Velazquez Searching for Gold

The first time Angel Cordero saw John Velazquez ride, the Hall of Fame jockey wasn’t impressed.

“I saw a kid who had been riding for about two weeks,” recalled Cordero, who was sent tapes of a teenage Velazquez riding at El Comandante in his native Puerto Rico.

A longtime friend of Cordero’s also watched the tapes and had a different opinion. Former major league baseball player and horse racing fan Richie Allen saw ability.

“Richie said to me, ‘That kid has talent,’ ” Cordero said. “ ‘He reminds me of you.’ ”

Tico Garcia, the man who’d sent the tapes to Cordero, was also convinced. “This is a very nice, serious kid,” Garcia said at the time. “He’s going to be a star.”

That prophecy has been fulfilled. Now 33, Velazquez has become perhaps the best rider in the U.S. He won the money title and his first Eclipse Award in 2004 and is in position to repeat in both areas this year, having wrested dominance from longtime money leader Jerry Bailey, a frequent Eclipse Award winner.

A New York rider, Velazquez, who finished second Sunday with favored Melhor Ainda in the American Oaks at Hollywood Park, will make his second trip to California in a week when he rides probable favorite Limehouse in the $750,000 Hollywood Gold Cup on Saturday.

Limehouse, is a 4-year-old Grand Slam colt owned by Dogwood Farm. He won his last two races for Todd Pletcher, Velazquez’s chief client and the nation’s leading trainer.

After spending 1 1/2 years at a jockey school in Puerto Rico, Velazquez went to New York early in 1990. Allen was his original agent, but Cordero, who was still riding, immediately took the apprentice under his wing.

In fact, Velazquez lived with Cordero for a few months, beginning a friendship that remains intact. Cordero, who retired in 1992 after a bad spill at Aqueduct, then came back briefly in 1995, is Velazquez’s agent. “Without Angel, I wouldn’t be here,” Velazquez said. “I learned from him, not just about riding, but everything you need to survive. Since I’ve been here, he’s always been behind me 100%, even when he was still riding.

“He taught me how to handle myself in every way. When I first went to New York, he always made me feel like I was at home.”

Cordero, 62, is a reluctant agent. Seventh on the all-time win list with 7,076 victories and a member of the sport’s Hall of Fame, Cordero trained after his retirement and it took a lot of coaxing for him to become an agent. He and Velazquez have been together since 1998, although Cordero took a month off earlier this year to exercise horses for Pletcher.

“John asked me to be his agent a couple of times after I got hurt, but I wanted to try training and wanted to get that out of my system,” Cordero said. “One day, he called me and said his agent had quit about halfway through the Gulfstream Park meeting.

“My wife [Marjorie, who was killed by a hit-and-run driver in January 2001] said, ‘That’s the third time he’s asked you, so you better do it.’

“I make good money, but I don’t think I could work for any other rider. There’s no pressure with him. He’s very easy to work with. Since I’ve been with him, we haven’t lost any customers. He works hard and he produces.

“I felt very proud when he won the Eclipse because I was his agent, but I would have felt just as proud if he was with another agent because he’s like my son. I’m extremely proud of what he has accomplished.”

Cordero, a fierce competitor who was willing to do just about anything to win a race, says Velazquez has a lot of qualities he lacks.

“He’s a good man, he’s good with his family and he’s good with the people who work in the stable area,” Cordero said. “He gets along with people and people like him a lot.

“As a rider, he’s smart. He’s good away from the gate, saves ground and he is a strong finisher.”

Although his family had no connection to racing, Velazquez was drawn to horses as a child and enrolled in the jockey school when he was 16.

“I was always very interested in horses,” he said. “When I went to the school, I found it very interesting. It was new to me, but it was exciting to go learn something.

“It took a lot of time and hard work to get to the point where I was ready to ride. The first two horses I rode finished off the board, but I won with the third one two months before I came to the United States.”

Velazquez has finished among the top 10 in New York for 12 consecutive years. He won 335 races and his mounts earned more than $22.2 million last year. He is winning at about a 25% clip with more than $7.7 million in purses in 2005. He also has won six Breeders’ Cup races, two for Pletcher on Oct. 30 at Lone Star Park in Grand Prairie, Texas.

Velazquez set a record for most victories at Saratoga in successive years, 61 in 2003 and 65 last year. He also won a record six races there on Sept. 3, 2001.

All of his success finally merited an Eclipse Award last year.

“It never even crossed my mind when I first started riding something like that could happen,” he said. “It meant a whole lot me. It was a big surprise and a huge accomplishment. It was a great thrill.”

Second to Congaree with Harlan’s Holiday in his only previous appearance in the Gold Cup, Velazquez will have a chance to win yet another race for Pletcher on Saturday.

“We have a very good working relationship,” Pletcher said. “Sometimes we know what the other is thinking and we don’t even have to say anything to each other.

“He’s a good communicator. He gives you a lot of input when he gets off a horse after a race. As a rider, John is the complete package. He’s smart, he’s a strong finisher and he’s very versatile. He fits any kind of horse. He can sit quietly on horses, but some horses need to be ridden more aggressively and he can do that as well.”

After losing his first four starts of the year, Limehouse got hot. He won the ungraded Alysheba as the even-money favorite May 6 at Churchill Downs, then went to Belmont Park and beat a solid field in the Brooklyn Handicap, a Grade II, June 11.

“I think he’s more consistent now,” Velazquez said. “He’s grown up a lot and is more mature. He’s doing well, and hopefully, he will like this track. I don’t think distance will be a problem.”

This will be the first try at 1 1/4 miles for Limehouse since he finished fourth in the Kentucky Derby last year.

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Jockey leaders

Jockeys with the most victories and the money earned by their mounts at Hollywood Park (through Monday):

*--* Starts Wins Money Garrett Gomez 310 52 $2,201,101 Victor Espinoza 262 45 $2,258,980 Alex Solis 206 45 $2,305,857 Tyler Baze 254 38 $1,749,500 Corey Nakatani 181 37 $2,323,622 Rene Douglas 204 32 $1,650,785 Jon Court 180 29 $1,183,575 David Flores 175 24 $1,205,135 Felipe Martinez 174 23 $750,987 Patrick Valenzuela 98 21 $1,128,695 Martin Pedroza 134 20 $575,376 Jose Valdivia 129 18 $997,441 David Cohen 195 16 $623,442 Omar Figueroa 119 12 $371,712 Isaias Enriquez 149 11 $394,099 Freddy Fong 88 8 $238,184 Alex Bisono 124 7 $473,714 Julio Garcia 49 5 $233,848 Kerwin John 62 4 $181,688 Matt Garcia 82 4 $164,238

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