Peslier wins 2,000th French race

Olivier Peslier became just the fifth jockey in history to win 2,000 races in France when he guided Moonlanding to win a 1 1/4-mile handicap at Chantilly on Thursday. The 34-year-old Frenchman, four times the champion rider in his native land, joins Roger Poincelet, Yves Saint-Martin, Freddy Head, and Dominique Boeuf on that elite list.

Peslier now has about 2,480 victories worldwide in a career that began in 1991.

One of the world's best big race riders, Peslier has won 42 Group 1 races in France, 10 in England, nine in Japan, four each in Ireland and Hong Kong, three in Germany, and one in Italy. His two Grade 1 victories in the United States have come on Banks Hill in the Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf and, just six weeks ago, on Doctor Dino in the Man o' War Stakes. Peslier, who will ride Irish Wells in Sunday's Canadian International at Woodbine - where he won the E.P. Taylor aboard Kool Kat Katie in 1997 when it was a Grade 2 race - has won the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe three times, pulling off a hat trick between 1996 and 1998 with Helissio, Peintre Celebre, and Sagamix.