Man O Rose carries jockey Maldonado back to the winner's circle
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CYPRESS, Calif. - An old friend helped jockey Edwin Maldonado end a seven-month slump in stakes wins at Los Alamitos on Saturday.
Man O Rose, 6, led throughout the $75,000 E.B. Johnston Stakes for California-bred milers, giving Maldonado his first stakes win since the $500,000 Sunland Park Derby in New Mexico in February.
Man O Rose and Maldonado have been a powerful team since the gelding won a maiden race at Del Mar in November 2023. Owned by Bruce and Beverley Zeitz and trained by Jeff Mullins, Man O Rose has won 13 of 22 starts. Maldonado has been aboard for six of Man O Rose’s seven stakes wins and 12 of his overall wins.
The Johnston Stakes was Man O Rose’s fifth start of the year, and third stakes win. Maldonado rode Man O Rose to a win in the California Cup Sprint in January, a third-place finish at 2-5 in the Sensational Star Stakes on turf in March, and an eighth-place finish in the Grade 2 Green Flash Handicap at Del Mar on Aug. 22. Emisael Jaramillo rode Man O Rose to a win in the Palos Verdes Stakes in February, the day Maldonado won the Sunland Park Derby aboard Pavlovian.
The loss in the Green Flash Handicap was easy to explain. Man O Rose broke through the gate before the start and ran three furlongs down the backstretch with Maldonado aboard before he was brought back to the gate. After inspection by a veterinarian, Man O Rose was surprisingly allowed to start. He failed to take his normal position near the front, and was eased by Maldonado when beaten.
The defeat in the Green Flash was part of a frustrating Del Mar summer meeting for Maldonado, who won three races from 71 mounts.
“These are the type of horses that keep you around,” Maldonado said of Man O Rose. “I was having a bit of a slump after leaving Del Mar.
“We’re back in the winner’s circle thanks to Man O Rose.”
Sunday is the final day of the two-week Los Alamitos September meeting. Santa Anita opens a six-week autumn meeting on Friday. Maldonado is hoping the win on Saturday leads to more opportunities in coming weeks.
“If you’re not winning, no one wants you,” he said. “It’s a tough sport. I have to focus. You have to psych yourself up.”
Man O Rose has won three of four starts at a mile in his career, the three wins in the Johnston Stakes and a sixth-place finish by 2 1/4 lengths in the Lure Stakes on turf at Santa Anita in October 2024.
Maldonado said Man O Rose is better at a mile than in a sprint.
“He’s a monster,” Maldonado said. “He’s two different horses.”
At a mile, "my job is to get him to relax the first half-mile. Sprinting, I let him do his thing. He takes me to the wire. He takes me to the winner’s circle.
“I don’t hold him in a sprint. I let him rip.”
Through Saturday, the 43-year-old Maldonado has won 32 races this year compared to 47 in 2025. He won a personal best 190 races in 2013, the year he tied for leading jockey at the Hollywood Park spring-summer meeting, was second at the Santa Anita winter-spring and fall meetings and the Los Angeles County Fair meeting at Fairplex, and tied for third at the Del Mar summer meeting.
On Sunday, Mullins said he does not have any immediate race plans for Man O Rose. Last year, Man O Rose returned from a 10-month layoff to win the Johnston Stakes, and followed with wins in two sprints for statebreds - the California Flag Stakes on the hillside turf course at Santa Anita and The Chosen Vron Stakes at seven furlongs at Del Mar.
This year, those races will be run on Oct. 10 and Nov. 7.
Mullins said he was relieved Man O Rose won his first stakes in seven months in the Johnston.
“We knew the horse was ready for that race,” he said. “It would have been nicer to not have that mess that we went through at Del Mar. It all worked out for the best.”
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