Juan Hernandez closes in on first Santa Anita riding title

Jockey Juan J. Hernandez is not yet a household name in some parts of the country, but that’s unlikely to be the case much longer given the wave of success he is riding in Southern California.

Hernandez, 30, is on the verge of sewing up his first riding title at Santa Anita Park, with 91 wins – 18 more than perennial leading rider Flavien Prat – through Memorial Day, with just nine racing days remaining in the 76-day winter-summer meet.

“If I win, it’s going to mean a lot,” he said last week, not wanting to take his commanding lead for granted. “I’d be really happy and then try to get more titles and win more good races. If I win it, it’s for the people who support me – my family in Mexico, my family here, my agent, the trainers, the owners – and especially for the horses.”

The riding title at the “Great Race Place” is an honor he would likely not have achieved had it not been for the midseason departure of Prat for the Midwest and East Coast in pursuit of an Eclipse Award. Prat’s been SoCal’s dominant rider since relocating from France to Santa Anita for the 2014-15 winter-spring meet.

But while his winning percentage of 23 percent isn’t quite up there with Prat’s gaudy 29 percent, Hernandez didn’t simply inherit the mantle of leading rider a mere two years after shifting his tack southward from Northern California. He has worked hard and ridden well to earn the support of Southern California horsemen and owners, says his agent, Craig O’Bryan.

“He’s beat Prat in the fall meet at Del Mar…and he’s won a lot of stakes. A lot of stakes,” said the 72-year-old O’Bryan, who has represented such top riders as Eddie Delahoussaye, Corey Nakatani, Alex Solis and Gary Stevens during his long career.

“Wherever he is, he wins,” he added. “Dirt, turf, short, long, it doesn’t matter.”

Winning titles while riding at the highest levels of the sport was one of the “big dreams and goals” that Hernandez set for himself when he decided to follow in the bootsteps of his father, Jose Trinidad Hernandez, a quarter horse jockey for many years in Mexico.

Hernandez, who grew up in Veracruz before moving to Mexico City when he was 9 or 10, said he rode ponies bareback when he was growing up and fell in love with horses.

“I always wanted to be at the racetrack and go with my dad on weekends,” he recalled. “When I was 14, I was doing a little bad in school he told me if I get better in school he’s going to find me a job on the racetrack.”

His dad made good on his word, and Hernandez got a thorough education in horsemanship at the Hipódromo de las Americas, working as a groom and pony boy before graduating to exercise rider. He also had the opportunity to break young horses, a task that generally takes place at the racetrack in Mexico City rather than on ranches and training centers as in the U.S.

He got his first opportunities to ride in the afternoons near the end of the 2008 meet, winning a handful of races to prepare him for a full season the following year. The plan worked to perfection, as he was leading apprentice at the track in 2009.

Hernandez wanted to go to the U.S. so he could ride against the best jockeys on the continent but was initially unable to obtain a visa. His break came when he secured the mount on the sensational Mexico-bred filly Vivian Record for the 2009 Clásico Internacional del Caribe race, held that year in Puerto Rico. He used that short-term visa to enter the U.S. proper, talking his way past skeptical immigration agents. He then made his way to Northern California and hooked up with jockey agent Ramon Silva, the uncle of a top trainer he rode for in Mexico City, who helped him get a long-term visa.

Hernandez started out galloping horses at Golden Gate Fields for trainers Steve Miyadi, Ed Moger Jr. and Blaine Wright before getting his first mounts late in the year.

He said Hall of Fame rider Russell Baze and other veteran Bay Area jocks helped him polish his developing race-riding skills.

“I was riding not crazy but a little aggressive,” he said. “The riders there would say, ‘Hey, kid, don’t ride like this or don’t ride like that.’ I listened to them because when I got here I was 18 and I want to learn and I want to do good.”

Hernandez proved a quick study and began winning races in bunches. He tried the deeper waters in Southern California for eight months in 2012, but returned to the north and proceeded to win multiple riding titles at Golden Gate Fields.

COVID-19 pushed him to give Southern California a second try in 2020, when Golden Gate Fields remained indefinitely closed under local health restrictions while racing was resuming to the south. Wright invited Hernandez to accompany him to Del Mar with a dozen or so horses and the rider quickly agreed.

His arrival was enough to coax O’Bryan out of retirement and the two made an immediate impact, with the veteran agent using his connections to get Hernandez in the door and his rider doing the rest.

“Now I’m riding for a lot of people,” said Hernandez, who lives with his wife, Melissa, and children Juan, 7, and Amelia, 4, in Glendora, a mere 14 minute drive from Santa Anita. “I’m lucky to be riding for them and I’m taking advantage of the opportunities and trying to do my best for them.…I love my job. I love to ride horses.”

In addition to winning more riding titles in the future, Hernandez said his long-term goal is to win Breeders’ Cup races and compete in Europe and the Middle East. And naturally he hopes there’s a Kentucky Derby out there with his name on it.

In the meantime, the rider is not taking his success for granted.

“I know it’s really hard but I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing and keep working,” he said.