Jose Ortiz eyes first Eclipse Award after 'great year' in irons
Aiming to win his first Eclipse Award — one that has for the last four years gone to only Javier Castellano — jockey Jose Ortiz will let the stats speak for themselves over the final few weeks of 2017.
Ortiz rode his final race Sunday at Aqueduct before pausing to undergo surgery on his left knee expected to keep him out up to two months.
Still, it’s unlikely — and nearly impossible — for Castellano, whose mounts have earned $24.2 million this year, to catch Ortiz’s $27.1 million. Ortiz has also ridden 266 winners, second-most among jockeys in the top 10 in earnings. His brother, Irad, has 288 victories this year.
“I have had a good year,” Castellano told the Daily Racing Form. “But he had a great year.”
“I wish I could have kept going because the $28 million record is close,” Ortiz told DRF. “But even if I rode, I probably wouldn’t get there.”
With Cigar Mile weekend over at Aqueduct, so too are Grade 1 races on the New York circuit. A few lucrative races remain this year on the West Coast, but that’s far from Ortiz’s base. The issue of repairing a ligament in his knee left knee dating back to a Sept. 20 fall at Belmont Park lingered.
While not record-setting, the campaign included a number of highlights for Ortiz, a 24-year-old native of Puerto Rico.
• Ortiz won his first Triple Crown race with Tapwrit in the Belmont Stakes.
• He has the mount on Good Magic, the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner who heads into 2018 a top Kentucky Derby hopeful.
• He again led riders at Saratoga, which hosts among the nation's most competitive meets.
In the three years leading up to 2017, Ortiz ranked fifth, fourth and third, respectively, in earnings nationally. He was in the running for last year’s Eclipse Award as well, named a finalist along with Hall of Famer Mike Smith and Castellano, a future Hall of Famer.
Away from the track, Ortiz and his wife, Taylor, had their first child in July. More recently, The New Yorker featured both Ortiz brothers in Monday’s issue, part of a more broad look into horse racing.
As for the Eclipse, “It’s not up to me,” he told DRF, “but I think I’ve done a lot in 11 months.”