Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
No rest for Ortiz following his sterling Preakness ride
There was no time for celebration for jockey Jose Ortiz, who won his first Preakness Stakes on Saturday aboard Early Voting at Pimlico. Following the post-race interview session and a shower, Ortiz and his family jumped in the car and drove back to New York, getting home around 1 a.m. Sunday.
“I guess my adrenaline was high because I didn’t get sleepy and when I got home I couldn’t fall asleep,” Ortiz, 29, said Sunday morning. “Everything was sinking in last night when I got to bed. It was very emotional because this is what we work for and to get it done is amazing.”
It was back to work Sunday morning for Ortiz, who breezed four horses at Belmont Park – including his other top 3-yearold colt Jack Christopher – before he would win two races from six mounts on Sunday’s Belmont card.
The two wins pushed Ortiz’s 2022 total to 101, fifth best among North America-based jockeys through Sunday, while his purse earnings of $9.75 million are fourth highest. Ortiz leads all riders with 25 stakes wins, and his 16 graded stakes victories are second only to Flavien Prat’s 18.
When Ortiz looks at his roster of horses, he hopes the Preakness was an early kickoff to the second half of a strong year that could end with his second Eclipse Award as North America’s outstanding rider.
In addition to Early Voting and Jack Christopher, Ortiz is the regular rider of Letruska, last year’s champion older dirt female, and Regal Glory, a Grade 1-winning turf horse. He also rides Pizza Bianca, who is headed to Royal Ascot next month following her victory in Friday’s Hilltop Stakes at Pimlico.
“If they stay healthy, I think I could have a great second half of the year and be in the conversation for the Eclipse Award,” said Ortiz, who won the Eclipse Award in 2017.
The victory aboard Early Voting was especially gratifying because Ortiz liked the horse from the first time he worked him out of the gate for trainer Chad Brown, a month before he ever ran.
“Chad liked him, I liked him, but we knew he was going to be better going longer,” Ortiz said. “We had to wait for the races to go one mile.”
Ortiz rode the horse to a maiden victory at Aqueduct in December, and then a week after Ortiz moved his tack to Gulfstream Park in late January he was back in New York to guide Early Voting to victory in the Grade 3 Withers in February.
That Early Voting was held out of the Kentucky Derby following his second-place finish in the Wood Memorial in April was no surprise to Ortiz, who ended up finishing fourth in the Derby aboard Simplification. Unless Simplification – whom Ortiz remains high on – had won the Derby, he was going to ride Early Voting in the Preakness.
In the Preakness, Ortiz gave the horse a super ride, stalking the pacesetting Armagnac and holding off the Kentucky Derby runner-up and Preakness favorite Epicenter to win by 1 1/4 lengths.
“Honestly, that’s the same way we planned,” said Ortiz, noting that trainer Brown and owner Seth Klarman thought Armagnac “was going to go and we were going to be sitting off.”
“It worked out perfectly,” Ortiz said.
With the focus now on summer racing, Ortiz will be among a bevy of top riders in a stacked Belmont and later this summer’s Saratoga riding colony. He hopes the Preakness victory helps bring more business his way.
“It’s big. You win that kind of race you put yourself in the spotlight for owners and trainers, everybody involved,” Ortiz said. “I work hard to be No. 1, but at the end of the day you got to ride the good horses and they have to stay healthy also.”
Though there’s still time to pick one up, Ortiz does not yet have a confirmed mount for the Belmont Stakes on June 11. Ortiz won the 2017 Belmont aboard Tapwrit. Horses like Jack Christopher in the Woody Stephens, Letruksa in the Ogden Phipps, and Regal Glory in the Just a Game will certainly give him plenty of ammunition on that day’s card.
Following Belmont weekend, Ortiz will be off to Royal Ascot, where he will ride Pizza Bianca in the Coronation Stakes. Ortiz has been to Royal Ascot once before, in 2018, when he rode Yoshida and Bucchero to fifthplace finishes in the Queen Anne Stakes and King’s Stand Stakes, respectively.
“I went once,” Ortiz said. “I really fell in love with the place – its beautiful. Something about it is unique.”