Mercante ends 9-race losing streak with River City Stakes
:quality(75))
Mercante broke a nine-race losing skid and jockey Walter Rodriguez won his first graded stakes race Saturday at Churchill Downs in the River City Stakes.
Rodriguez put Mercante on the lead, Kupuna hounded Mercante nearly the entire 1 1/8-mile grass race, but Mercante held him clear and scored by a half-length in the Grade 3, $300,000 River City.
None of the others ran much at all. Vote No finished third, 2 1/4 lengths behind Kupuna and a head in front of fourth-place Ole Crazy Bone. Carcano was fifth and Lambeth, a strong second choice behind narrowly favored Kupuna, barely lifted his hooves and finished last. Teao and Plensa were scratched.
Rodriguez, a native of El Salvador, has been riding – at least in North America – since 2022 and had been 7-0-1-0 in graded stakes, the second-place finish coming aboard Mercante in the Kentucky Cup Classic this past March. That was an eventful journey, to be kind, but Rodriguez kept it simple Saturday.
Six-year-old Mercante had not won since capturing the Arlington Stakes in May 2025 over the Churchill course, and Brian Knippenberg, who trains Mercante for Carl Pollard, long has held that Mercante, who has route speed, runs better with a target. But with a void of early pace in this short field, it would have been foolish not to deploy Mercante’s positional pace from his inside post, which Rodriguez did.
Kupuna also marched forward out of the gate but cornered awkwardly into the first bend, going very wide before Francisco Arrieta brought his mount back toward the rail, coming up to push Mercante through splits of 23.34 and 47.10 on a fast-playing, firm turf course. The two came into the homestretch separated by a narrow margin, and Kupuna came close to nosing in front between the three-sixteenths and eighth pole, but Mercante fought him off and was edging clear at the finish.
Mercante, who paid $10.12 to win and clocked 1:47.20, is a homebred by Gun Runner out of Caressing, by Honor and Glory. He hadn’t won in 18 months, but no one could catch him and Walter Rodriguez in the River City Stakes.
:: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.