Perseverance pays off in Castellano’s magical season

In a game in which accomplishments can be forgotten in a New York minute, jockey Javier Castellano found himself pondering retirement when his results suffered a steep downturn in 2020 and 2021.

He contracted COVID in March 2020. Even though he was asymptomatic, he was required to follow various protocols. He sat out for six weeks before he was cleared to ride again. Later that year, he underwent surgery to repair the labrum in his right hip. This time, he was sidelined for three months.

When he returned, other jockeys had snapped up his best mounts. Trainers were reluctant to trust him with their better stock. Never mind that he had swept four consecutive Eclipse Awards as leading rider in North America from 2013 to 2016. Never mind that he had been inducted into the National Museum of Racing’s Hall of Fame in 2017.

Castellano had become an afterthought, and it hurt.

“I got down and depressed. I felt desperate. I thought about retiring,” he recalled. “I thought, ‘If nobody is going to give me an opportunity, what is the point of my being here?’ ”

Castellano also knew he had unfinished business. Although he had won the Preakness twice with Bernardini in 2006 and with Cloud Computing in 2017, the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes represented significant gaps in an otherwise glittering resume.

The absence of the Derby, in particular, gnawed at him. “I had never won the Kentucky Derby, and I did not want to retire knowing that,” he said. “I did not want to go out that way.”

He gradually rebuilt his business over time, and this past season was nothing short of magical for Castellano, 46. He got his Derby with 15-1 Mage. He got his Belmont with Arcangelo. And he extended his record for Travers victories to seven with Arcangelo, who is virtually certain to win the Eclipse Award as leading 3-year-old male.

“It’s been an amazing year, and I am grateful to God for it. I feel so blessed,” he said. “I thank God for giving me the strength to persevere. I was very persistent, very disciplined. I kept thinking about the Kentucky Derby. I said, 'I can’t give up. This is the last cherry I need to put on my cake.’ ”

When the mount opened on Mage, the Florida Derby runner-up, Castellano became an obvious choice. His father, Abel, had ridden for trainer Gustavo Delgado in their native Venezuela. Delgado had known Javier since Javier was a boy and views him as “family.”

Castellano wanted to deliver for Delgado as much as himself. His yearning only increased when he heard the NBC broadcast in the jockeys’ room at Churchill Downs. As each runner was analyzed, one commentator said, “Javier Castellano. He’s a Hall of Fame rider. He’s won more than 5,000 races. He’s tried 15 times. He’s never won the Kentucky Derby.”

According to Castellano, as he walked to the paddock to get a leg up on Mage he thought to himself, “This has got to be the year.”

Castellano worked out a beautiful trip that was an exercise in patience with the now-retired Mage. He reserved him in 14th through the opening three-quarters of a mile before they launched a prolonged rally to prevail by one length.

Castellano and Arcangelo proved to be an even more formidable duo as the once-downcast jockey ended an 0-for-14 drought in the Belmont and Jena Antonucci made an indelible mark on history as the first woman to train the winner of a Triple Crown race. She then became only the second woman to saddle a Travers winner.

Antonucci gives much of the credit to Castellano’s heady rides.

“Just really getting along with Arcangelo the way he did was really special to watch,” she said. “It always makes it a little easier when you are legging up someone who has so much confidence in what’s underneath him. It allows you to kind of stay out of his way.

“His experience and his feel really showed, and it just suited this horse so well. It was just really pretty to watch.”

Castellano also will savor 2023 as the year his fellow riders selected him as winner of the George Woolf Award. The prestigious honor is bestowed annually at Santa Anita to the rider whose career and character elevate racing.