Battle for leading rider was best race of the meet

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – The best race of the entire 2018-19 Gulfstream Park Championship meeting was arguably the battle for leading jockey honors which went down to the final yards of the final race of the 89-day session before Irad Ortiz Jr. nosed out two-time defending champion Luis Saez for the title.

Ortiz won 135 races, one more than Saez, during the meet to capture his first Gulfstream Park riding crown. Saez entered the final day three wins behind Ortiz but pulled even after capturing the third, fourth and ninth events on the card. Ortiz re-claimed the lead with a come-from-behind victory aboard Scam in the next-to-last race of the session. Saez then fell just short of dead-heating for the crown when his mount Taranto finished a close second to the favorite Solar Warming in the finale.

Saez opened a commanding lead in the standings early in the session but relinquished the top spot to Ortiz while serving two consecutive five-day riding suspensions in February. He then went on a torrid streak to get back in contention while Ortiz sat out a five-day suspension of his own earlier this month.

“It feels great, I got a lot of support from the owners and trainers and my agent did a great job,” Ortiz said immediately after Sunday’s last race. “I’m so happy, I have no words for how I feel right now. It’s so good to start the year so well, we won a lot of stakes, it’s great. Luis is a great rider. He never gave up. I enjoyed the moment. I enjoyed everything.”

Ortiz, the reigning Eclipse Award-winning jockey, won nine graded stakes during the meet, including the inaugural Pegasus World Cup Turf aboard Bricks and Mortar.

In a more startling bit of news, Todd Pletcher’s reign atop the Gulfstream Park Championship meet trainer standings ended this winter following an unprecedented 15 consecutive winning seasons after Jorge Navarro captured his first title with 53 victories. Navarro was not on hand to accept his trophy on Sunday as he was still traveling home after winning the $2 million Golden Shaheen in Dubai the previous day with X Y Jet.