Jose Leon

Next (Not This Time) isn't just winning races. He is destroying the competition. A marathon-race specialist, he did it again last week at Parx, when he won the GIII Greenwood Cup S. by an astounding 25 lengths. It's been quite a ride for his trainer, Doug Cowans, who claimed the now 5-year-old last year for $62,500. To talk about Next and to discuss his future plans, Cowans joined this week's TDN Writers' Room podcast presented by Keeneland. He was this week's Green Group Guest of the Week. Despite his horse's...

The chief state steward at Mountaineer Park, Jim O'Brien, on Friday defended his board's seemingly light $100 penalization of jockey Jose A. Leon after other licensees who were on horseback during training hours at the West Virginia track Sept. 10 testified that the 24-year-old rider dismounted from an unruly horse and struck it across the face with his whip. "He was wrong, but I guess he let his anger get the best of him, and he hit the horse in the face," O'Brien told TDN. O'Brien added that he and...

Jockey Jose A. Leon has been fined $100 for hitting a horse in the face during training hours at Mountaineer Park. According to a Mountaineer stewards' ruling, "Mr. Leon was caught striking a horse across the face on Sunday, Sept. 10, 2023, during morning exercising." The ruling didn't specify whether Leon struck the horse with his whip or his hand. Joe Moore, the executive director of the West Virginia Racing Commission, wrote in an email that he did not have any details about the incident beyond what the Mountaineer stewards...