Leparoux moving tack to California ahead of Del Mar meet

Jockey Julien Leparoux, a two-time Eclipse Award winner in the 2000s, is moving from Kentucky to California in early July in advance of the Del Mar summer meeting.

“The goal is to find good horses,” Leparoux said on Wednesday.

“What’s not to like about Del Mar? I’m trying to get more opportunities. I have had good success there.”

The Del Mar meeting runs from July 17 to Sept. 7. Leparoux will be represented by Ryan Glatt, who also books mounts for Abel Lezcano.

Leparoux, 42, is scheduled to arrive in California on July 1, Glatt said. Leparoux will ride the final weekend of the upcoming Los Alamitos meeting, which runs from June 19 to July 5.

Glatt said Leparoux will ride workouts at Santa Anita and San Luis Rey Downs until full training begins at Del Mar on July 14.

Through Tuesday, Leparoux has won 3,070 races in a career that began in 2005. This year, Leparoux has won 11 races from 79 mounts through Tuesday. He plans to ride at Churchill Downs through the end of the track’s spring-summer meeting on June 28.

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“It’s been slow,” Leparoux said of the current year. “I have to try to do something about it.”

In this decade, Leparoux’s win total has ranged from 41 in 2024 to 75 in 2020.

A native of France, Leparoux won the Eclipse Award as the nation’s outstanding apprentice jockey in 2006, and won the Eclipse as outstanding jockey in 2009. He is one of four riders to win Eclipse Awards in both categories.

In 2009, Leparoux’s mounts earned more than $18.2 million, a career high. He won a career-best 403 races in 2006, leading the nation.

Leparoux has won 29 career races at Del Mar, including 25 in the summer of 2013 when he ranked in a tie for fifth in the jockey standings behind leader Rafael Bejarano with 46. Leparoux led all riders with seven stakes wins that summer, including wins in two Grade 1 races.

The 2013 season is Leparoux’s only full campaign at Del Mar. He won the Grade 1 Del Mar Oaks with Dream Dancing in 2017 when based at Saratoga.

Leparoux has won seven Breeders’ Cup races, including the 2015 BC Mile at Keeneland on Tepin, and the 2016 Juvenile at Santa Anita on Classic Empire.

In April, Leparoux was at Santa Anita to receive the 2026 George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award. The recipient is selected by riders nationwide and is based on achievement and personal character.

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