Jockey

Looking forward to gaining clearance from her doctor April 18 to return to riding, jockey Anna "Rosie" Napravnik said she has major changes planned for when she gets back in the saddle. The Eclipse Award runner-up for apprentice jockey last season, Napravnik said she has come upon an opportunity too good to pass up and will move her riding base from Maryland to Delaware Park. As part of that arrangement, she will also begin working with agent Steve Rushing, recognized as the top jockey agent in the Mid-Atlantic.

Edgar Prado can merely shake his head."I thought I was dreaming," he said.On Monday, closing day at Saratoga, Prado won the last race aboard Olive Flu to edge Jorge Chavez for second place in the jockey standings. Prado won 36 races, one more than Chavez, New York's winningest rider the past five years. Jerry Bailey, a three-time Eclipse Award winner, finished on top with 47.After dominating Maryland racing for a decade, Prado moved his tack to Saratoga for the prestigious six-week meet billed as perhaps the toughest in the country.

Edgar Prado will ride with racing's elite tonight in the National All-Star Jockey Championship at Lone Star Park in Texas.The dominant jockey in Maryland throughout the 1990s, Prado was one of 12 riders invited to the nationally televised event at the thriving 2-year-old track between Dallas and Fort Worth.He joins four Hall of Famers (Jerry Bailey, Pat Day, Chris McCarron and Laffit Pincay Jr.) and other top riders in a four-race competition for charity and pride."I really feel great about it," Prado said.

Even more remarkable than Mario Pino's five consecutive victories recently at Laurel Park was that this wasn't the first time the jockey had won five races in a row.In the early 1980s Pino won five straight at Delaware Park. That may surprise bettors who have every right to wonder: How long has Pino been riding, anyway?"When I tell people how long, they say, `What?' " Pino said. "They think I've been around maybe 10 years or so."Pino has entered his third decade as a jockey. He rode his first race in 1978 when he was 17. Now 37, he has ridden long enough to have won more races in Maryland than any other jockey.

Good Fellas Stables purchased Smart Guy as a yearling at the Timonium sales for $10,000. Obviously, he was a bargain.The Smarten colt returned the purchase price more than four-fold yesterday with a resounding victory in the $75,000 Deputed Testamony Stakes at 8-to-1 odds.A full brother to the accomplished Maragold Princess, Smart Guy "is not a very big horse," according to trainer Tim Ritchey. "But I liked the way he looked in the ring and the way he moved."With jockey David Appleby in the irons, Smart Guy stalked an honest pace for six furlongs, then exploded to the front and went on to win by 9 1/4 lengths over another long shot, Scootch.

In midafternoon at Timonium Race Course, 10 horses are stampeding toward the first turn, the petite riders on their backs in control. From the porch of the jockeys' room, the view is enough to frighten most sane adults.There, in full view is the danger -- the big sweating animals charging at 35 mph, running so close together their bodies rub and their hoofs click as they make incidental contact. It is coordinated mayhem, a fantastic, frenetic jostle for position before the banked course forces them into a pounding left-hand turn.

Although heat ruled the day at Laurel Park, rain may have been the key to yesterday's Fourth of July feature.Casey Tibbs ventured from Belmont Park to win the $100,000 Fort McHenry Handicap, a 1 1/4-mile romp on turf. An Irish-bred son of Sadler's Wells, Europe's top sire, Casey Tibbs prefers "a little cut in the ground," said his assistant trainer, Christophe Lorieul. By that, he meant the 5-year-old horse likes turf that isn't like pavement. Lorieul said Laurel's turf, softened by recent rains, was perfect.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. -- Mike Smith, the leading rider at Saratoga Park this summer and the regular jockey on the star colt Coronado's Quest, fractured two vertebrae in his upper back in a spill he took on Monday. He will not ride for three or four months.The 33-year-old jockey remained at Albany Medical Center yesterday. He was transferred there Monday night from Saratoga Hospital, and was resting comfortably with no neurological damage, according to his doctors. But Dr. Allen Carl, an orthopedic surgeon and specialist in spinal injuries, reported that Smith, who walked away from the spill unaided only to check himself into the hospital later, would be kept in a body cast for two months.

ELMONT, N.Y. -- Bob Baffert, the trainer of Real Quiet, couldn't make it any clearer."My job is done," he said yesterday, on the eve of the Belmont Stakes.So who takes over? Who is left to try to complete racing's first Triple Crown sweep in 20 years?"That's me," jockey Kent Desormeaux said. "I have to get the job done now."At age 28, eight years removed from his days of dominance at Laurel and Pimlico, Desormeaux faces the ride of his life today.With a dozen horses challenging him, he will find either immortality or ignominy aboard Real Quiet.

LOS ANGELES -- Kent Desormeaux is reliving his first Kentucky Derby victory.It's a week after the fact, but the feelings are still close to the surface. He's sitting at Los Alamitos Race Course having dinner with his wife, Sonia, and 5-year-old son, Joshua, and his voice goes hoarse with emotion.Specifically, he's recalling his thoughts as he crossed the finish line at Churchill Downs aboard Real Quiet.He remembered his first pony. His first ride. His first starts from the gate in Louisiana and Maryland.

William J. Passmore Sr., who during a 38-year career became known as the dean of Maryland-based jockeys and then worked as a racing steward for another two decades, died Thursday of complications from emphysema at his Millersville home. He was 76. Mr. Passmore was born in West Chester, Pa. His father, William L. Passmore, who was a noted steeplechase rider and trainer, worked for horse owner and breeder Bayard Sharp at his farm in the West Chester horse country. As a youth, Mr. Passmore broke yearlings, and rode his first mount, Minneapolis, at the old Jamaica Race Track in New York when he was 15 years old - one year before the legal age of 16. "Of course I remember the date.

1 Big Drama Odds: 10-1 Jockey: John Velazquez 2 Mine That Bird Odds: 6-1 Jockey: Mike Smith 3 Musket Man Odds: 8-1 Jockey: Eibar Coa 4 Luv Gov Odds: 50-1 Jockey: Jamie Theriot 5 Friesan Fire Odds: 6-1 Jockey: Gabriel Saez 6 Terrain Odds: 30-1 Jockey: Jeremy Rose 7 Papa Clem Odds: 12-1 Jockey: Rafael Bejarano 8 General Quarters Odds: 20-1 Jockey: Julien Leparoux 9 Pioneer of the Nile Odds: 5-1 Jockey: Garrett Gomez...

So many things can go wrong. That's the reality for any given horse in any given race. Maybe he's burned out from training too hard. Maybe he has a sore hoof. Maybe it's raining and he doesn't like the mud. Maybe he stumbles coming out of the gate or another horse bangs into him. Maybe his jockey doesn't devise the right tactical plan. Maybe he's simply tired compared with the rest of the field. Multiply those possibilities over three races packed with the best 3-year-old thoroughbreds in the world and it's easy to understand why we haven't had a Triple Crown winner in 30 years.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has a blog, and in the hours after the Kentucky Derby two weeks ago, these are some of the comments that were posted: "I want this greedy, despicable jockey brought up on charges!! Scum of the earth!!" "That jockey should have known the horse was in distress rather than beating her." "I think in cases where the horse dies ... the jockey, trainer and owners should die, also. They are scum and what this jockey did to that horse is reprehensible.

Edgar Prado will always be remembered for riding Barbaro to his Kentucky Derby triumph in 2006 and the 6,040 victories in his storied career, which included a stint in Maryland, where he led the nation in wins from 1997 to 1999. Now the 40-year-old jockey has been elected to the National Museum of Racing's Hall of Fame, an honor he called "amazing." "I'm just speechless. I'm shaking like a leaf," Prado said. "Just to be nominated for the Hall of Fame among all my peers was great. To win is amazing."

Sindy With an S took her time yesterday coming down the backstretch, but when it came time to go, the 3-year-old Broken Vow filly listened to jockey Jeremy Rose and made her move in midstretch before pulling away to win the Grade III $200,000 Safely Kept Stakes. The Safely Kept is for 3-year-old fillies and run over six furlongs on Laurel Park's main, dirt track. The race is named for the first sprinter to have earned more than $2 million and the first Maryland-bred to win a Breeders' Cup race, the Sprint-G1 in 1990.

Surrounded by Ferris wheels and roller coasters, the racetrack at Timonium Fairgrounds resembles a carousel with live horses. It's a tiny oval with hairpin turns - a thrill for some jockeys, a not-so-merry-go-round for others. At five-eighths of a mile, Timonium is barely half the size of Pimlico Race Course. Thoroughbreds race here just seven days a year on weekends during the Maryland State Fair, which ends tomorrow. But that's long enough to give the track a feel all its own. For instance, the 100-foot Ferris wheel spinning near the far turn has scared more than one equine.

You don't script days like this one. There are parts you fear, other parts you dream about. But you can't plan it this way. In fact, the only thing you could say was tailor-made about the 132nd running of the Preakness was the suit that jockey Calvin Borel showed up wearing yesterday morning. It was navy blue, but it wasn't tailored for him. Inside was the name of fellow Louisiana native Robby Albarado. Their friendship stretches from the bush tracks of Cajun country all the way to the photo finish that decided yesterday's exciting race.

They just don't make 'em like Gelo anymore. Always dapper, always the consummate gentlemen, always prattling on about this horse and that jockey, this owner and that trainer. Always here, an 80-year-old man whose slow walk is almost a strut as he ambles around the Pimlico Race Course, hollers of "Gelo" (pronounced Jello) trailing him every step of the way. "Thank you, gentlemen, thanks a lot," the man with the top hat and tweed sports jacket says, nodding to the patrons parked in front of Simulcast screens as he walks by. "See you later, Gelo," they shout back.

Jeremy Rose is 28, stands 5 feet tall and loves dogs - especially Zoey, his Rottweiler; Titan, his bull mastiff; and Damian, his Great Dane, who is taller than he is when standing on his hind legs. Obviously, he's not one of those dog owners who look like their pets. But, then, Rose has never exactly been conventional. A native of State College, Pa., Rose didn't start riding racehorses until he was 21. He planned to go to college on a wrestling scholarship, until the weight-class qualification moved from 118 pounds to 126 and he couldn't gain enough to compete.