Ellis or Saratoga the summer home for most Kentucky jockeys

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The bulk of the Churchill Downs riding colony will stay in Kentucky for much of the summer and move two hours westward to Ellis Park, although a few will ride at Saratoga and other tracks. Ellis, which begins its meet Saturday, will run Fridays through Sundays following a four-day holiday weekend to open the 31-day meet.

Julien Leparoux, Florent Geroux, and Shaun Bridgmohan are the only Churchill regulars who intend to ride daily at Saratoga, which runs July 21 to Sept. 4, but other Kentucky jockeys will make spot appearances there and elsewhere.

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Leparoux will ride Sunday at Woodbine, then travel to Prairie Meadows, Arlington Park, and Indiana Grand for stakes prior to the Saratoga opening. Geroux will ride at Monmouth, Parx, Arlington, Presque Isle, and Indiana over the next two weeks.

Meanwhile, Corey Lanerie and Brian Hernandez Jr. – the one-two finishers atop the jockey standings at the 38-day Churchill spring meet that ended Friday night – have their share of out-of-town stakes mounts lined up for the next couple of months.

You might need a scorecard to keep track of all the moving parts.

“So many things are bebopping around right now,” said Lanerie’s agent, Lenny Pike Jr. “We’ll ride the Iowa Festival (July 6-8) at Prairie and maybe try to ride earlier in the day at Arlington on the 8th if that’s doable. Sometimes you’d like to be in three places at once if you could be.”

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