Jockey Medero sentenced for burglary

Angel Suarez Medero, the jockey who was charged with burglary by Bucks County, Pa., police in December, was sentenced to four to 23 months in the county prison after pleading no-contest to the charge, according to Pennsylvania news sources.

Medero, a finalist for the 2012 Eclipse Award for apprentice jockey, was caught by police on the night the incident occurred after leaping from a second-floor balcony. According to police, he had exposed himself on the balcony to a woman inside, entered the apartment, grabbed the woman’s dog, jumped to a lower-level apartment, and was then shot in the upper abdomen by a man there.

According to media reports of the sentencing hearing, Medero claimed that he had smoked marijuana prior to the incident occurring. “It wasn’t me that night,” Medero told the judge.

Medero spent a month in the hospital recovering from the gunshot wound.

Medero led the nation in purse earnings among apprentice riders in 2012 with $3.4 million. At the time of the incident, the rider had won 58 races from 539 mounts that year, riding mostly at Parx Racing in Bensalem.