Jockey Trevor McCarthy headed to California
Jockey Trevor McCarthy, fourth in the standings at the Belmont Park spring-summer meeting through Sunday, is relocating to Southern California this month.
McCarthy, 26, plans to make the move after the weekend of May 15-16 and begin riding at Santa Anita on Memorial Day weekend, May 29-31. McCarthy will be represented by Derek Lawson, who booked mounts on behalf of top California jockey Flavien Prat until late February.
“I’m really excited to make the move,” McCarthy said in a phone interview on Wednesday. “It was an opportunity. Derek reached out to me and he’s got a pretty good résumé. He had many good years for Prat.
“I had a lot of time to think about it. California is a place with a lot of great horses and great horsemen. Why not take the chance? I’m 26. I’m young.”
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McCarthy had 50 wins this year through Sunday.
McCarthy was the leading rider at the Laurel Park winter meeting in the first few months of 2020, and the brief Pimlico meeting last fall. McCarthy was among the top five at two other meetings at Laurel in 2020.
By starting in late May, McCarthy will ride the final weeks of the Santa Anita meeting, which ends on June 20, and the two-week meeting at Los Alamitos from June 25 to July 5 before the start of the Del Mar summer meeting on July 16.
McCarthy joins a jockey roster led by Prat, with Juan Hernandez, Umberto Rispoli, Abel Cedillo, and Tyler Baze rounding out the top five active riders at the meeting. Joel Rosario ranks among the top jockeys on the basis of his success in the early months of the year. Rosario is currently riding at Belmont Park.
McCarthy knows gaining a place among the leading riders will be difficult in the short term.
“We’ll have to take it as it comes,” he said. “I’ve been the kind of guy that has worked hard and studied and pushed myself to be a better rider.”
This year, McCarthy has won four stakes, all in New York, the most recent of which was the Grade 2 Sheepshead Bay Stakes on Magic Attitude at Belmont Park last Saturday.
Last December, McCarthy married fellow jockey Katie Davis. When they have ridden in the same races in New York, their mounts have been coupled because of a New York state rule. McCarthy said that Davis does not plan to ride when the couple moves to California.
Davis has five wins this year and is scheduled to ride at Pimlico this week.