Morales, Gutierrez make Ja debuts on Easter Monday

TAMPA BAY Downs’ Pablo Morales and New Yorker Reylu Gutierrez, multiple graded-stakes winning jockeys in North America, make their Jamaica debuts at Caymanas Park on Easter Monday, April 1.

Morales and Gutierrez j oin Panamanian Josue Osorio, as foreign jockeys to have mounts on what is expected to be an exciting Easter holiday card, featuring the Easter Sprint Cup at five and a half furlongs for overnight-allowance runners and the Viceroy Trophy Gr 1.

Morales, 35, has ridden 2,636 winners in the United States in a career bedevilled by injury for the past two seasons. Prior to breaking his wrist last November, Morales almost had his right pinkie severed when a horse bit his finger in the starting gate at Tampa Bay in May 2022.

With his mounts earning in excess of US$56 million, Peruvian Morales has so far won 10 races this season from 59 rides after having gone to the starting gate 13,928 times in his career.

Gutierrez, a native of Rochester, New York, earned his first career victory at Finger Lakes in 2017. He was named Eclipse Award finalist for Outstanding Apprentice in 2018, his first full year as a rider.

During 2019, Gutierrez held his own on the more competitive NYRA circuit and also at Gulfstream Park in Florida. He won his first graded stakes in March 2019 aboard Do Share in the Grade 3 Tom Fool Handicap at Aqueduct.

Gutierrez began to make an impression as a jockey outside of New York in 2021, piloting twoyear-old filly Hidden Connection to a win in the Pocahontas Stakes at Churchill Downs in September and was rewarded with his first mount in the Breeders’ Cup World Championships.

Meanwhile, ATOMICA, ROUGH ENTRY and IS THAT A FACT could renew rivalry in the Viceroy Trophy. United States-bred four-year-old IS THAT A FACT had upstaged 2022 Jamaica Derby winner ATOMICA – as well as fellow American and Mouttet Mile-winner ROUGH ENTRY – in the February 24 Chairman’s Trophy, carrying a featherweight 101lb at seven and a half furlongs.