For Irad Ortiz Jr., focus on Breeders' Cup pays off handsomely

ARCADIA, Calif. – Though he was near the top of the national leaderboard in both wins and purse money won for the year, jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. – the reigning Eclipse Award winning jockey – felt his business had slowed down this fall.

At the Belmont Park fall meet – one that he led all riders in wins for five consecutive years – Ortiz won just 20 races, ninth in the standings. While his upper tier business was solid, his day-to-day business was not.

“My agent and I spoke about it,” Ortiz said, referring to his agent Steve Rushing, “and he told me ‘The Breeders’ Cup can make the whole year. We have good mounts, concentrate on the Breeders’ Cup,’ so I did.”

Boy did he ever.

Over the two-day event at Santa Anita, Ortiz won four of the 14 Breeders’ Cup races – he had mounts in 12 – topped by Saturday’s $6 million Breeders’ Cup Classic aboard Vino Rosso. On Saturday, Ortiz also won the $4 million Turf on Bricks and Mortar and the $1 million Dirt Mile on Spun to Run. On Friday, he won the $1 million Juvenile Turf Sprint on Four Wheel Drive.

Ortiz boosted his record to 9 for 53 in the Breeders’ Cup. For the second straight year, Ortiz won the Bill Shoemaker Award for outstanding Breeders’ Cup performance.

Ortiz picked up the mount on Vino Rosso after John Velazquez, the colt’s regular rider, chose to ride Code of Honor in the Grade 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont Park on Sept. 28. Though Ortiz guided Vino Rosso across the wire first in that race in front of Code of Honor, he was disqualified for a bumping incident in deep stretch.

Ortiz worked Vino Rosso several times in between the Jockey Club Gold Cup and the Breeders’ Cup and he was gaining confidence with each breeze.

“I really liked the way he was working going into the race,” Ortiz said. “He was doing much better than the last race. I got a lot of confidence in him and you see how he ran.”

Ortiz thought that Joel Rosario had to use McKinzie a bit to get his position going into the first turn of the Classic. He felt that McKinzie would come back to him in the stretch going 1 1/4 miles.

“Thank God it worked out good, he come back to me and my horse responded the way I expected he’d respond in the end,” Ortiz said.

When Todd Pletcher, the trainer of Vino Rosso, and owners Vinnie Viola and Mike Repole had to find a new rider, Ortiz was a logical choice. Then when Pletcher saw how well the horse responded to Ortiz in both the morning and the afternoon, he knew they had made the right decision.

“Every breeze was executed perfectly, you could tell the horse was just loving it, just happy, was training sensationally,” said Pletcher, who won his first Breeders’ Cup Classic. “Some riders have a good rapport with certain horses. Irad and Vino Rosso really gelled, you could see there was great chemistry there from the first time he got on him.”

While Ortiz was riding Vino Rosso for only the second time, he had been the regular rider of Bricks and Mortar since last December. Ortiz had never lost on Bricks and Mortar guiding him to six straight victories from a mile to 1 1/4 miles. The Turf was going to be his first – and last – run at 1 1/2 miles.

Ortiz had plenty of confidence Bricks and Mortar could get the distance and he rallied him to a head victory over 50-1 shot United in the $4 million Turf.

“When I rode him last time at a mile and a quarter,” in the Arlington Million, Ortiz said, Bricks and Mortar “passed the wire and gave me a feel that he had something left in the tank. I just rode him like a regular race and didn’t worry about the distance.”

Ortiz believes Bricks and Mortar – who won five Grade 1 races – should be Horse of the Year.

“What a year he had. I don’t see too many turf horses win Horse of the Year, but what he did I don’t think there’s a horse that did what he did even on dirt," Ortiz said.

Earlier on Saturday’s card, Ortiz guided Spun to Run to a front-running victory in the Dirt Mile at odds of 9-1.

“I never rode the horse before, I just followed instructions,” said Ortiz, who rode Spun to Run for trainer Juan Carlos Guerrero. “He told me to break running and I did. He was a little aggressive going to the backside but he never slowed down, he just kept going.”

Ortiz hopes this is the weekend that gets him going again.