San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
DOUBLE-FISTED STAKES WINS
Gonzalez and Miller team up for second stakes of weekend
At 4 p.m. Friday, jockey Ricardo Gonzalez had never won a stakes race at Del Mar.
By about the same time Saturday, he’d won two.
Gonzalez led gate-towire aboard Good With People on Saturday afternoon to win the $150,000 Golden State Juvenile.
Not only was it Gonzalez’s second stakes win in two days, it was his second stakes win in as many tries for trainer Peter Miller — who watched both races from Kentucky where he was attending the Breeders’ Cup.
While Gonzalez had to rally September Secret in the stretch to win the Golden State Juvenile Fillies on Friday, he had to hold off the late charge of Drayden Van Dyke aboard Positivity on Saturday as the feature went off in a drenching rain and a strong following wind down the stretch.
And while Miller questioned some of Gonzalez’s early decisions in Friday’s feature, Gonzalez followed the trainer’s instructions perfectly Saturday.
“Miller told me to go to the front and don’t look back,” said Gonzalez. “I did. And it worked great.”
Good With People led throughout the 7-furlong sprint for 2-year-olds on Del Mar’s second of three features this weekend for Calbred or sired horses — finishing three-fourths of a length in front of Positivity. Good With People paid $6.20 as the 2-1 favorite.
The 25-year-old Gonzalez is a native of Los Mochis, Sinaloa, Mexico, and prefers to go by Ricky. He followed the lead of Abel Cedillo and came to Del Mar this summer along with Juan Hernandez after riding at Golden Gate Fields in Northern California.
“I’ve always liked Del Mar,” said Gonzalez. “I’d been thinking about relocating.”
The stakes wins of the past two days are also Gonzalez’s only wins after four days of the Bing Crosby Meeting. He finished sixth in the summer meeting’s jockey standings with 17 wins in 130 mounts.
Good With People won the 6-furlong I’m Smokin Stakes at Del Mar on Sept. 2 after running second to Positivity in the Graduation Stakes on Aug. 2. The son of Curlin to Mischief is owned by J. Kirk and Judy Robison, whose Jackie’s Warrior ran out of the money after being favored in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile on Friday.
Meanwhile, Del Mar’s contingent of five jockeys at the Breeders’ Cup are expected to return this morning in time for the afternoon’s featured $100,000 Betty Grable Stakes.
The five — summer meeting champion Flavien Prat, summer runner-up Umberto Rispoli, Juan Hernandez, Victor Espinoza and Jose Valdivia Jr. — will undergo COVID-19 testing at Scripps in La Jolla before arriving at the track. They will ride out of an auxiliary jockeys’ room today.
Rispoli is scheduled to be aboard early favorite Just Grazed Me in the Grable — a 7-furlong sprint for older, Cal-bred or sired fillies and mares on the main track. The 5-year-old Just Grazed Me has won seven of 14 career starts and is coming off a victory in the Oct. 10 California Distaff Handicap at Santa Anita.
Prat, who will be making his fall meeting debut today, is aboard Mo See Cal in the Grable.
Cedillo won two races Saturday to widen his jockey standings lead to four over Mike Smith and Tyler Baze.