Prat in good place for meet opening

For the last three weeks, Flavien Prat has ridden primarily at Belmont Park, taking fewer mounts than he typically would have in the same span in Southern California.

But that may have been the last quiet period for Prat this year – on or off the track.

When the Del Mar summer meeting opens Wednesday, Prat will have choice mounts at all levels of races through the season, which ends on Sept. 3. He is widely rated as the leading contender for top jockey, a familiar position. Since the start of 2017, Prat has won or tied for first place in five of the seven meetings at Del Mar and Santa Anita.

“It’s a goal,” Prat said of the riding title. “Del Mar is such a big meeting. I enjoy being there.”

Earlier this year, Prat was the leading rider at the springsummer meeting at Santa Anita and finished second at the winter-spring meeting, one win behind Evin Roman. Last year, Prat won riding titles at the Del Mar summer and fall meetings.

Off the track, Prat’s life is changing. His longtime girlfriend, Manon Lemaire, in November is expecting a baby, the couple’s first.

When the subject was broached last weekend at Los Alamitos, Prat broke into a wide grin. Weeks away from his 26th birthday, Prat is where he wants to be – personally and professionally – less than four years after he made the fulltime move from France to California.

Prat began riding in the United States in early 2009, riding winters in California and the rest of the year in France for several years. With the exception of the fall of 2015, when a back injury left him sidelined for three months, Prat has been among the top riders in California since he moved here full time.

Prat is booked Wednesday to ride nine of 10 races, including Texas Wedge in the $100,000 Oceanside Stakes for 3-yearolds at a mile on turf. Last summer, Prat won 35 races at Del Mar, nine of which were stakes.

Prat won two of the track’s five Grade 1 summer races – the Bing Crosby Stakes for sprinters with Ransom the Moon and the Del Mar Debutante for 2-year-old fillies with Moonshine Memories.

“We want to do what we did last year,” Prat said.

“I had a bunch of good horses there, especially with the 2-year-olds. The 2-year-olds are what you’re looking for – something that can win in time for the Breeders’ Cup and at 3.”

Moonshine Memories, fourth in the Grade 1 Acorn Stakes at Belmont Park on June 9, starts in an allowance race for 3-yearold fillies on Thursday. Prat has the mount.

Prat rides Preacher Roe in the first race on Wednesday, only his third mount in Southern California since June 24. At Belmont Park, Prat won with 3 of 13 mounts.

“It was good to ride against different riders and for different trainers,” he said. “It gives you a new point of view. When you ride with the same group of riders you get used to it. You don’t improve.”

Prat had two mounts at the Los Alamitos summer meeting – finishing second on the highly regarded 2-year-old filly Bellafina on July 4 and winning the Grade 3 Los Alamitos Derby last Saturday with Once On Whiskey.

This year, Prat has won 16 stakes, but only one Grade 1 – the Shoemaker Mile on Hunt, who is set to run in Sunday’s Grade 2 Eddie Read Stakes at Del Mar. Prat is hoping for several more Grade 1 wins before the year is over.

The summer meeting at Del Mar provides the next opportunities to win the big races, and Prat starts the meeting with a fresh mind and a renewed vigor.