Gonzalez, McCarthy top Laurel fall standings

Trainer Claudio Gonzalez and jockey Trevor McCarthy topped their respective divisions at the Laurel Park fall meeting, which ran from Sept. 7 through Dec. 31.

Gonzalez, 42, won 47 races at the meet to complete a sweep of the three sessions held at Laurel in 2018. He has now won five of the last six Laurel titles dating back to the 2017 winter meet.

“There’s no secret, we put them in the right spots,” Gonzalez said. “The owners understand that if we lose a horse and win the race, it’s okay.”

For the second straight year, Gonzalez was the winningest trainer at the Maryland Jockey Club tracks of Laurel and Pimlico with 111 victories.

McCarthy, 24, returned to Maryland in mid-September after starting the year off in New York and then focusing on Monmouth Park and Delaware Park over the summer. He won 45 races at the fall meet. Four riders tied for second with 32 wins.

The title was the fifth for McCarthy at Laurel and his seventh in Maryland.

Jorge Vargas Jr., in his first season riding in Maryland after being based at Parx, was the year’s leading rider with 110 wins, four more than Wes Hamilton, who rode as an apprentice through Dec. 21.