Geroux savors unforgettable day at Arlington

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – On Sunday at Saratoga, where he is based right now, Florent Geroux rode the winner of the first race, running his record at the meet to 4-5-10 from 56 starters and placing him 13th in the jockey standings.

One day earlier at Arlington, Geroux had one of the best days a jockey has ever had in Chicago. He rode five winners and won four graded stakes, including two Grade 1s, the Beverly D. and the Secretariat, and two Grade 3s, the American St. Leger and the Pucker Up, the latter via disqualification. Geroux’s share of his mounts’ earnings Saturday alone was about $100,000, and the four graded-stakes victories gave him 22 for the year. That makes Geroux the leading graded-stakes rider in the country this year, his total being four more than Javier Castellano, who has 20 more wins at Saratoga than Geroux.

“Last week, it was kind of funny,” Geroux said. “I was riding a horse on turf, and I don’t know the last time I was on a 60-1 shot in a maiden claimer.”

Breaking into the Saratoga jockey colony has proved a lot more difficult for Geroux than finding big-race mounts all over the country. Geroux has gotten ever more opportunities from a widening array of trainers, and Saturday, his two Grade 1 wins came courtesy of trainer Chad Brown, for whom Geroux never had ridden a winner until he piloted Beach Patrol to victory in the Secretariat.

“I ride a lot of good horses, and they’re at Saratoga, but they’re not racing at Saratoga,” said Geroux, who was based each summer at Arlington until this year. “But if I didn’t go to Saratoga, I probably would never have picked up those horses for Chad Brown.”

Geroux had a chance for an unprecedented sweep of the three Grade 1 races at Arlington when he had his Million mount, World Approval, in a perfect pressing position turning for home, but Geroux said down the backstretch, with World Approval laboring a bit to keep up, he knew he was in trouble. Geroux, though, had done his job, giving his mount the trip he needed in a million-dollar race.

The door first really opened for Geroux when he won the 2014 Breeders’ Cup Sprint on Work All Week, and Geroux, a native of France whose agent is Doug Bredar, was ready to step through it.

Geroux said he has grown used to competing under bright lights. Whatever butterflies might have floated in his gut when he first started getting big chances have stopped fluttering, but Geroux is not taking anything for granted.

“You get used to it, but it’s not like now I win those big races, I’m a big shot or anything,” he said. “You always need to come back to earth. It’s even easier to go down than to go to the top, and that’s why I always keep working hard. When you do the right thing and you’re nice to people and work hard, you can get rewarded.”

Geroux rode but seven graded-stakes winners two years ago and 14 last year. This already has been a career year, and Geroux hasn’t even gotten to Kentucky Downs, a meet he has dominated in recent seasons.

“I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing and hope the stock keeps improving,” he said. “It’s been a great two years.”

Options for Million’s top two

Mondialiste, the Arlington Million winner, flew back to England on Sunday, and Kasaqui, a tough-luck second in the race, has gone home to Kentucky. When and where either horse races next is not yet certain.

Mondialiste earned a fees-paid entry into the Breeders’ Cup Turf by winning the Million, but though his connections probably are inclined to bring him back to the U.S. later this year, he is a more likely runner in the BC Mile than the BC Turf. Mondialiste got a 97 Beyer Speed Figure for his first win of 2016.

Kasaqui, the South American import who was bred and is owned by American expatriate Diane Perkins, came out of his career-best showing in the Million “perfect,” according to trainer Ignacio Correas.

“We had lunch and talked a little bit about what we might do next, but we’re going to wait another couple days before we make a plan where to go,” Correas said. “We are very happy with what we saw from the horse, and we need to keep building on this.”

The fundamental question with Kasaqui is whether to turn him back to one-mile races or try to stretch him out to 1 1/2 miles.

Zipessa could target First Lady

The pace in the Beverly D. Stakes, thanks to Sea Calisi’s rabbit, Elusive Million, was very strong, and considering that Zipessa was part of it, her third-place finish in a race perhaps farther than she really wants to run was notably strong.

“She came out of it in good shape,” said trainer Mike Stidham. “She ran her heart out. Unfortunately, we got caught up in the whole rabbit escapade, but she ran well in spite of that. We haven’t thought a lot past that race, but we’ll look at the [Grade 1] First Lady at Keeneland, that type of thing.”