Valdivia revives career, thanks to Ward’s help

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – With a four-win Thursday – half of the eight-race card – jockey Jose Valdivia Jr. moved to within three victories, 44-41, of leading rider Mitchell Murrill at the Arlington meet.

And that is a long, long way from where Valdivia sat when, for the first time in a long career, he moved his tack to Arlington for a meet that began May 1. From the start of 2015 until that point, riding at the Gulfstream meeting, Valdivia, 40, had won just three races from 92 mounts, a far cry from his heyday as a mainstay on the Southern California circuit.

Valdivia won a Breeders’ Cup Mile on Val Royal in 2001 and got into the powerful barn of Bobby Frankel for several years. As recently as 2011, he won the Belmont Stakes aboard Ruler On Ice.

Valdivia’s business in California dried up during 2013, and during the summer of 2014, he settled in Miami to ride at Gulfstream Park West and Gulfstream Park.

“Things started off well, but I got injured in late October, tried to keep riding, but ended up taking a few weeks off,” Valdivia said. “It was the worst time possible. That’s when all the people from up North started coming in, and by the time I tried to get going again, I was done – couldn’t get my foot in the door.”

Enter trainer Wesley Ward, a former star bug rider who has helped numerous jockeys young and old gain a foothold, many of them in Chicago. Ward suggested Valdivia consider trying Arlington, and when Valdivia expressed interest, Ward gave Steve Leving a call.

“Wesley Ward calls me up and says, ‘Steve, get up off the couch. You need to be an agent again,’ ” said Leving.

Leving, 62, hadn’t booked mounts in more than 20 years but in the dim past represented several riders on the Chicago circuit, including Ward himself. For 10 years, Leving was racing manager for the win-crazy Frank Calabrese operation, and after parting company with Calabrese, Leving took on a similar role with owner and trainer Louie Roussel, all the while staying active as a bloodstock agent (his partner is Kentucky-based Tim Kegel) and quietly advising several training operations in Chicago and beyond.

Leving’s long absence from the agent game didn’t really matter: He is close with leading Arlington trainer Larry Rivelli and spent a decade working alongside trainer Wayne Catalano, whose Arlington string is far diminished from its peak but still produces winners.

“Wesley told me between Rivelli and Catalano alone, that will get you going, and from there, the rest will come,” said Valdivia. “So far, everything has gone according to plan.”

Murrill lost his apprentice allowance in late June and has ridden winners at a slower pace the last few weeks, while Florent Geroux, third in the standings, has regularly left Chicago to ride out-of-town stakes, suppressing his Arlington win total. Leving pronounced days before the meet that Valdivia would be the leading rider, and since the jockey was new to the circuit and the agent rusty, the claim seemed brazen at the time. Now? Not so much.