Geovanni Franco plans to ride at Santa Anita this winter

Jockey Geovanni Franco will return to Southern California this weekend and plans to ride the winter meet at Santa Anita.

According to his agent, Jack Carava, Franco is expected to be in California this weekend. Carava expects Franco to work horses at Santa Anita on Friday, ride at Los Alamitos during the weekend and then ride races at Santa Anita from the beginning of its meet, which starts Dec. 26.

"He called me the other day and sounded like he was anxious to get back to California," Carava said.

Franco most recently rode at Santa Anita regularly in the autumn of 2021, and he rode regularly in California through November 2021 at Del Mar. He was a regular at Oaklawn in 2016 and 2017 and also rode at Oaklawn through the winter-spring 2021-22 meet. Franco rode mainly in Kentucky and Indiana after that before moving his tack back to Oaklawn for this winter.

Franco has 950 wins in the U.S. and Canada as of Monday, with total career purses of $27,255,347. Thus far at the Oaklawn meet, Franco has been off the board in seven starts. He is currently named on one horse Friday at Oaklawn, though Carava expects Franco to be in California by then.

Leading horses through Franco's career include Fault, with whom he won the 2018 Santa Margarita (G1) in 2018, and Secret Spice, whom he guided to victory in the 2019 Beholder Mile (G1). Both of those wins, his only victories at the top level in the U.S., took place at Santa Anita.