Ortiz Keeping Pace With Castellano

Irad Ortiz, Jr. continued his recent hot streak going into Travers Week at the Spa, riding three winners from six mounts on Wednesday's card.

Since last Thursday, the 22-year-old jockey has guided 15 winners out of 40 mounts, clocking a win percentage of more than 37 percent during the past seven days. Nine of those wins came from a successful three-day weekend for Ortiz, who entered the winner's circle with nearly half of his 19 mounts on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  

The Puerto Rico native capped the weekend with victories in all three of his races on the Sunday card, most notably riding the longest shot on the board, Farhaan, to upset the Alydar Stakes.

Currently second in the jockey standings with 38 wins through Wednesday, Ortiz has narrowed the gap to defending Spa leading rider Javier Castellano to six with 11 race days left in the meet. He has eight more wins than John Velazquez (third) and 16 more than his younger brother, Jose, who is fourth on the leaderboard.

"Everything's going perfectly this week," Ortiz said. "I have no complaints. I don't pay too much attention [to the standings]; I just like my horses."

Ortiz, who tied Castellano for the riding title at the most recent Belmont spring/summer meeting with 51 wins each, has won back-to-back riding titles during Aqueduct's inner track meet (2012-13 and 2013-14) since moving his tack to New York in the summer of 2011.

"Irad's been riding a lot of live horses for a lot of good people," said Steve Rushing, Ortiz's agent for nearly a year. "Plus, he's riding great.

"This place is just so tough," Rushing continued. "I mean, you never come in with high expectations because it's so competitive. But we've definitely exceeded anything that we would've expected. He's been having a great meet, and hopefully it continues for the next two weeks."