Franco makes rapid climb in jockey standings

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Jockey Geovanni Franco has made a quick ascent up the Oaklawn Park standings during the first month of the meet. He ranked second in both wins and earnings through Thursday, boosted by a Feb. 4 triple that included the $125,000 King Cotton Stakes aboard Storm Advisory.

Franco is hitting at a 27 percent win clip, which leads all riders with 10 or more starts at the meet. He has won 17 races from 63 starts for mount earnings of $629,873, already surpassing his totals from the 2016 Oaklawn meet, where he went 16 for 120 in his first meet in Hot Springs.

“I am happy we’ve had a good start,” said Franco, a 26-year-old native of Mexico City.

Franco said he got into racing at the suggestion of a family member. He launched his career at Hipodromo de las Americas in Mexico, winning his first career race there in 2009.

“I started working with show horses,” Franco said. “My uncle was a [blacksmith], and I was his helper, and he asked me one day if I wanted to be a jockey.”

Franco later made his way to Canada and, after spending a few seasons at Hastings, became a leading rider at Turf Paradise. It was at the Arizona track that he made an important contact in Robertino Diodoro, the current leading trainer at Oaklawn.

Franco has a 10-for-32 mark with Diodoro at this meet and overall has won 136 races from 410 mounts for Diodoro, according to statistics from Daily Racing Form.

“For a young kid, he’s a very patient, smart rider,” Diodoro said. “Back from the Phoenix days, we kind of clicked, and it’s been a good relationship. My assistant gets along good with him. It’s a good team.”

Diodoro said he particularly likes what he’s seen from Franco at this meet.

“He’s really stepping up,” he said. “He’s one of those riders, I think, the better the riders are, the more he steps it up. He’s going to be a great rider. I can’t say enough for him.”

Diodoro put Franco on Storm Advisory in the King Cotton, and the horse gave the rider the richest stakes win of his career.

“The horse was just absolutely full of run,” Franco said. “I was just part of it. The horse did the job.”

Franco said that following the Oaklawn meet, the plan is to base in Kentucky, riding at Keeneland and Churchill Downs.

“I’m just going wherever the horses take me,” he said.

Of late, that’s been right up the standings at Oaklawn.