Javier Castellano is a member of racing’s Hall of Fame. He has won 12 Breeders’ Cup races, the Preakness twice, the Travers on a record six occasions, and has been honored with the Eclipse Award as the nation’s outstanding jockey four times. Castellano’s latest honor came Thursday, when it was announced the 45-year-old native of Venezuela is the 2023 recipient of the George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award, which is based on a nationwide vote of riders and reflects career achievement and personal character. Castellano will be honored at a date to be announced this spring at Santa Anita, which sponsors the award. Castellano was a finalist along with Daniel Centeno, Terry Houghton, Edwin Maldonado and Willie Martinez. :: Get ready for Santa Anita racing with DRF Past Performances, Picks, and Clocker Reports.  The award was first presented in 1950 and honors the memory of the jockey who rode Seabiscuit to a win in the famous 1938 match race with War Admiral. Woolf died as a result of injuries suffered in a spill at Santa Anita in 1946. Castellano had won 5,619 races in North America through Wednesday. He is riding at Gulfstream Park, where he ranked sixth in the standings with 23 wins through Wednesday. His mounts have earned more than $377.9 million in his career. Castellano won the Eclipse Award for outstanding jockey in four consecutive years, from 2013 to 2016. In each of those seasons, Castellano led the nation’s riders in earnings. He has won 12 riding titles, all at Aqueduct, Belmont Park or Saratoga. Castellano won his first race in 1997, the year he emigrated from Venezuela. Seven years later, Castellano won his first Breeders’ Cup race, taking the Classic aboard Ghostzapper at Lone Star Park. Ghostzapper was the 2004 Horse of the Year. Castellano was aboard the horse for all four of his starts in an undefeated season that year. Castellano won two Breeders’ Cup races at Santa Anita in 2019, his most recent victories in the series. He won the Preakness on Bernardini in 2006 and Cloud Computing in 2017. Castellano has a wife and three children. He is the son-in-law of Terry Meyocks, the president and chief executive of the Jockeys’ Guild and a former New York racing executive. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.