Apprentice rider Americano's perseverance paying off
After racing Quarter Horses in his native Mexico, jockey Manuel Americano arrived, ready to ride, at Pleasanton at the end of spring 2023. He would go on to pick up 30 mounts at four different Northern California tracks over the next six months, winning none of them.
Americano, who hails from Guadalajara, was undaunted as he stayed at Golden Gate Fields to start his 2024 campaign.
“I just kept pushing forward,” Americano, now 24, said with the help of a translator. “It didn’t discourage me at all. I felt like I could keep moving forward.”
But after failing to finish in the money in his first 12 races at Golden Gate, he took his tack northbound on I-5 to Emerald Downs. There, more than a year after cadging his first mount in Northern California, the apprentice rider won his first race aboard a gelding named Smoken Shadow.
Since that first victory on June 21, 2024, Americano has won 147 races in less than a year, capturing riding titles at Turf Paradise and Fresno along the way.
At the current Emerald meet, he ranks second in wins with 11 from 62 mounts and has finished in the money 60 percent of the time.
“I’m working hard and still trying to push through to see how far I can get, but it is a competitive jockey colony,” said Americano, who will graduate from bug status in mid-August. “A lot of people help me out and give me the experience. I really like that, along with the track. Marbles really helped me get where I’m at.”
“Marbles” would be Emerald’s busiest jockey agent, David “Marbles” Singer, and Saturday’s eight-race card is proof of both his handiwork and his client’s sustained success. Americano has mounts in all eight races – for eight different trainers.
Among the more successful of these trainers is Isidro Tamayo, who has a string at Emerald for the first time after the recent detonation of the Northern California circuit. He regularly called upon Americano to ride his horses at Pleasanton and Turf Paradise, and he did so with aplomb. In race 7 Saturday, a $15,000 claiming race at 5 1/2 furlongs for fillies and mares, Americano will take the reins of Union Coach, a 4-year-old Tamayo trainee who finished a well-beaten 10th in his Emerald debut against slightly classier company on May 10.
Union Coach earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 39 in that race, contested over the same distance but with David Haldar riding. The last time Americano rode Union Coach was on March 5 at Turf Paradise, where she earned a 66 Beyer winning a six-furlong, first-level allowance race by a nose. All told, Union Coach is 2 for 4 with Americano aboard, including a win in a starter allowance at Pleasanton in which she posted a career-best 71 Beyer.
She seems to be a different horse with Americano aboard. In a competitive jockey colony, that’s an indispensable edge.
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