NEWS
Jockey Acosta secures 1,000th win milestone`
Posted: Sunday, January 13, 2008 2:02 PM
Jockey J. D. Acosta earned his milestone 1,000th career win aboard Electric Glide in the first race at Charles Town Races on Saturday.
Acosta guided the three-year-old Honor Glide colt to a 2 1/2-length win in a seven-furlong maiden claiming race.
The 26-year-old native of the Dominican Republic moved to Puerto Rico with his mother as a child, where he was discovered while working at a 7-Eleven by an instructor at the Puerto Rico Jockey School. The instructor told him he had the perfect physique to be a jockey, and in 2000, Acosta enrolled in the school.
Acosta moved to West Virginia six years ago and began riding at Charles Town in 2002. He secured his first stakes win as an apprentice aboard Courageous Valor in the 2002 West Virginia Futurity and won 200 races that year.
Acosta competes in marathons in his spare time. Through Saturday, Acosta was the leading jockey by wins and earnings at Charles Town with 16 winners from 49 starters and $197,390 in purse earnings.
