Cancel putting in the work and enjoying the rewards

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Jockey Eric Cancel is doing more preparation prior to riding races and it’s showing up in the results.

Cancel is having a terrific winter at Aqueduct. A recent run of success where he has won 20 races from 71 mounts over the last 11 cards entering this week has him firmly entrenched in second place in the standings. His 44 wins are nine fewer than Kendrick Carmouche and 12 more than Manny Franco, who is third.

“I’m riding confident and giving 100 percent,” Cancel said earlier this week. “I’ve just got one thing in mind – I want to try and win the meet.”

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Cancel, 24, attributes some of his recent success to better preparation.

“I’ve been studying the races a little bit more before I go out to ride, and I think that’s helping me a lot,” said Cancel, who recorded the first four-win day of his career Sunday. “I try not to panic when I’m riding. You always got a plan A when you go out there, but when it doesn’t work you just got to go to plan B.”

Cancel has racked up 10 wins at this meet for trainer Linda Rice, seven of those coming since Jan. 28. That coincides with Jose Lezcano, Rice’s main rider in the winter, going to the sidelines after undergoing shoulder and knee surgery. Rice, who was riding Cancel even before Lezcano’s surgery, said she has noticed that when Cancel comes to the paddock “he really understands the race already.”

“Right now,” she said, “he’s riding so many live horses and he does move from plan A to plan B seamlessly.”

Rice said she had previously typecast Cancel as a better closer than front-end rider.

“But I think he has gotten to ride so many live horses within the last six months that he’s really improved as a rider, and now I think he’s riding everything well,” Rice said.

On the weekend of Feb. 6-7, Cancel won both stakes for 3-year-olds at Aqueduct. That included a victory on Risk Taking in the Grade 3, $250,000 Withers Stakes for trainer Chad Brown. Cancel and his agent, P.J. Campo, took a risk taking off Overtook, a Todd Pletcher-trained horse on whom Cancel had won, to ride Risk Taking, a horse Cancel had never been on.

Cancel said he left the decision on whom to ride up to Campo.

“I left everything up to him,” Cancel said. “I knew we were taking off a horse that had ability and we won on the horse, but at the same time the horse that we were picking up, he showed a lot of ability too.”

Cancel gave Risk Taking a patient ride and won the Withers by 3 3/4 lengths going away.

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In post-race interviews, Brown was effusive with praise of Cancel’s ride, and it stands to reason Cancel would ride the horse back in the Grade 2, $750,000 Wood Memorial on April 3. A strong showing in the Wood could earn Risk Taking a start in the Kentucky Derby.

Cancel said he is not looking that far ahead with Risk Taking, knowing that owners and trainers often seek higher-profile jockeys for a race like the Kentucky Derby.

“It’s part of the game,” Cancel said. “You got to be prepared for everything. That’s something I’ve always been prepared for. I just don’t let anything get into my head. I just try to be humble and take everything day by day.

“The horse is very special. I just pray he keeps on doing well and, hopefully, I get the chance to stay on him,”

Rice, Cancel have busy Friday

Cancel is named to ride five horses for Rice on Friday’s eight-race card at Aqueduct.

The duo looks particularly live in race 4 with Doyouknowwhoiam, who was beaten a neck first out last summer at Saratoga in this same maiden $40,000 claiming condition. Doyouknowwhoiam is getting Lasix for the first time.

In race 7, a first-level New York-bred allowance going a one-turn mile, Cancel rides Cold Hard Cash for Rice. Rice said she would prefer to run Cold Hard Cash two turns, but said she didn’t know when the next opportunity would be to run him two turns in this condition.

In that same race, Rice also sends out Too Early, with Jorge Vargas Jr. up. Too Early was beaten a head in this condition going a one-turn mile on Jan. 23.

“That horse really likes the one-turn mile and that horse has really taken steps forward,” Rice said.

Manny Franco, who had ridden Too Early in his previous race, is aboard Magnetron, who is stepping up off a victory for $14,000 claiming.