Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Jockey Roman ready for career’s next phase
ARCADIA, Calif. – When Evin Roman, the champion apprentice jockey of 2017, rides as a journeyman for the first time Thursday, he has to look only across Santa Anita’s jockey room for inspiration on the newest phase of his career.
Roman, 20, is one of six champion apprentice jockeys riding at Santa Anita. If the success of his rivals is any indication, Roman should adapt to life without a five-pound claim with no difficultly. Former champion apprentice jockeys Kent Desormeaux (1987), Tyler Baze (2000), Joe Talamo (2007), and Drayden Van Dyke (2014) are among the top 10 at the current winter-spring meeting. Kyle Frey, the champion apprentice in 2011, has won four races at this meeting.
All are ranked below Roman, who led all riders through Sunday with 38 wins, two more than Flavien Prat. Roman’s colleagues do not expect the young rider’s status to slip in the near future.
“The way he’s riding, I don’t think it will affect him too much,” Van Dyke said. “I watch all his races. It’s nice to ride with good riders.”
“He rides for a lot of top guys,” Talamo said. “If they stick with him, I don’t see anything changing.”
Of the six apprentice champions, four were primarily based in Southern California during their title seasons: Baze, Talamo, Van Dyke, and Roman. Frey was based in Pennsylvania, while Desormeaux rode in Maryland.
Talamo, 28, began riding as a journeyman in summer 2007, when Southern California racing still had Hollywood Park. Talamo finished second to Michael Baze in the Del Mar standings later that summer.
“We kept rolling, pretty much,” Talamo said.
Baze, 35, was riding constantly when he made the transition to journeyman, spending dark days in California riding at Turf Paradise in Phoenix.
“I was riding seven days a week for two years,” he said.
From Baze’s point of view, a rider who can win an Eclipse Award while based in Southern California should do well on the circuit as a journeyman.
“Look at Joe and Drayden, they’ve done well,” he said. “Roman has got a lot of business.”
A year ago, Roman seemed an unlikely candidate for the role of leading rider, never mind an Eclipse Award as champion apprentice.
Roman was suspended 14 racing days for three incidents of causing interference in February and March 2017. When he returned to riding last April, Roman improved noticeably, recording his first twoand three-win days last May and a four-win day last June.
Roman finished in a tie with Prat for the riding title at the 2017 spring-summer meeting at Santa Anita. In the second half of 2017, Roman won three riding titles at Los Alamitos, meetings in which several leading riders on the circuit did not ride extensively.
Still, Roman’s status in Southern California racing has soared.
“It’s like Amazon’s stock in the last year,” Talamo said.
Roman won 164 races in 2017 in the United States and had 33 wins for the calendar year through Sunday. He has ridden more races than any rider at the current meeting.
“He rides a good race,” Talamo said. “He seems like a sharp kid. It seems like he has a good head on his shoulders and that’s half of it in this game.”
A year ago, Roman struggled with English. He remains most comfortable speaking Spanish and said last Friday that he has been practicing English daily, often with his agent, Tony Matos. At the Eclipse Award ceremony in Florida in late January, Roman spoke in English from prepared remarks.
The unavoidable transition to journeyman will be a challenge, he said.
“I’m very excited,” Roman said. “It’s a new experience. Maybe it will be better. I want to win.”
That mental approach is vital. Frey, 26, said the transition from apprentice to journeyman is not as much about weight assignments as about a rider’s thinking, particularly after success the preceding year.
“I think the biggest key is the weight doesn’t make a difference when you’ve done what you’ve done,” Frey said. “It’s the confidence that makes the difference.
“It doesn’t just fall into your lap. I think he’ll be all right.”
Van Dyke, 23, was the last jockey based in Southern California to go from champion apprentice to journeyman. At the start of his career, Van Dyke was closely allied with trainer Tom Proctor, who continued to provide mounts after his apprentice term ended.
“I had Proctor behind me and that gave me a lot of confidence,” he said.
One thing between an apprentice jockey and a journeyman is constant – obligations during morning training can lead to afternoon opportunities.
“You’ve got to keep working hard,” Van Dyke said.
Desormeaux, who at 48 is one of the senior riders on the circuit, said his move from Maryland to California in 1990 was more difficult than the move to no longer being an apprentice. When Desormeaux moved west in 1990, he joined a jockey roster that included riders such as Gary Stevens, Chris McCarron, Eddie Delahoussaye, and Laffit Pincay Jr., to name a few. This was after Desormeaux led the nation’s riders in wins for three years from 1987 to 1989.
“I think the transition took longer here for obvious reasons,” he said.
Desormeaux sees admirable traits in Roman, a man not even half his age.
“I think [he’ll make the] transition fine,” Desormeaux said. “He listens and he doesn’t say much, everything I should have learned.”