Rispoli savors return to Florida

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Clerk of scales Victor Sanchez said jockey Matthew Rispoli came into the jocks’ room Sunday morning voicing his desire to buy pizza for everyone to celebrate his three victories the previous afternoon.

“I told him where they made the best pizza in the area,” Sanchez said. “It’s about five miles away, and not only did he buy, he even went and picked them up himself.”

Given the weekend he had, Rispoli may be making more trips to the pizzeria before the year is out. His hat trick on Saturday included a victory aboard the potentially Breeders’ Cup-bound Valid in the Groomstick Stakes. He came back the following afternoon to register a popular and easy tally astride Grade 1 winner Lochte in the Mr. Steele Stakes. Both of Rispoli’s stakes winners are trained by Marcus Vitali.

Rispoli’s big weekend helped erase the memories of his previous trip to south Florida during the winter of 2014, when he suffered a concussion, a broken tibia, and four fractures to his face after his mount, Suzzona, clipped heels and fell on the turn during a five-furlong turf sprint in January. The mishap put him on the sidelines for nearly eight months.

“My horse clipped heels, I went down and got trampled,” was Rispoli’s only real recollection of the spill. “I went back to Penn National, where I’ve had a lot of success in the past, when I first started back regularly this year, then moved on to Monmouth, hooked up with my old agent, Jay Rushing, and had a lot of success at the end of the summer. My intention all along was always to come back here for the winter.”

Rispoli won 51 races at Penn National this year and another 14 from just 74 mounts at Monmouth. He has won with five of his first 17 rides since returning to Gulfstream. Winning races aboard Valid and Lochte is nothing new for Rispoli, who was the regular rider for both horses prior to his riding accident.

“They are both very nice horses, and Marcus is a great trainer and has given me a lot of support,” said Rispoli, who was the leading rider at Penn National with nearly 150 wins in 2012. “These are the kind of weekends you hope for, especially when coming back to a place like this, and hopefully it will turn out to be good for business down the road.”

Vitali said he would talk it over with owner Crossed Sabres Farm, but if Valid came out of the Groomstick well, he would consider sending him to Keeneland for the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile on Oct. 30.