Hernandez has big closing week to win fifth straight Santa Anita title

ARCADIA, Calif. – Jockey Juan Hernandez had 10 winners in a four-day span last Thursday through Sunday to clinch his fifth consecutive riding title at Santa Anita at the spring meeting that ended Sunday.

Hernandez won 36 races, one more than Antonio Fresu. Kyle Frey finished third at the 29-day season with 27 wins. Fresu led the standings coming into the race week with 29 wins, three more than Hernandez at the time.

Hernandez, 32, won riding titles at the 2022-23 winter-spring meeting at Santa Anita as well as the 2023 spring and fall meetings and the winter-spring meeting that ended in April of this year.

Fresu has risen rapidly in the Southern California standings in the last year after relocating from Dubai in spring 2023.

Trainer Phil D’Amato won his fourth training title at Santa Anita in the last two years, finishing the spring meeting with 22 wins. Doug O’Neill was second with 17 wins, closely followed by Mark Glatt with 15. At the winter-spring meeting that ended in April, O’Neill won 31 races, compared to Glatt with 29 and D’Amato with 28.

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D’Amato, 48, won training titles at Santa Anita in the six-month marathon meeting in 2021-22, when the two meetings were combined into one set of standings, and again in 2023 when the winter-spring and spring meetings had two different sets of standings.

◗ In the last six months, Santa Anita had a slight decline in fatalities in racing since the start of the winter-spring meeting on Dec. 26, 2023.

According to the California Horse Racing Board’s website, there were two fatalities in races from Dec. 26 through Sunday, compared to three during a similar time period in 2022-23. There were five fatalities in training this year, compared to three last year.

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