Valenzuela resumes riding at Ruidoso Downs
Jockey Patrick Valenzuela is scheduled to return to race-riding Sunday at Ruidoso Downs in New Mexico. He has been named on three horses and has an additional mount at the track Monday. Valenzuela last rode Feb. 26 at Fair Grounds in New Orleans.
“This week, he’s been working horses at Ruidoso,” Jodi Mackey, the agent for Valenzuela, 53, and his brother, J.R. Valenzuela, 55, said Friday. “We’ll start taking calls for The Downs at Albuquerque, some of the bigger races, then plan to go to Zia Park.”
The meet at Zia, in Hobbs, N.M., opens next Saturday.
A steward at Ruidoso said Friday that Valenzuela has been issued a license “with stipulations.” The steward would not reveal the stipulations.
The California Horse Racing Board in July announced it had accepted a hearing officer’s recommendation to deny Valenzuela a jockey’s license “for now” and that he may reapply in a year. The hearing officer’s report cited the rider’s history of “major rule violations” since 2000. Valenzuela has a valid exercise rider’s license in California.
Valenzuela stopped race-riding in February due to an injury to his hand, he told Daily Racing Form in June.
Valenzuela’s mounts Sunday are in the fifth, eighth, and 10th races. The eighth is the $191,077 Rio Grande Senorita Thoroughbred Futurity, and he will be aboard Heat Stroke. She was a six-length trial winner for R.D. Hubbard, who owns Ruidoso, and trainer Todd Fincher.
Valenzuela on Monday will be aboard Hush’s Storm in the $50,000 Ruidoso Thoroughbred Championship.
– additional reporting by Steve Andersen