HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Jockey Rosie Napravnik, who became just the sixth female to ride in the Kentucky Derby (G1) last May when she piloted George and Lori Hall’s Pants On Fire to a ninth-place finish, will be aboard the Hall’s 2011 Belmont Stakes (G1) winner Ruler On Ice in Saturday’s $500,000 Donn (G1) at Gulfstream Park.

Currently the leading rider at the Fair Grounds, Napravnik was named to ride the classic winner by trainer Kelly Breen. The Donn also features Preakness (G1) winner Shackleford and the undefeated Trickmeister.

“She’s been riding up a storm at Fair Grounds,” said Breen, whose gelding had been ridden last year by Jose Valdivia and, most recently, Garrett Gomez. “With Garrett Gomez out (with an injury), it’s an opportunity to go with Rosie.”

Napravnik, who will be riding at Gulfstream for the first time since 2008, is named on three other horses during the course of the afternoon, which features four graded stakes races.

“When I heard Kelly Breen and the Halls were reaching out to me to ride a horse of this caliber, who has accomplished so much, I felt extremely lucky,” Napravnik said. “The Halls are great people and we’ve developed quite a rapport.  They’re not afraid to give someone a chance, and they had great confidence in me going into the Derby last year.”

Napravnik believes she’s become a different rider in the four years between visits to Gulfstream.

“I always like to think I’m improving,” Napravnik said. “After each meet, I look back and think I’m coming out a better rider than I was going in. I’d like to think there’s a big difference between me as a rider now as compared to 2008. Hopefully on Saturday that will be evident.”

Throughout her career, Napravnik – who Thursday celebrated her 24th birthday – has been leading rider at Pimlico, Laurel and Delaware. Last year she became the first female to win the riding title in the history of the Fair Grounds. A victory in Saturday’s Donn would be the first Grade 1 win of her career.

“Last year the Louisiana Derby was my first million dollar win and it was also Kelly’s first million dollar win,” Napravnik said. “Now we’re going for a Grade 1.”

Ruler On Ice will be making his first start since a fifth-place finish in the Clark (G1) at Churchill Downs last November when ridden by Gomez. One start earlier, the gelded son of Roman Ruler rallied late to be third in the $5 million Breeders’ Cup Classic.

Three races prior to the Donn, Pants On Fire – with Napravnik aboard – is scheduled to make his turf debut in an allowance/optional claiming event. Saturday’s start will be Pants On Fire’s first since a fifth-place finish in the 2011 Haskell (G1) last July and third since his ninth-place Derby finish.

File photo
Rosie Napravnik

LAUREL, Md. – The Maryland Racing Commission suspended jockey Alberto Delgado 30 calendar days for his ride aboard My Sweet Nenana in last Wednesday’s seventh race at Laurel Park. Stewards Phil Grove, John Burke and Adam Campola handed down the suspension, which will begin Sunday, Feb. 12, at a hearing this morning at Laurel Park. Delgado will not be eligible to ride again until Tuesday, March 13.

According to the Equibase chart, My Sweet Nenana, the 1-2 favorite in the $5,000 claimer for fillies and mares, was “a bit rank leaving the starting gate, was immediately taken in hand, stayed inside horses and raced on her own courage.” The daughter of Jazz Club, who had not won since an upset victory in the 2010 Maryland Million Ladies at odds of 58-1, finished seventh of 10, nine lengths behind winner Iris’ Proverb.

My Sweet Nenana was claimed by trainer Dane Kobiskie last September for a chance to defend her Maryland Million title but she was winless in five succeeding attempts in the Kobiskie barn so the conditioner dropped the 6-year-old mare into a bottom level claimer in hopes of losing her.

“The reason that it took a week was because our investigator had to interview all the participants and we talked to the trainer and Albert,” Burke said. “Albert said he was afraid of the horse and we concur. We don’t believe there was anything nefarious going on here. Nothing points to it.”

Delgado has been a regular rider in the Maryland colony since 1982, the year he earned an Eclipse Award as Outstanding Apprentice. The 47-year-old, who has 2,867 career victories (176th on the all-time list), ranked ninth in the 2011 Maryland standings with 41 victories, while riding first call for Kobiskie. Overall he won 80 races during the year, the most since visiting the winners’ circle 122 times in 1999. He is best known for guiding Oliver’s Twist to a second place finish in the 1995 Preakness Stakes (G1) for trainer Bill Boniface.

Delgado ranks third in the current Laurel Park winter standings with 12 winners from 47 mounts, including a score in today’s opener aboard Caesar’s Gold ($5.20) for Kobiskie.

Burke and Campola indicated Delgado is not expected to appeal the decision.

PHOTO CREDIT-Jim McCue, Maryland Jockey Club
Alberto Delgado

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Despite a concern about Ever So Lucky’s final tune-up, trainer Jonathan Sheppard entered Augustin Stable’s 3-year-old colt in the $150,000 Hutcheson Stakes on Saturday’s Donn Handicap (G1) program at Gulfstream Park.

“I expect we’ll end up running him,” Sheppard said after entering Ever So Lucky in the seven-furlong stakes Wednesday morning. “The horse is doing wonderfully.”

Sheppard’s confidence in Ever So Lucky’s preparedness for the Hutcheson was shaken slightly by a five-furlong workout in 1:01.75 over a sloppy track Monday morning.

“It was too slow. I think the horse needed one more good work,” he said. “I mean, it was better than nothing, but it didn’t prove much.”

Although dissatisfied with his colt’s final workout for his 2012 debut, Sheppard’s hardly disappointed with his lightly raced colt, who had been training in Camden, S.C. before shipping to Gulfstream in mid-January.

Ever So Lucky, a likely strong favorite in the Hutcheson, was timed in 59.20 seconds for five furlongs in his previous workout.

“The horse wasn’t even blowing after the work,” Sheppard said. “When he worked the previous time, he worked in company. Julien (Leparoux) had to ride him a little bit to catch up. The horse got something out of it, and I wanted something similar. This time for some reason I decided to work him alone.”

Ever So Lucky has run only twice, both a Churchill Downs, including a sensational 3¼ -length maiden romp at 6½ -furlongs on Nov. 11 and a runner-up finish behind undefeated Gemologist in the 1 1/16-mile Kentucky Jockey Club (G2) only two weeks later.

Sheppard raised the possibility that he could scratch Ever So Lucky from the Hutcheson. In the event that Ever So Lucky does not run, his 2012 debut could be delayed by a month.

“I might just wait for the Swale Stakes – same distance, same purse. Most of the other graded stakes are all too long. I don’t particularly want to bring him back at a longer distance,” Sheppard said. “But we’ll see.”

Reed Palmer Photography
Ever So Lucky broke his maiden on Nov. 11 at Churchill Downs.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Edgar Prado has been making the most of his opportunities during the 2011-2012 meeting at Gulfstream Park, having already visited the winner’s circle on five more occasions than he did during the entire 2011 meeting.

The Hall of Fame jockey, who has ridden the winner’s of 6,523 races and $237 milion in purses, had somehow experienced a startling slow-down in business the past few years, particularly last year at Gulfstream when he rode only 14 winners for the entire stand. With more than two months remaining this year, Prado has ridden 18 winners from 108 mounts (the fewest of any rider in the Top 10).

Prado, who won Gulfstream titles in 2002 and 2005, persevered through the slow times and has steadily built back his business with an assist from a longtime client.

“When you’re not doing well, you need someone to give you a chance to show that you can still win races. At Belmont last year, Donald Adam gave me that chance and put me on his horses. He’s the one who helped me get started again,” said Prado of the owner of Courtlandt Farms. “I got to ride a lot of nice horses for him and win some races.”

The 44-year-old native of Lima Peru, who rode Barbaro for a victory in the 2006 Florida Derby and Kentucky Derby, finished off the 2011 campaign with success at Keeneland and Churchill Downs before returning to Gulfstream in December.

“It feels a lot better when you’re winning races,” said Prado, who rode the first three winners on a Gulfstream card last week.

LAUREL, Md. – The Navarro brothers made a triumphant return to the Maryland jockey colony this week as both Joshua and Kevin visited the Laurel Park winners’ circle Wednesday, their first day back in the jocks room.

Joshua, who has ranked near the top 10 in the local standings since arriving on the scene in August 2009, won Wednesday’s finale aboard first-time starter Firey Rockette. The 20-year-old missed more than two months after injuring his left shoulder in a Nov. 12 spill.

Kevin, who spent the month of January riding at Aqueduct, was victorious two races earlier with Iris’ Proverb for top trainer Dale Capuano. The 18-year-old spent the fall of 2011 in Maryland with 10 winners, including his maiden score here on November 5.

“Maryland has always been good to the bug and we are hoping to take the torch and run with it,” said Kevin’s agent Marty Leonard. “He definitely has potential. The stint in New York was tough on him. He is happy to be back here and is willing to work hard and possibly win the Eclipse Award for outstanding apprentice.”

In other news, veteran Harry Vega has moved his tack to Hawthorne. The 46-year-old, who is 70 wins shy of 4,000 for his career, has been a regular rider in the mid-Atlantic for more than a decade. He had just 10 mounts during the first month of the 2012 Laurel Park winter meeting.

PHOTO CREDIT-Jim McCue, Maryland Jokey Club

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Ramon Dominguez reclaimed the lead in the Aqueduct Racetrack inner-track jockey standings by winning four races on Wednesday.

Fourth in race 1 and without a mount in race 2, Dominguez picked up his first winner in race 3 when he guided Ms. Bird Watch ($3.70) to victory and capped his own rolling $22.20 Double with a score in race 4 aboard Princess Mara ($10.60). He was second with his next mount in race 6, posted a runway win in race 7 with Congo ($8.60), was nipped on the wire when runner-up by a neck in race 8, and concluded the card with winner’s circle appearance aboard Shalaka ($7.50) in race 9.

The two-time reigning Eclipse Award winner for Outstanding Jockey entered Wednesday’s card deadlocked at 50 with Cornelio Velasquez, who tied Dominguez on Saturday by winning races 6 and 8. Dominguez spent the weekend competing at GulfstreamPark, where he won the Sunshine Millions Classic with Mucho Macho Man on Saturday and was second in the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth aboard Hansen on Sunday.

With Velasquez having been shut out on Sunday and Wednesday, Dominguez leads that rival 54-50, with Irad Ortiz, Jr. in third with 44 victories.

Racing at Aqueduct resumes Thursday at 12:20 p.m.

NEW ORLEANS, La. – Jockey Ramsey Zimmerman knew that coming back to Fair Grounds this winter would not be easy.

“If it was up to me, I would have crawled back to some little track where nobody knew anything about me but my wife wouldn’t let me,” said Zimmerman Sunday morning at Fair Grounds, shortly after attending mass with Jenny and their 11-month old daughter Race Hannah. “She said I was too good a rider to do that. She believed in me, and after what I put her through last summer, I had to do whatever she wanted. She stuck by me and went through all this with me. I owe her everything for that.”

What Zimmerman was referring to, of course, was a very dark day last May when he was arrested in Des Moines, Iowa, and charged with four felonies, including possession and intent to deliver crack cocaine and heroin. Police had found the Chicagoland native in an unresponsive state while operating a motor vehicle.

“What happened was – I messed up big-time,” said Zimmerman. “After a year and a half of sobriety I went out on a binge. I let everybody down – my family and a lot of other people who believed in me.”

Exactly 110 days after being picked up by police, Zimmerman was released from the Polk County, Iowa, jail and went directly into rehab for another 30 days.

“It was the scariest ordeal I ever went through,” said Zimmerman Sunday of his summer and fall of incarceration. “It was brutal – an awful experience. I’d been in trouble with the law before, but never anything like that. Now, all I can do is put it behind me and move forward.”

Someone once said, it’s not how you fall, it’s what you do after you get up that matters most, and if that is so, Zimmerman seems well on his way to redemption. With limited opportunities, the talented reinsman entered Sunday’s race day in 12th position in the local rider standings with 14 winners from 177 mounts.

“I told him when he came to me and asked me to take his book that we were going to have an uphill battle at first,” said veteran Louisiana-based agent Rick Mocklin. “But racetrackers tend to be a very forgiving group of people, and if you mess up one time – a lot of them are willing to give you a second, or even a third chance if they see that you are trying to make things right again.

“Since he’s gotten back down here this season, Ramsey has proved that to a lot of people,” said Mocklin. “In that sense, he’s his own best agent. He sells himself and he’s proving to people that he’s dedicated to riding again and wanting to do the right thing. He’s been showing up every morning and showing everyone he’s willing to work hard for them.” 

Some of Zimmerman’s better moments in the past came here in New Orleans five years ago when he rode Jerrold and Shirley Schwartz’s Cloudy’s Knight to victory in the Grade III Fair Grounds Handicap and then finished second by a half-length to Eclipse Award-winning turf horse Einstein in the Grade II Mervin Muniz Memorial Handicap.

Later that season, Zimmerman rode Cloudy’s Knight to victory in the Grade I Canadian International at Woodbine for the biggest win of his career.

“One of the proudest moments of my life,” said Zimmerman of that Canadian International win. “I’m proudest of my two children (his son Ryder is 6), but ‘Cloudy’ is Number Three.

“Actually, coming back down here hasn’t been as bad as I thought it could be,” said Zimmerman. “A lot of people seem to have accepted me and have given me a chance to ride their horses. Mike Burgess started using me right away, and guys like Bob Young and Bernie Flint have also given me some nice horses to ride. Also, a lot of the littler guys have used me on their horses.

“Considering what happened to me, I’m doing quite well,” said Zimmerman, who once rode seven winners in a night card at Fairmount Park and finished second by a nose with the other two. “If I keep working hard like I’m doing right now, I think things are going to keep getting better for me. I really believe that.”

LAUREL, Md. – The Maryland Jockey Club honored trainer Ferris Allen for reaching the 2,000-win plateau last month with a winners’ circle presentation following Saturday’s first race. The 60-year-old, who saddled his first winner in 1974, accomplished the milestone when he saddled From Jump Street to victory at Gulfstream Park on December 18, 2011.

“It’s terrific to get this accomplished and as you know it’s a team effort,” Allen said. “Lots and lots of efforts from individuals that go into this. A lot of people don’t realize that it takes one employee roughly for every two horses so if you’re winning a hundred races a year just think of all the human effort that goes into that and I’ve been blessed with great people working for me all along.”

A baseball player at William & Mary, the 60-year-old led all trainers in wins on the Maryland circuit in 1999 and ranked in the top 10 for 16 consecutive years (1995-2010). His barn has earned more than $1 million for 15 straight years.

“I was a school teacher for three years and I thought I’d take a break from teaching to train horses for a year,” joked Allen, who has won 801 races at Laurel and Pimlico since 1995. “We made a decision to be a regional operation so I could be around the family much like what Mario Pino did. We chose Maryland because at the time it was the best year-round circuit and I am hoping we can get back to that. I do think we can get back to that. It is right around the horizon after the slots get going to help purses.”

Allen is best known for conditioning Miracle Wood to a fifth place finish in the 1986 Preakness at odds of 20-1 and winning the Grade 2 Barbara Fritchie Handicap with Passeggiata in 1999.

“It’s all about standing right here, in the winners’ circle,” added Allen. “We won only six races combined in ’74 and ’75 but I remember each one of them like it was yesterday. As you look back it isn’t just the stakes horses but there have been special mid-level runners and cheap claimers that hang with you through the years.”

PHOTO CREDIT-Jim McCue, Maryland Jockey Club

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – It may be the middle of winter in New York City, but for apprentice jockey Jose I. Rodriguez, being able to ride at Aqueduct Racetrack these days is a dream come true.

“When I was growing up in Puerto Rico, we used to listen to the races on the radio,” said Rodriguez, 21, shortly after winning Thursday’s fourth race aboard D’ Sauvage for his fourth victory of the inner track meet. “I used to ride my uncle’s horses [on the farm] and as soon as I could I went to the jockey school in San Juan. I always wanted to be a jockey.”

After attending the Escuela Vocacional Hipica, or VocationalEquineSchool, for two years, Rodriguez turned professional, riding briefly in Puerto Rico before moving his tack to Louisiana. He notched his first United States victory with his first mount, Storm Kitty, at Delta Downs on February 9, 2011, and within a month began riding in Florida, first at Gulfstream Park and then at Calder Race Course. After riding only nine winners at Calder from April 25 through September 30, Rodriguez subsequently finished tied for sixth place with 18 winners at the Tropical-at-Calder meet which ended on November 30.

Next stop, New York.

“The best riders are in New York, and that’s where I wanted to be,” said Rodriguez, who currently has a seven-pound weight allowance. “They are more professional, and the racing is a better class.”

Apprentice jockeys often fare well at the Big A during the winter months, when many of the top name riders head to Florida, but this year’s jockey colony has proven exceptionally strong. Headed by reigning Eclipse winner Ramon Dominguez, the ensemble not only includes veterans such as Cornelio Velasquez, Mike Luzzi, David Cohen, Alan Garcia and C.C. Lopez but also two established apprentices in Ryan Curatolo and Irad Ortiz., Jr. and a handful of other bug boys.

“His time will come,” said former jockey Jose Amy, who took Rodriguez’s book three weeks ago. “I see a lot of talent, and he’s willing to work hard. Already I see the effects of what I have been telling him – simple things, like using the whip only when necessary, concentrating on saving ground, being patient and keeping the rhythm of the horse. There’s more to being a jockey than sitting on top of a horse, and this kid is learning.”

Rodriguez’s willingness to learn and work hard, along with his natural ability, has attracted the attention of horsemen.

“This is as good a jockey colony as it’s ever been, and I think this kid is going to wind up doing well,” said trainer Carlos Martin. “He’s a strong finisher, and he’s got a good work ethic. He comes out every morning and he’s a nice young kid, too.”

While being able to ride at Aqueduct this winter has been a dream come true for Rodriguez, he is determined not to let it stop there.

“If everything works out, I want to stay in New York,” he said. “This is the best place, and that’s where I want to stay.”

Adam Coglianese/NYRA
Jose I. Rodriguez

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Jockey Calvin Borel, a two-time leading rider at Oaklawn and a member of the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame, will return to Hot Springs beginning Saturday, Feb. 4 after starting the year riding at Gulfstream Park in South Florida.

“Calvin and I have been together 21 years and felt we owed it to each other to try Florida,” said Borel’s agent Jerry Hissam. “He called me the other night and asked if I wanted to go back to Arkansas and of course I said yes. We’re both ready to get back home and he’s ready to do some fishing.”

If past seasons are any indication, Borel can expect many trips to the winner’s circle between those runs to the fishing hole. His experience and connections at Oaklawn are part of what propelled the 45-year-old native of Louisiana’s Cajun Country to horse racing’s biggest stages in the past six years.

“Oaklawn is where we have had some of our greatest successes. It’s there we secured the relationship with Rachel Alexandra and earned the mount on Super Saver, our third Kentucky Derby winner. We’ve been blessed to ride some good horses here, but there will probably be more opportunities to ride at home. We hope to come back to Florida for stakes races and are particularly excited about the three-year-old Take Charge Indy. We’d like to see him come for either the Rebel or Arkansas Derby.”

Borel is one of the most successful jockeys in the history of the Kentucky Derby, winning the race three out of four years. His first winner was Street Sense in 2007, followed by longshot Mine That Bird in 2009 and Arkansas Derby runner-up Super Saver in 2010. He made headlines in 2009 when he opted to ride Rachel Alexandra over Mine That Bird in the Preakness and won the race with the filly, who went on to be named Horse of the Year at the end of that season.  

File photo
Calvin Borel