Team Cruz kicks off the card with recent claim Rich Gold
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While her husband, Alex Cruz, is among the most prolific jockeys at Emerald Downs, Jaymie Pearman Cruz’s training career has been more about quality than quantity. The 24-year-old British Columbia native has saddled 20 winners in 82 starts dating back to 2022, cutting her teeth at Hastings in the province of her birth but now settled with small stateside strings at Emerald and Turf Paradise.
“I’d love to have horses here and in Vancouver, but I just don’t see it happening right now,” said Cruz, who currently has seven horses at Emerald, raced about a dozen in Phoenix, and said she’d like to see her barn grow to be “as big as we can make it.”
Two of the trainer’s charges, Khaiky’s Command and Mojave, squared off in a $5,000 claiming race at 5 1/2 furlongs on May 31. Mojave, with Manuel Americano aboard, won in wire-to-wire fashion, while Khaiky’s Command got up for second with Alex Cruz aboard.
“I typically let him pick which horses he’d prefer to ride if I have two horses in the same race,” Jaymie said of her working relationship with her husband, who began riding in Puerto Rico and won his 1,000th career race on June 1 at Emerald. “With those horses being speed horses, we gave Alex the horse that was more difficult to ride. Khaiky can lay off the pace, whereas Mojave doesn’t seem to do that now.”
Those horses are the only ones Cruz has raced at Emerald this meet, though that will change in Friday night’s first race, a mile and 70-yard allowance for 3-year-olds and up with a purse of $14,000. Cruz has the 5-year-old gelding Rich Gold, first off the claim, for that eight-horse affair, which features a good amount of early speed.
“I definitely think it will set up for him,” Cruz said. “Most of the race is pure front-running horses. I think we can lay off and come at them with a run at the end. Those extra 70 yards should help him a lot.”
Rich Gold had been competing all over California before finishing second in his Emerald debut on May 25, a $5,000 claiming race in which he stalked a modest pace and was nosed out at the wire by Club Mesquite. For that mile-long effort, Rich Gold earned a career-high 77 Beyer Speed Figure.
“We’d had our eye on him for a while, at least since the beginning of the meet, if not before that,” Cruz said of her barn’s newest resident, who has seven wins, seven seconds, and a third in 32 career starts. “When we saw him in for $5,000, we couldn’t pass it up. Running in California, those horses tend to move up at Emerald Downs. He’s won a lot of races. He’s in the money all the time.”
Alex Cruz will, per usual, have the mount. Post time is scheduled for 7 p.m. Pacific.
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