Gutierrez makes most of big chance
Mario Gutierrez might have been in the right place at the right time when he picked up the mount on I’ll Have Another in late January at Santa Anita, but he has ridden his good fortune all the way to the doorstep of history.
All that’s on the line in the Belmont Stakes on Saturday at Belmont Park is I’ll Have Another’s opportunity to become the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978 and the 12th overall.
“I try not to put too much pressure on myself,” Gutierrez said in a national teleconference. “I have to do what I have been doing, give my horse a perfect trip.
“I’m not predicting I’m going to win; I know my horse and I know he is capable of such and such a thing. As soon as I ask him, he doesn’t hesitate to give me 100 percent. I know he knows exactly where the wire is.”
The 25-year-old jockey’s journey began in his native Veracruz, Mexico, where he rode quarter horses in match races from the age of 12, and moved to thoroughbreds at the Hipodromo de las Americas in Mexico City, where he was the leading apprentice jockey in 2005.
“I wanted to get something better in life,” Gutierrez said. “I wasn’t going to go to school because my family didn’t have ways to do that. Horse racing is the thing that I love.”
He soon was recruited to ride at Hastings Park in Vancouver, British Columbia, where he was the leading jockey twice from 2006 to 2011. Between meetings there, in 2009 and 2010, he rode at Golden Gate Fields, winning on 46 of 289 mounts.
“He’s real confident and he’s real patient,” Golden Gate Fields trainer Andy Mathis said. “That’s kind of how he rode when he was here. And you see him in the big races and you’d think he might get a little more aggressive or excited, but he rides them the same as he was riding $4,000 claimers here.”
This winter, Gutierrez tried Southern California for the first time, and trainer Doug O’Neill and owner J. Paul Reddam were mulling what to do with I’ll Have Another. The colt had won one of three starts as a 2-year-old in 2011 before being sidelined with sore shins, but he was training so well that they thought they might have a Kentucky Derby contender.
“Just as we were talking, Mario had just won a race,” O’Neill said. “Paul said, ‘Who is that kid?’ I had him come work the colt, and they got along beautiful. Paul said, ‘Let’s give the kid a chance.’ Thank you, Paul, because this kid can really ride.”
Gutierrez remembers being surprised when his agent, Ivan Puhich, told him about I’ll Have Another.
“My agent called me to work a horse at Hollywood Park,” Gutierrez said. “At first, I thought he was joking. When I went to work him, I was surprised at the way he moved. I knew he was different than other horses that I rode. It was like me being in a nice, expensive sports car. Like whenever you switch gears, he just gives it to you.”
I’ll Have Another and Gutierrez won the Robert B. Lewis Stakes in a 43to-1 upset, then the Santa Anita Derby, the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness. Along the way, O’Neill and Reddam resisted the temptation to switch to a more experienced big-race jockey.
“They didn’t have to stick with me,” Gutierrez said. “They didn’t listen to other people saying it was too big for me. They kept me on the horse and gave me this wonderful opportunity. I’m very happy I didn’t disappoint them.
“There were a lot of emotions winning the Kentucky Derby; not many people are able to say they won it. I was in shock. I couldn’t believe it was happening to me.
“For the Preakness, there was just more focus. Now the Triple Crown and everybody is talking about it, but I’m still the same guy.”