Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Taking a mulligan
LPGA postpones Northwest Arkansas Championship until August.
HOT SPRINGS — Three California-based jockeys began their first full seasons at Oaklawn this winter, and now they say they are Arkansas-based for the foreseeable future.
Last year, Santa Anita Park was shut down for more than a month because of a string of horse deaths on the track. State-mandated restrictions in California for possible unsafe track conditions led in
part to small fields last season, a trend that continued in 2020 before the coronavirus pandemic postponed racing at Santa Anita.
Tyler Baze made his move to Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort midway through last season. Joe Talamo and Martin Garcia followed in late December. With three racing days left, Garcia is ranked second in wins among Oaklawn jockeys with 51. Talamo is third with 50, and Baze is seventh with 29. Ricardo Santana leads with 54.
“Career-wise, I don’t think I could have made a better decision,” Talamo said. “The first month or so, we were happy to begin with, but now, looking at racing being canceled out there, we kind of look like geniuses. It looks like I’ll be coming back here every winter.”
Typical of his campaign, Garcia is listed to ride entrants in all four graded
stakes races on the season’s final two days, including Charlatan, the likely favorite in the first division of Saturday’s Arkansas Derby from the California barn of Hall Fame trainer Bob Baffert. Talamo and Baze are slated to ride in three of the graded stakes.
Garcia said in January he was confident his decision would work out. Now he’s certain.
“I’m pretty happy that I made the move to come here,” he said. “Now that I’m here, I think I made the right decision. In California, my business was really down.”
Assistant trainer Jim Barnes, who oversees Baffert’s Oaklawn stable, said it’s easy to understand the moves made by the three jockeys.
“Those guys had to make a decision the way racing was going,” Barnes said. “They had to make a move, and they’ve been very successful. They’re all three real good riders, tough riders, and good allaround men.”
Garcia’s run through the 2020 Oaklawn season hit big early, when he rode Gold Street to a win in the 1-mile Smarty Jones Stakes on Jan. 24, the track’s opening day.
Talamo has been a steady stakes star throughout the season with seven wins. In total earnings, Talamo ranks second behind Santana with $3,150,163. Garcia is third with $2,356,613, and Baze is fifth with $1,619,172.
“California is just a tough state for racing right now,” Talamo said. “They’re not treating horse racing like the governor is treating it here. It’s tough, and I really feel for those guys.
“Last March, we didn’t race for a month, and that hurt pretty bad, but now with this, it’s hard to tell what the future holds out there.”
Talamo said the 2019 season at Santa Anita was the oddest experience of his career, but then 2020 happened.
For six weeks, he has raced at Oaklawn with no fans.
“It’s not just with no fans, it’s everything that’s going on,” he said. “If you would have told me this time last year that you would have to take your temperature to go to work, I would’ve said, ‘What are you talking about?’ It’s just crazy times right now, but if it’s what we have to do to keep racing, it’s fine with me.”
Trainer Ron Moquett said the influx of highly-ranked jockeys has benefited everyone.
“We believe with more talent in the entries, it justifies a deeper jockey colony,” Moquett said. “Not that we haven’t had great jockeys here, we just haven’t had quite the numbers on the top end to support a lot of these horses that just get better and better each year.
“We used to know that the leading jockey, year in and year out, was almost always gone, so you weren’t going to have a top choice of riders, so now there’s an opportunity for some riders to step up and get some good mounts.”
Although Baze’s wife and children remain in California, Oaklawn probably will remain his winter and early spring home for years to come.
“This is my home court for now,” he said. “I talk to Joe and Martin, and they’re like me. I’m just glad to be working. We have a few days left, and then we’ll see what happens after this.”