NEWS
Ricardo boots home five winners to reach 10,000
Posted: Wednesday, January 09, 2008 10:34 PM
by Michael Burns
Brazilian jockey Jorge Ricardo became the first jockey in history to win 10,000 races when he booted home five winners from seven mounts on Wednesday’s 12-race card at Hipodromo San Isidro in Buenos Aires.
The 46-year-old Ricardo reached the milestone victory when guiding Stud Roseur’s three-year-old filly Membresia to a come-from-behind half-length victory in Wednesday’s 11th race.
Ricardo won the second race aboard Jade But Royal, the third race with Metcladito, and the sixth race aboard Quemera. Ricardo also picked up a win in the featured eighth race, the Clasico Enero, when he guided Haras La Pomme’s homebred Ricitos to a 2 1/2-length score in the 1,000-meter (4.97-furlong) turf race.
Ricardo finished fourth and second with his two other mounts.
The Brazilian-born champion rider regained the lead as the world's leading active jockey on February 5, 2007, when he rode the 9,591st winner of his career to surpass Northern California-based Racing Hall of Fame jockey Russell Baze. The world record then changed hands on eight occasions in 2007 before Ricardo assumed command in August. Baze currently trails Ricardo by 27 victories.
Ricardo won 26 straight jockey titles in Rio de Janeiro before moving his tack permanently to Buenos Aires in June 2006 to set his sights on the world record. He amassed 450 victories last year in Argentina to rank as that nation’s top rider by a landslide. He holds the single-season track record of 477 victories for the 1992-'93 racing year.
Michael Burns is a South America-based Thoroughbred Times correspondent
