Del Mar 2024: How Hernández has risen to be a California star

This is not the typical story of the jockey who risked leaving his native country in hopes of finding success in America. Yes, Juan Hernández did exactly that 15 years ago when he traveled from his native Veracruz, Mexico, to become a teenage apprentice at Golden Gate Fields.

The bigger, bolder move, the one that eventually made him a go-to rider for Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert, actually happened when he found a reason to leave a steady livelihood behind in the north and move his tack four years ago to Southern California.

“That was the pandemic,” Hernández said.

Hernández has new ride for Pacific Classic.

Talk about making the best of a bad situation. Since he moved to the other end of the state, Hernández, 32, has won six riding titles at Santa Anita, four at Los Alamitos and four more at Del Mar. It is about to be five. His 37 wins this summer are 12 more than the next nearest jockey.

He will not get to ride Adare Manor against male competition as he had been booked to do Saturday in the Grade 1, $1 million Pacific Classic. Baffert said the mare “tied up” after a Thursday gallop. Hernández was reassigned to stablemate Reincarnate. He also has undercard rides for the Hall of Fame trainer on morning-line favorites Du Jour in the Del Mar Mile (G2) and Hope Road in the Torrey Pines (G3).

All but four of his 97 graded-stakes wins have come in the last four years. Brimming with both friendliness and confidence in a phone conversation not far from Del Mar, Hernández said his southward shift in 2020 was less about if and more about when.

“I was ready before that,” Hernández said of his well-timed move. “I was waiting for some good opportunity. I was waiting for a call from a good agent.”

That would be Craig O’Bryan. But that also would be getting ahead of the story. He came along after another opportunity presented itself eight years ago up north.

The heir to the Russell Baze throne

Count ’em. Between the 54 at Golden Gate and 40 at Bay Meadows, Russell Baze won 94 titles during a riding dynasty built with fellow Hall of Famer Jerry Hollendorfer doing most of the training. It is an accomplishment that reckons to go unmatched.

When Baze suddenly retired in 2016, someone else finally was going to be at the top of the standings.

“Sometimes I was trying to copy him,” Hernández said this week on Horse Racing Nation’s Ron Flatter Racing Pod. “Of course I want to win every race like him. It was harder at the beginning, but I just liked the competition. And I loved riding with Russell and the other guys that were over there when I was at Golden Gate.”

Hernández already was carving out an average of 160 wins a year. When Baze called it a career, that number spiked to 229. That 2016 total remains a career high. Titles followed, seven of them that he won or shared at Golden Gate.

Successful, yes. And precocious. Hernández had just graduated from high school at age 14. Yes, 14. That was when he started competing as a jockey back home. When he got to California, never mind drinking and voting. He was barely old enough to drive.

“I was just a kid when I got here,” he said. “I think I was 17 or 18 or something like that. I didn’t know anything. I was a bug boy in Mexico, and I was winning a lot of races. Here it’s different. It’s way different. It’s another world.”

One of the secrets to his early success was to hone his skills by watching the likes of Baze.

“I was learning from him and other jockeys all over the state,” Hernández said. “I was watching a lot of races when I got here, because I had a lot of time. I was by myself when I got here.”

Lonely, yes, but things otherwise were going along quite smoothly in the San Francisco Bay Area. That was until March 2020, when most of the world stopped.

COVID moves in; Hernández moves south

A lot of tracks stayed open when the coronavirus outbreak quarantined most of the world. Horses needed their exercise, and with social distancing something of a reality around backside stables, racing seemed like the only sport that did not hit pause.

California was a glaring exception. Even though morning work was allowed, the sport was shut down by local health authorities there for 1 1/2 months in the spring of 2020.

Hernández said he had been thinking of a move to the more competitive racing colony at Santa Anita and Del Mar, but he was not ready to risk what he had built at Golden Gate.

The COVID pause gave him the push.

“I wasn’t riding,” he said. “I think I stopped for like a month or something like that because of the pandemic. I wasn’t making money. ... I was waiting for some opportunity. I was waiting for a call from a good agent or a trainer to support me, to help me.”

Blaine Wright, who was firmly established in Northern California, turned out to be that trainer.

“Hey, Juan, I’m going to bring some horses to Del Mar,” Wright told Hernández. “They’re going to open Del Mar for racing. Do you want to go down there and ride my horses?”

That was in the summer of 2020, when Hernández was hearing more noise about the possibility of Golden Gate canceling more race dates. Suddenly, the routine he had established for himself looked shaky at best. The bird in the hand had flown south, and Wright was holding it.

“I told him right away, yes, if you want to support me over there,” Hernández said. “I just need to find a good agent to help me with my business.”

That was when good timing struck again.

Jockey agent to the stars unretires

O’Bryan had been there and done that. For nearly a half-century he had the books for Hall of Fame jockeys like Gary Stevens, Alex Solís, Eddie Delahoussaye and Corey Nakatani.

His dad George, who was nicknamed Black Heart, had his own list of legends. Yes, he was a jockey agent, too, and he lived to be 100. They could have called their business O’Bryan and Son.

Retirement beckoned about five years ago, but it did not last. Not when Hernández came calling, and O’Bryan felt the itch to get back in the game.

“I had watched him ride up north,” O’Bryan said. “He was the real deal. It was kind of a timing thing. It was one of the best moves I’ve ever made.”

Now 74, O’Bryan has been the familiar, trusted face around the track who put Hernández together with trainers like Richard Mandella, Phil D’Amato, John Shirreffs, John Sadler, Leonard Powell and Craig Lewis.

And yes, Baffert.

That forgettable moment when they met

Unlike the rest of this story in which Baze and COVID and Wright and O’Bryan have been signposts, there was no flashpoint to when Hernández met Baffert. Neither of them remembered exactly when they first said hello to one another.

“I’m not sure,” Hernández said. “I moved down here in 2020, and I think I started riding for him I’ll say like six months or a year later after I got here. ... I remember riding a couple horses for Mandella, and I beat him a couple times. I guess he looked at me or something like that.”

“He just came down here and started riding,” Baffert said in a call from his barn office at Del Mar. “I started using him a little bit. I could see he was up and coming. He started to win all these races. He was good, you know?”

Their first Grade 1 success together came in December 2021 at Los Alamitos, where Eda dug in and won by a half-length as the favorite in the Starlet Stakes. Nine more top-level wins have come with Cave Rock, Fun to Dream, Defunded, Adare Manor and Muth, who Hernández will ride Sunday in the Shared Belief Stakes.

“When he started riding for me, he didn’t get intimidated,” Baffert said. “Sometimes if (young jockeys) ride a big horse, that can happen. He just rides his race. He’s cool. He’s really chill. He’s very chill, and the horses respond to him, because he’s quiet. And he’s really good out of the gate.”

“(Baffert) always brings his horses ready to run,” Hernández said. “As a jockey he gives you a lot of confidence. He doesn’t say much. He let’s you do your work, and I love it. I’m really happy with that.”

Baffert took his praise for Hernández another step into the X’s and O’s of racing in Southern California.

“When they implemented all the rules like the whip rules, some jockeys struggled with it,” he said. “You really have to know how to finish on a horse like some of the great jockeys out there. He’s that kind of guy.”

As happy as that comparison may make Hernández, he does not stop there. He not only works with Hall of Famers, he works out with one of them.

Hitting the gym with Big Money

When Hernández picked up the phone this week, he was not far removed from one of his routine workouts to stay in shape. His frequent partner is an ageless colleague.

“My first month with Bob, I remembered Mike Smith was riding for him a lot,” he said. “Mike Smith and I work out together. We have the same personal trainer.”

Keeping up in the gym with the jockey known as Big Money cannot be easy. Smith just turned 59, and he still has the ripped body of a man less than half his age.

“He’s still in really good shape,” Hernández said. “He’s still riding really good. ... I try to work out three or four days a week. Wednesdays and Thursdays, sometimes my other trainer is a little busy and has some appointments, so we hook up together, and we work out at the same time. Like a horse, we are together, and we do the same thing for an hour. We lift weights and cardio and all that kind of stuff. It’s hard and tough, but at the same time it’s good. In the race you feel the competition, and you see this guy lifting heavy. It’s just motivational, man.”

Highlighted by his Triple Crown pairing with Justify in 2018, Smith has ridden some of his biggest triumphs working for Baffert. That makes him someone who could offer a young rider some expert advice America’s most recognized trainer.

“Hey, how’s riding for Bob?” Hernández said he asked Smith.

“Oh, it’s cool. It’s cool,” Smith said. “It’s always a good thing when you ride for him, because he lets you do your job, and he’s a cool guy.”

So, too, is Hernández both on and off the track. At least that is what Hernández said.

Sitting chilly as husband & father of 2

Unlike his path from Mexico to America, the road from Northern California to Southern California was not taken all by himself. Hernández is married. He and his wife Melissa, the daughter of trainer Alfredo Márquez, have two sons. Juan José is 9, and Emilio is 6.

“I’m a little hard sometimes and strict,” he said. “They’re a little wild, so I have to be a little hard on them sometimes. But I think I’m cool.”

The cool husband. The cool dad. The cool-riding jockey. Hernández certainly carries some charisma.

“I’ve decided to be a good person with everybody. There’s no reason to be a bad person.”

And Hernández is not a bad jockey, either.

“He’s smart, he’s strong, and he’s getting better and better,” Baffert said. “He provides me a lot of confidence. His agent does a great job for him, and he’s really a nice person.”