With racing world in a tizzy, Espinoza stays cool

Victor Espinoza, the self-proclaimed “luckiest Mexican on Earth,” has been shopping on the sly lately, avoiding some of his usual San Gabriel Valley haunts.

“I like talking to the fans, especially the kids,” he said between races at Santa Anita the other day. “But now they all want to talk about the Derby, and the Belmont, and the Triple Crown. I hate to tell them I might be late to be somewhere else, or that I have something else to do. And sometimes I really get into the conversation. So, I found a couple different places to shop.”

Espinoza said all this with a flash of his familiar grin and without serious complaint, more amused than anything at the whirl of attention surrounding his latest attempt to win the Triple Crown, this time aboard American Pharoah. Thrust back into horse racing’s occasional spotlight, he has been more than willing to answer all the questions he was asked last year before and after California Chrome’s try in the Belmont Stakes, as well as a few left over from 2002, when he came to the Belmont with Derby and Preakness winner War Emblem and left empty-handed.

This time, it is different, if only because it is always different, beginning with the horse. War Emblem was an unknown quantity before winning the Illinois Derby a month before Espinoza met him for the first time in Kentucky, while California Chrome was dismissed as an overachieving California-bred before clawing his way to the top of the West Coast 3-year-old heap.

American Pharoah, on the other hand, has had an anointed quality about him from the moment he won the Del Mar Futurity as a maiden last September. Espinoza was aboard for the first time that day and has been firmly attached ever since.

“I was more impressed with him than any other 2-year-old I ever rode for Bob Baffert,” Espinoza said.

It’s a pretty good list, one that includes major stakes winners Officer, Flame Thrower, Kafwain, Habibti, and Point Ashley, although none of them took Espinoza as far as American Pharoah. How much farther he’ll find out on Saturday.

Born in farm country northeast of Mexico City, Espinoza is trying to become the first jockey to ride a Triple Crown winner since teenager Steve Cauthen turned the trick in 1978 aboard Affirmed. Espinoza was 6 and admits that the news didn’t make it to the little town of Tulancingo.

“I hardly ever watched TV,” he said. “As a kid growing up, I was never amazed by movie stars and athletes. To me, they were not a big deal. For me, the first thing was to survive, then try to be a success. When I got older, the first guy I thought of as a hero was Bill Gates – how do you get to be the richest man in the United States?”

Last year, Gates spent some of his riches to buy Rancho Paseana, the training center owned by Sid and Jenny Craig just inland from Del Mar, as well as a home in nearby Rancho Santa Fe.

“About two weeks ago, they were having a party at his house,” Espinoza said. “I was really planning to go, but I rode quite a few horses that day, and I didn’t want to drive all the way there and then have to drive all the way back to ride the next day. So, at the last minute, I had to pass.”

Blowing off Bill Gates. Is there a better definition of success?

“Who knows?” Espinoza added. “Maybe we can get together this summer.”

The jockey drives a Mercedes, nice but not brand new, and owns a home in Del Mar and a townhouse near Santa Anita, which is where the significant California racing will be taking place for the foreseeable future. When he travels to ride, he chooses his hotel based on its proximity to a quality fitness center.

Espinoza turned 43 one week after winning the Preakness. He is, as they say, unattached and never was.

“I came close once,” he said. “When my mother calls me, she doesn’t say, ‘How are you doing?’ She asks, ‘So, when are you getting married?’ ”

This is a conservative, buttoned-down athlete with a self-deprecating attitude of “What, me worry?” He takes himself just seriously enough and prefers to keep his feelings wrapped in a wisecrack or a playful dig, unless the conversation turns to his informal commitment to City of Hope, the world-renowned cancer research and treatment hospital located not far from Santa Anita Park.

For the past 11 years, Espinoza has donated a significant slice of his earnings to City of Hope for no other reason than it seemed like the right thing to do, and that he could do it.

“I get asked to do a lot of things, and I try to do everything I can, but what I really like to do is discover something for myself that feels right for me,” Espinoza said. “That’s what happened with the City of Hope.

“I’m blessed that my health has always been good,” he said. “It’s not going to affect my life any to help them a little bit. They’re the ones who need it. But it’s always heartbreaking when you go to visit there, and not just the kids. The rest of us, we get sick, then we get better. They have to live with their disease all the time.

“So, I go there to try and bring some excitement. There are kids there who are the happiest kids ever. They talk nonstop, always about the future. I leave there feeling good, like I’ve done something for me, not for them.”

Such built-in perspective helped Espinoza deal with the defeat of California Chrome in last year’s Belmont. While the racing world mourned another Triple Crown whiff, the rider kept his cool.

“I wish I knew then I’d have another chance this year,” Espinoza said with a laugh. “But believe it or not, I never felt bad. I was just happy to be in that situation twice. I could not get it done, and I couldn’t have done anything different.”

Certainly, Espinoza could not help it that War Emblem stumbled at the start of the Belmont and nearly touched the ground with his nose in 2002. Last year, California Chrome broke outward and was stepped on by longshot Matterhorn in the adjacent stall. Since it always has to be someone’s fault, the post-Belmont chorus of 2014 decided that Espinoza made a critical error by not gunning to the lead around the Belmont’s first turn and daring the pack to give chase.

“My plan was to go to the front with California Chrome, but the engine wasn’t there,” Espinoza said. “After he got stepped on, it was like he was running with one tire low. He still ran his heart out.”

Espinoza was keeping his cards close regarding American Pharoah on Saturday, but there are not too many variables from which to choose. The colt has speed and the ability to switch it on when Espinoza asks, as he did at the start of the Preakness on a track rendered suddenly sloppy.

“Everybody knows how hard it is to win the Triple Crown,” Espinoza said. “They also know how good American Pharoah is. If they don’t, there’s something wrong.

“But believe me, it never gets old, no matter what happens. It’s always amazing to win the first two races of the Triple Crown. And winning the Kentucky Derby three times? You can only dream about that.

“I don’t believe in fate,” Espinoza added. “But if it’s meant to be ...”