Santana turns up the heat on rivals

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Jockey Ricardo Santana Jr. has been so hot at Oaklawn Park that even his car was smoking on a recent morning at the track. And while the engine quickly cooled down, Santana has not. He won five races March 12, including the Grade 3, $200,000 Honeybee Stakes, and since then has had a pair of four-win days, his latest March 31.

“It’s been a great meet,” said Santana.

Santana is well positioned to win his fourth consecutive riding title at the Oaklawn meet, which closes April 16. He enters the penultimate week of the season Wednesday atop the standings, with 69 wins from 292 starts. The meet’s second-leading rider, Ramon Vazquez, had won 33 races entering Wednesday’s action. Santana also leads all riders in mount earnings with $2,637,289.

“We’re riding for the right people, and we’re able to ride good horses,” said Santana, a 23-year-old native of Panama. “My agent is doing a great job.”

Ruben Munoz, who represents both Santana and Vazquez, first introduced Santana to Oaklawn as a teenager. The jockey’s first win at the track came in 2011, and his first local title followed in 2013.

“I think Ricardo feels at home here,” Munoz said. “When he was a bug boy, this was one of the first racetracks I brought him to. I brought him here to learn English.”

Santana would eventually form a key working relationship with the Eclipse Award-winning trainer Steve Asmussen. The men have teamed together on a regular basis for several years and again have been a potent force at this meet.

“Ricardo brings a lot of effort,” said Asmussen, who leads the trainers’ standings at Oaklawn. “He really tries to win, and obviously horses run for him.”

One such horse is the Asmussen-trained Terra Promessa, whom Santana will be aboard Saturday when she seeks to win her fourth straight race in the Grade 3, $400,000 Fantasy. Her streak began in a maiden special weight route at Churchill Downs last Nov. 15. Terra Promessa proceeded to win a first-level allowance route by nine lengths Feb. 5 at Oaklawn, then won the Honeybee.

“She’s a nice filly,” said Santana, who has regularly ridden Terra Promessa for Stonestreet Stables. “She’s a hard-trying filly, and she’s getting better and better. I really like that filly. I have a lot of confidence in her.”

The Fantasy, a 1 1/16-mile stakes that carries eligibility points for the Kentucky Oaks, opens the $3.75 million Racing Festival of the South at Oaklawn. The series features nine stakes over the final week of the meet.

Following the season, Santana will be based at Churchill Downs. A number of the trainers Santana has been riding for at Oaklawn also are headed to Churchill, among them Asmussen, Ron Moquett, and Chris Hartman, who won last year’s title at Oaklawn.

Until the move, Santana will be focused on taking down another title at Oaklawn.