Garcia to ride in first race since November on Friday

ARCADIA, Calif. – Jockey Martin Garcia will have his first mount since November in Friday’s eighth race at Santa Anita when he rides Mr Classical in a maiden claimer.

Garcia has not ridden since November at Del Mar because of a shoulder injury. He resumed exercising horses at Santa Anita last Saturday.

Mr Classical, trained by Doug O’Neill, is Garcia’s lone mount on Friday’s eight-race program.

Garcia missed more than three weeks of racing last fall after sustaining an injury in a training accident at Santa Anita in September. He returned to riding in mid-October and was active for a month before he was sidelined again.

Garcia, 34, is best known for winning the 2010 Preakness Stakes on Lookin At Lucky, the 2014 Breeders’ Cup Classic with Bayern ,and the 2017 Pacific Classic with Collected. Those runners were trained by Bob Baffert, with whom Garcia has had his greatest success.

Garcia won 26 races in 2018 and has 1,499 career wins. Last weekend, Garcia hired Tom Knust to book his mounts.

◗ This could be a productive weekend for jockeys Geovanni Franco, Heriberto Figueroa, and several of their colleagues. With four of the top 10 riders in the Santa Anita standings in Dubai for Saturday’s lucrative World Cup program, there are widespread opportunities for other jockeys through the three-day racing week, which includes nine stakes.

Jockeys Joel Rosario and Flavien Prat, who are first and second in the standings, and Mike Smith and Joe Talamo, who are ranked in the top 10, are riding in Dubai on Saturday. Franco and Figueroa are tied for third in the standings.