Ayuso rides momentum into Del Mar meet

Jockey Armando Ayuso was two days away from winning a riding title this spring at Santa Anita.

The season ran from April 17 to June 15. Ayuso was tied for the lead after the first weekend and had a one-race lead when racing ended June 13. He finished with 31 wins, two less than leader Antonio Fresu.

The narrow defeat has left Ayuso eager for Friday’s start of the Del Mar summer meeting and a chance for a first riding title at the most popular season of the year in California.

“This year has been amazing,” Ayuso said in a recent interview. “I think I’m just growing. This is what I need to see – to fight for a title and see if I’m capable to be there.”

Ayuso has been building to this opportunity over the last year. He finished sixth in the standings at the 2025 Del Mar summer meeting behind Fresu and improved to fourth at the track’s fall meeting, a title won by Umberto Rispoli.

At the Santa Anita winter-spring meeting from late December to early April, Ayuso finished fourth with 35 wins, 15 fewer than leader Emisael Jaramillo.

At Del Mar, Ayuso will compete for wins with Fresu, Jaramillo, and Rispoli as well as Juan Hernandez, who has won the last four riding titles at the track’s summer meeting, plus Hector Berrios, Kyle Frey, Kazushi Kimura, Tiago Pereira, and Joel Rosario.

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“I’m happy to ride with these guys,” Ayuso said. “They’ve been winning Grade 1s and doing things I want to do. I want to learn from them, how they do it and how they’ve been successful in their careers.”

Ayuso, 32, has yet to win a Grade 1 stakes. He was third in the Grade 1 Malibu at Santa Anita last December aboard Speedy Wilson.

Ayuso won the second Grade 2 stakes of his career, and fifth overall graded stakes, in the $201,000 Great Lady M. Stakes on July 4 at Los Alamitos aboard the brilliant sprinter Sweet Azteca. Ayuso was subsituting for Hernandez, the mare’s regular rider who was serving a suspension.

At the three-week Los Alamitos meeting that ended July 5, Ayuso finished in a tie for first in the jockey standings with Kimura and Edgar Payeras. He won two of the three stakes at the brief meeting, beginning with the $100,000 Bertrando Stakes aboard Shea Brennan.

For the year, Ayuso has won 74 races through Thursday, putting him within range of a personal best of 117 wins in 2021. At the time, Ayuso was based in Northern California in the second year of a return to riding after a four-year hiatus in which he worked as an exercise rider in Southern California.

“A lot of things were coming at the same time, economic problems, and I was too young,” he said. “I was trying to find myself and see where I was.

I think I learned a lot to get what I have now. It took me four years.”

Ayuso rode at the Del Mar summer meeting in 2022 before returning to Northern California. He began riding in Southern California on a full-time basis in summer 2023.

Last year, Ayuso’s mounts earned more than $5.1 million, a career high. Through Thursday, his mounts have earned more than $3.9 million, putting the Panama native on course for a career year.

Ayuso, who has won 707 races in North America since his career began in 2012, is in his third year of working with agent Mike Ciani.

Ayuso has achieved these results despite not having a steady alliance with leading trainers in California such as Bob Baffert, Phil D’Amato, Mark Glatt, Michael McCarthy, or Doug O’Neill.

Ayuso did ride winners for D’Amato and O’Neill at Los Alamitos in recent weeks and has the mount on D’Amato’s Shea Brennan in Saturday’s Grade 2 San Diego Handicap at Del Mar. Shea Brennan is owned by the prominent California breeder Nick Alexander. In the last five years, Ayuso has ridden three stakes winners for Alexander.

At the Santa Anita spring meeting, Ayuso did not ride for Baffert, Glatt, or McCarthy. He was winless on two mounts for O’Neill and lost aboard five mounts for D’Amato, four of which were owned by Alexander.

“I’m a leading jockey, but I don’t ride for Baffert,” he said. “I don’t ride for Doug. I don’t ride for Mark. I don’t ride for McCarthy, and I don’t ride for Phil.

“If we can get to one of those barns, especially McCarthy or Bob Baffert, it would be big for us, especially at Del Mar with the good horses.”

At the Santa Anita spring meeting, Ayuso won races for 18 trainers, including four races for Richard Baltas, three for Brian Koriner, and two for Neil Drysdale, Antonio Garcia, Andrew Harris, Jose Hernandez, Steve Knapp, Bill McLean, Leonard Powell, and Mike Puype.

On Friday and Saturday at Del Mar, Ayuso is booked to ride 18 races for 11 trainers. Of the five trainers Ayuso yearns to ride for, his only mount is for D’Amato aboard Shea Brennan.

“I want to keep working hard and seeing what I’ll do,” he said. “Maybe I can get through to one of these big barns. Maybe it will open some doors.”

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