Report: N.Y. jockeys question harsh suspension of apprentice
Jockeys at Belmont Park banded together to question what they believed was the severe suspension of an apprentice rider for a repeat offense of careless riding, Daily Racing Form reported Tuesday.
Jaime Torres was given a suspension covering two calendar weeks for his ride on 3-year-old filly Wonder Girl in Monday’s second race, a seven-furlong dash for maiden claimers on the turf. Wonder Girl finished first but was demoted to second behind promoted winner Irad Ortiz Jr. and Nightsaber.
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Torres and his agent Ángel Cordero Jr. appealed the suspension. Because of that, New York State Gaming Commission steward Braulio Baeza Jr. told DRF he could not comment on why the punishment was so harsh.
Led by career earnings leader and Jockeys’ Guild co-chairman John Velázquez, as many as 18 riders asked for a meeting with stewards Tuesday, according to DRF.
“We all agree (Torres) definitely deserves his days,” Velázquez told DRF. “He definitely needed to be disqualified. Just the amount of days didn’t fit the (incident).”
Torres’s suspension was set at 14 calendar days. He received a stricter ban of 14 racing days for careless riding April 8 at Aqueduct. That incident caused a spill that threw jockeys José Lezcano and Manny Franco off their horses, both of whom survived. Lezcano missed six weeks because of a broken hand. Torres’s punishment forced him to sit out the end of April and early May.
According to the Equibase chart of Monday’s race, Wonder Girl “came under a right-handed crop, brushed with the runner-up (Nightsaber) when that foe came in inside the three-sixteenths, battled inside that foe into the final furlong, drifted out about three paths when switched to a left-handed crop inside the furlong marker and brushed again, swapped leads back and forth while taking a straight course into the final sixteenth, gained a slightly larger advantage over the runner-up at that point, switched back to her inside lead while drifting out about three paths a few strides from the wire and held.”
Torres, 24, a native of Puerto Rico, graduated from exercise rider to a full-fledged jockey in August. He has a record of 671: 75-88-88 with purse earnings of $3,026,644, according to Equibase. Torres has split his time this spring and summer between the New York Racing Association tracks and Parx Racing.