Jockey sets Turfway mark

Apprentice jockey Julien Leparoux broke the Turfway Park record for most wins in a meet with a victory aboard Harpers Lane in the sixth race Wednesday night. The win was his 151st since the winter-spring meet began on Jan. 1.

The previous record had been 150, set at the 2004 winter-spring meet by Rafael Bejarano. Bejarano rode 472 mounts in establishing his mark. Leparoux tied Bejarano's record in Wednesday's fourth race in winning with his 479th mount, and broke the record with his 481st ride of the meet.

His higher mount total was made possible in part by the absence of weather-related cancellations this year on Turfway's synthetic Polytrack surface, which was installed in the fall of last year. A total of 629 races have been run at Turfway in 2006, compared with 564 throughout the entire winter-spring meet in 2004.

At the end of racing Wednesday, Leparoux's stats for the meet stood at 151 wins, 98 seconds, and 60 thirds from 483 mounts for purse earnings of $1,488,799. Heading into Thursday evening's card, six days remained in the Turfway meet, which concludes April 6.

Leparoux, a 22-year-old native of Chantilly, France, has been riding since August. In addition to topping the Turfway standings, he is the leading rider in the nation by wins, with 43 more victories this year than second-place Martin Garcia, who has 108.