With 3 Breeders' Cup wins, Irad Ortiz Jr. earns riding award

Irad Ortiz Jr., who rode three winners in the 2025 Breeders' Cup, won the 23rd Bill Shoemaker Award as the outstanding jockey for the marquee event at Del Mar. 

It is the sixth time he has won the award. 

“It's a great trophy and it’s a great honor,” Ortiz Jr. said. “You have to have a good day because it’s by points. So you have to at least win some and the rest of the horses, they have to run good to keep getting points so that that means you have a good day. I love this this week. It's one of my favorite weekends in the whole year, so it feels good to have a trophy because you have a good week on the best races in the in the year.” 

Ortiz's three wins in 2025 brought him to 23 lifetime Breeders' Cup wins, behind only the 27 by Mike Smith. After his win, Ortiz reflected on that chase. “That'd be great. Yeah, I mean, I have so much respect for Mike. He’s got like, I think, 27… it's really hard to get to that number, but we're going to keep working on it. Try to do our best out there and you know, it's not easy. You have to have a good horse honestly. I'm just very fortunate. We've been having a good ride and we're gonna keep positive. Stay positive and keep working on it.” 

The Shoemaker Award goes to the jockey who rides the most winners in the 14 Breeders' Cup races with the tiebreaker being a 10-3-1 point system for second- through fourth-place finishes.

Ortiz opened the weekend with a victory on Cy Fair in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint and followed up back-to-back victories Saturday on Shisospicy in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint and Bentornato in the Cygames Breeders’ Cup Sprint. 

The only other rider with multiple victories was last year’s Shoemaker Award winner Flavien Prat. Prat had two victories, both coming Saturday with Splendora in the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint and Nysos in the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile. 

The Shoemaker Award is named in honor of one of the greatest jockeys in the history of Thoroughbred racing. Bill Shoemaker, who captured the Kentucky Derby four times, won 8,833 races in a career that spanned more than 40 years. In 1987, at age 56, Shoemaker won the Breeders’ Cup Classic aboard Ferdinand at Hollywood Park.