Hernandez to serve three days, will ride in graded stakes

Juan Hernandez, the leading rider at the Santa Anita winter-spring meeting earlier this year, will miss most of three days of racing at Del Mar to serve a suspension for a recent riding infraction.

Hernandez is suspended on Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 10, for his ride on Wide West in the Daisycutter Handicap for turf sprinters last Friday. Hernandez was cited for altering course without sufficient clearance in the stretch. Wide West was disqualified from sixth and placed seventh.

The suspension will not prevent Hernandez from riding the two graded stakes next weekend at Del Mar – Saturday’s Grade 1 Clement Hirsch Stakes for fillies and mares and Sunday’s Grade 3 La Jolla Handicap for 3-year-olds on turf. Graded stakes are exempt from routine suspensions.

Hernandez will not ride the recent two-time stakes winner Kings River Knight in Saturday’s $150,000 California Dreamin’ Stakes for statebreds at 1 1/16 miles on turf. Umberto Rispoli will ride Kings River Knight, trainer John Sadler said on Sunday.

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