More flexible in mind and body, Drayden Van Dyke gets back in the saddle
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DEL MAR, Calif. – A few weeks ago, jockey Drayden Van Dyke climbed aboard a horse for the first time since last summer.
Van Dyke has not ridden since the final days of the 2025 Del Mar summer meeting, taking what he described as a self-imposed extended break for the second time in three years for physical and mental reasons. Reuniting with a horse for a recent morning workout was an invigorating moment of its own.
“After I got on my first one, I thought, ‘Ah, I really miss this,’ ” Van Dyke said.
On Sunday at Del Mar, Van Dyke has his first mount of the year in the $100,000 California Thoroughbred Breeders Association Stakes with On Broadway.
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Van Dyke, 31, insists that he is eager to return to riding on a full-time basis, has worked to improve his physical fitness and health, and is ready to prove that he is back for good among a competitive group of jockeys in California.
“I don’t want anyone to think I’m going to disappear” again, Van Dyke said in a recent interview. “I’m getting that ‘Are you going to stick around?’ They are a little skeptical and they have every right to be.”
Van Dyke began riding in the fall of 2013 at the age of 19 and won the Eclipse Award as the nation’s outstanding apprentice jockey in 2014. He was among the top 10 riders at Del Mar at a majority of the meetings in the next three years before he won riding titles at the track’s summer and fall meetings in 2018. He holds the single-day track record of seven wins, set on a Sunday in August 2018.
That year, Van Dyke won his first Breeders’ Cup race with Stormy Liberal in the Turf Sprint at Del Mar. For the year, he won a career-best 150 races with mounts that earned a career-high $11,086,905.
Van Dyke, however, was unable to sustain the momentum. His number of winners declined annually, going from 41 in 2021 to just five victories in 2023. That fall, Van Dyke took off the final three months of the year and returned to riding in mid-January 2024. In hindsight, Van Dyke says he was not ready to return.
“I should have taken longer,” he said. “I came back too quick.”
Van Dyke soldiered through 2024, winning 52 races. He relocated to Gulfstream Park for part of the year and won his biggest race of the season in the BC Filly and Mare Sprint at Del Mar aboard Soul of an Angel. The win came at a price: Van Dyke was fined $15,600 and suspended three days of excessive use of the whip.
Van Dyke rode the early months of 2025 at Gulfstream Park before returning to California in April of that year. At the 2025 Del Mar summer meeting, Van Dyke had two wins from 45 mounts. His last mount of the year was a last-place finish aboard Ooty in the Tranquility Lake Stakes on Labor Day.
“I had to get away,” he said.
After his departure from the racing scene, Van Dyke’s phone rang frequently.
“I had tons of people reaching out, worried about me,” he said. “I didn’t have an answer for them and I was figuring it out myself.”
Van Dyke said the break was needed for physical and personal reasons. For years, he has reflected on the death of his father, Seth, a former jockey who committed suicide in 2014 at 43. Van Dyke spoke with a grandfather, an uncle, and his mother about his father in recent months.
“I needed to know about him, to understand him and myself,” Van Dyke said. “I’m part of him.”
Physically, Van Dyke said he was worn down, plagued by shoulder and neck issues and a state of malaise.
“My body was hurting,” he said. “I was telling people I felt like I was 80 years old, and I’m in my 30s.”
Van Dyke worked on nutrition and overall physical condition. He began to contemplate a comeback last month.
“I’m so much more flexible,” he said. “I focused on my stretching and my mobility so that I have longevity.”
Van Dyke has hired 25-year-old Riley Shapiro as his agent.
“I know he’s a younger agent,” Van Dyke said. “He’s hungry and he’s out there at the crack of dawn.”
The Van Dyke-Shapiro partnership has much to prove. The Del Mar summer meeting began on July 17 and Van Dyke must work his way into the rotation of preferred riders, many with full books of mounts for coming weeks.
“I know the timing is horrible,” he said. “I’m not worried about my success at this meeting. I’m excited to get back on horses and ride. If I’m not wanting to do this, something is not right. I wanted to get back to the feeling of riding. I’m hungry as ever. Reality punched me in the face. I needed to grow up.
“I wanted to get back to the old DVD. I’m back to who I used to be. I’m excited for the next chapter of my riding career and my life in general.”
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