Is Pat Valenzuela Retiring?

Photo: Charles Pravata / Eclipse Sportswire

Are Patrick Valenzuela’s riding days over?

According to a text he sent his agent Saturday morning, they could be.

“I’m sorry, Tom. I’m not riding any longer, I’m sorry,” is the message agent Tom Knust received this morning. “He didn’t say he was retiring,” Knust added. “He said he wasn’t riding anymore.”

Valenzuela, 51, took off his two scheduled mounts Friday. With 20 mounts through the first 20 days this meet, Valenzuela had not won a race and did not finish in the money on any of them.

A native of Montrose, Colorado, Valenzuela is a 13-time riding champion in Southern California who won the Kentucky Derby on Sunday Silence in 1989 and captured seven Breeders’ Cup races.

Popular with horsemen and handicappers alike in an occupation checkered with suspensions for a myriad of reasons, Valenzuela has 4,346 victories from 28,398 mounts in a career that began in 1978.

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