Rivelli and Valdivia enjoying especially dominant seasons

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – Larry Rivelli, barring a surprisingly unsuccessful closing three-day race week, is going to set a record for wins by a trainer during an Arlington season.

“Big deal,” you’re probably saying. Arlington is a shadow of its former self. Most major or even semi-major outfits have left as purses and the racing schedule have shrunk. All that’s true.

Nevertheless, Rivelli’s dominance at the meet, which ends Saturday, is remarkable. Entering Thursday’s action he had amassed 73 wins, two fewer than the 75 Wayne Catalano recorded during the 2010 racing season. But the year Catalano won 75, Arlington had 860 races. When Catalano won 74 in 2007, Arlington had 917 races. Both those meets, Catalano won about 8 percent of all the races run during the season.

Rivelli has gotten to 73 wins after just 564 races, and there will have been 594 when the meet ends Saturday. That means Rivelli has won just shy of 13 percent of all the races run here since early May. Extrapolate Rivelli’s strike rate to Catalano’s two best seasons and he’d have won 110 in 2010 and 118 in 2007. The competition, of course, was stronger then, but the stats still are arresting.

While Rivelli has rolled on the trainer’s side of the meet, Jose Valdivia Jr. is having an equally dominant Arlington season as a jockey.

Valdivia won’t be setting any record, but through last racing week he had 132 wins, 77 more than second-place Santo Sanjur. Valdivia’s strike rate is 31 percent from 424 mounts, which is pretty amazing in its own right, but not quite as remarkable as the fact he’s won 23 percent of all the races this Arlington meet.

If you extrapolate Valdivia’s whole-meet win rate, he would crush the best seasons jockeys have had at Arlington.

Rene Douglas rode 167 winners in 2002, but that was from 1,003 races at the meet. Valdivia’s expected win total at his 2017 pace that year would be 234.

Garrett Gomez rode 196 winners during a 1,097-race meeting in 1997, winning an excellent 18 percent of all the races that season. Valdivia’s 2017 pace, though, would have netted him 257 wins.

And Shane Sellers won 17 percent of 1,258 races in 1991, booting home an Arlington record 219 winners that season. Transpose Valdivia’s 2017 meet onto that year, and Valdivia would have won 294.

Granted, the riders below Sellers in 1991 were Pat Day and Gomez, not Sanjur and Chris Emigh, but while the Arlington landscape has changed considerably in the last decade, the achievements of this meet’s leading jockey and trainer, who have teamed up to win 47 races together this season, ought to be duly appreciated.

Twin allowance races Friday

Rivelli has entrants in five of the 10 races Friday, including one of two first-level allowance races. Rivelli’s horse in race 5, a one-mile turf race, is He’s Cheeky, who was claimed for $50,000 on Aug. 21 at Saratoga by Vince Foglia’s Patricia’s Hope LLC, the entity that will be leading Arlington owner for the fourth year in a row.

He’s Cheeky is likely to be favored, but Mr Dewey is the pick to win. Mr Dewey raced relatively ineffectively Sept. 6 at Kentucky Downs, but a subpar run over wet turf on an undulating Euro-style course shouldn’t be held against him. Two starts ago, Mr Dewey finished second over the Arlington course at this class level, beaten only by Christian C, who would return to upset Oak Brook, the close sixth-place finisher in the Arlington Million.

Race 4 also is a first-level allowance at one mile on grass, but this race also is open to $18,000 claimers and is restricted to females. Back Page Star, with Valdivia riding for Louie Roussel, is the 2-1 morning-line choice, but the pick is Oh So Terrible. That filly, 8-1 on the line, is lightly raced, won at a mile over the Arlington course when last seen June 30, and has posted eye-catching recent works for her Friday comeback.