John Velazquez

Sponsored by Alex Nichols Agency 2nd-FG, $75K, Msw, 3yo, 6f, 1:30 p.m. Closing weekend at the Fair Grounds includes a pair of important maiden races on Saturday, as Juddmonte homebred CASTLEWARDEN (Into Mischief) heads to post four under Lasix as the morning line 5-2 favorite. Trained by Brad Cox and with the services of Florent Geroux, he is a full-brother to GII Pat O'Brien S. victor Laurel River. Castlewarden's dam Calm Water (Empire Maker) is a full-sister to MGISW Emollient, who herself has produced French GSW Raclette (GB) (Frankel {GB})...

A four-time Eclipse Award winner and a member of racing's Hall of Fame since 2017, Venezuelan native Javier Castellano has won the 2023 George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award via a nationwide vote of his fellow riders. Castellano, 45, will be honored in a Runhappy Winner's Circle ceremony at Santa Anita this spring. Married to his wife, Abby, Castellano, who immigrated to the United States in June of 1997, has three children, Kayla, Sienna and Brady and is the son-in-law of Terry Meyocks, National Director of the Jockeys' Guild. Presented annually...

Red Oak Stable (Stephen P. Brunetti) and Madaket Stable's (Sol Kumin) Mind Control (Stay Thirsty--Feel That Fire, by Lightnin N Thunder) winner of the GI $750,000 Cigar Mile at Aqueduct on Dec. 3 in the final start of his career, will stand at Rockridge Stud in New York under the management of Irish Hill Farm, Dutchess Views Stallions, Hidden Lake Farm and Rockridge Stud. The five-year-old is out of a stakes-winning mare and is priced at $8,500 LFSN. Mind Control won the GI Hopeful S. as a 2-year-old and the...

Hall of Fame jockey John Velazquez won a pair of races on the opening day of the Bing Crosby meet at Del Mar and his presence is something that Southern California is about to get more used to. The 50-year-old is using his time at Del Mar as a steppingstone to the winter stand at Santa Anita Park, where he plans to ride full time. "I wanted to get it started here so the trainers and owners know I'm going to be here for the winter," Velazquez told the Del...

John Velazquez wouldn't give a definitive answer on where Gamine (Into Mischief - Peggy Jane, Kafwain) ranks on the list of all-stars the Hall of Fame jockey has been associated with over the years, but he came pretty close. Asked how the champion sprinter stacks up against a long line of high-class fillies he has ridden to Grade I success, he responded, "She's definitely one of the top ones. Like definitely one or two, I would say." That answer is high praise coming from the two-time Eclipse Award-winning jockey, who...

It was a relatively quiet Thursday last week when jockey John Velazquez registered his 1,000th victory at Saratoga, extending his record as the winningest jockey in Spa history. Sifting through the archives to get a feel for what was going on in the sport when Johnny V. won his first career race at Saratoga back on Aug. 5, 1990, yields a heady mix of nostalgia tinged with kismet. Although not considered a truly "historic" day of racing at the Spa, there are enough intriguing nuggets buried within the charts and...

Flavien Prat is a world-class jockey, a future Hall of Famer who dominated the Southern California circuit before heading east. Yet, he entered the week tied for fourth-place in the Saratoga jockey standings, 15 wins behind the leader, Irad Ortiz, Jr. Tyler Gaffalione is the top jockey in Kentucky and is coming off a meet at Churchill Downs where he was leading rider and had 29 more wins than the runner-up. He began the week in ninth-place in the Saratoga standings. That's no reflection on Prat or Gaffalione. What it...

Holiday weekends are often synonymous with exciting race cards and this Fourth of July weekend is no exception with a dozen graded events on tap Saturday that include some of racing's best. The highlight of the day's action is the return of 'TDN Rising Star' Life Is Good (Into Mischief), who is making his first start back since finishing fourth in the G1 Dubai World Cup Mar. 26 in Belmont's GII John A. Nerud S. A dominant winner of last year's GII Kelso H. and GI Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile...

When the late John Brunetti Sr., the colorful and sometimes controversial owner of Hialeah Park and the Red Oak Stable breeding and racing operation, died at 87 in 2018, his racing manager, Rick Sacco, told TDN, "He's been active right up until the very end [and] this is probably Mr. Brunetti's best crop of homebred 2-year-olds that we've ever had." The standout from that Red Oak foaling class of '16 ended up being GISW Mind Control (Stay Thirsty), who at age six edged up over the $1.5 million earnings mark...

Gayla Rankin's Happy Soul (Runhappy), a well-beaten sixth last time out in Keeneland's 8 1/2-furlong GI Ashland S. Apr. 8, has already proven her talent sprinting and will attempt to get back on track in Friday's GIII Miss Preakness S. at Pimlico. A runaway winner in two of three starts at two, including Belmont's Astoria S. last June, she was shelved for the rest of the season before resurfacing with a three-length win in Oaklawn's six-panel Dixie Belle S. Feb. 19. In her latest work, she posted a bullet five...

The riders of both the winner and the fourth-place horse in a $108,0000 allowance race on last Saturday's GI Arkansas Derby undercard both were fined for apparently forgetting that mile races at Oaklawn Park end at the sixteenth pole and not the traditional finish wire. Geovanni Franco and John Velazquez each were assessed $200 fines from the Oaklawn stewards on Thursday for "misjudging the wire and striking his horse after the finish of the fourth race at Oaklawn Park on April 2, 2022." Franco was on the lead for most...

Sponsored by Alex Nichols Agency 1st-KEE, $80K, MSW, 2yo, 4 1/2f, 1:00 p.m. The opening day of the 2022 Keeneland Spring Meet features the first 2-year-old races of the year and the first opportunity for freshman sires to get their second careers off to a winning start. Success as a new stallion is of no concern for Uncle Mo, the sire of first-time starter DOMINICANA. A daughter of the SP Speightstown mare Chattertown, Dominicana is a full-sister to GSW and late sire Laoban. Purchased for $300,000 from the 2021 Keeneland...