the last three jumps or so that Letruska drew even before putting her nose in front at the wire. She was the favorite, the class of the field and had all the momentum.įor the next 20 seconds, Monomoy Girl held the lead. But when Monomoy Girl poked her head in front past the quarter-pole, the race appeared to be over. She clung to a narrow lead over Monomoy Girl as Swiss Skydiver started to back out if it. Midway on the far turn, it was clear that Letruska was going to put up a fight. Letruska had solid credentials and a couple of Grade III wins on her resume, but it didn't appear that she had the ability to defeat either of the Eclipse Award winners. The Apple Blossom was supposed to be a two-horse race between superstars Swiss Skydiver ( Daredevil) and Monomoy Girl (Tapizar). Still, it looked like the best the 5-year-old mare could hope for was a third-place finish. Ortiz picked up the mount on Letruska (Super Saver) for Saturday's race, riding her for the first time. When a race, in this case the GI Apple Blossom H., comes down to a nose at the wire and Ortiz is on the winning end, he probably made the difference. It happened again on Saturday, just as it seems to happen on every big day at the track.
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