2019 a Year of Milestones for Brown, Ortiz Jr.

When the big ball in Times Square came down at midnight Dec. 31, it brought down the curtain on a record-breaking year that trainer Chad Brown and jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. will not soon forget.

The turning of the calendar to 2020 signaled an end to a sensational year in which they became the first practitioners of their professions to surpass $30 million in yearly North American earnings.

"They've had some amazing year," BSW Bloodstock founder Brad Weisbord said of the jockey and trainer who teamed for all six of Horse of the Year favorite Bricks and Mortar's 2019 wins.

Brown, winner of the past three Eclipse Awards as outstanding trainer, built a compelling case for a fourth consecutive trophy by managing the undefeated campaign of Klaravich Stables and William Lawrence's Bricks and Mortar and easily surpassing Todd Pletcher's record North American earnings of $28,116,097 from 2007.

Brown's sterling 2019 totals were 222 winners from 823 starts (27%), earnings of $31,112,144, and 20 grade 1 wins among 54 graded victories.

On the sport's most competitive stage, he won the Longines Breeders' Cup Turf (G1T) with Bricks and Mortar, the TVG Breeders' Cup Mile (G1T) with Michael Dubb, Head of Plains Partners, Robert LaPenta, and Bethlehem Stables' Uni, and the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf Presented by Coolmore America (G1T) with Jeff Drown and Don Rachel's Structor to give him 15 wins at the World Championships, tying him with Bob Baffert for second on the all-time list behind D. Wayne Lukas (20).

"Chad is a relentless worker. He has the mind of a genius. He has no hobbies outside of racing. He lives it and breathes it. He's constantly looking at ways to improve his stable," Weisbord said. "He has four of the best owners in the game in Peter Brant, Klaravich Stables, Sol Kumin's groups, Michael Dubb, and when you sprinkle in some Juddmonte and Stonestreet horses, you have never seen a trainer with as much clientele and support as Chad gets. 

"They support him because he knows how to train their horses, where they belong on what circuit, when to get rid of them, when to bring them back, when to stop on them. He's really in tune with his horses, making him a great manager of campaigns, a great horseman, and a great recruiter of talent. Training in this era, you have to be the John Calipari of recruiting talent and the Rick Pitino of recruiting assistants. He's been able to recruit some top horses and owners and also top assistants. He has assembled a great team, built a gigantic business, and he deserves all the credit in the world for it."

For the 12th straight year, Brown's stable's earnings increased since he started training in 2007.

"I look at it and I'm amazed at what we've been able to do," Brown said. "In this 12-year-run, the first half was growing your business in terms of numbers and capacity while trying to get better horses. The second half was improving the quality without as much growth on numbers. The number of horses has been about the same the last few years, but everyone learned their job better, including me at making decisions. One of the main things (the late Hall of Fame trainer) Bobby Frankel taught me was to keep changing with the times and learn from the positive and negative outcomes so that you can keep moving forward.

"I saw it with Bobby at his wisest. There's a lot of important decisions to make at this level, and having this experience helps you. Without it, I don't think I would be making the same successful decisions. It wasn't easy to train and lay out the right schedule for Bricks and Mortar, but fortunately, off past experiences, I set up the right one."

Ortiz not only became the first jockey to surpass the $30 million mark, he left the previous mark behind in a cloud of dust. 

In a year in which he became the first jockey since Alex Solis in 2003 to win both the Breeders' Cup Turf and Longines Breeders' Cup Classic (G1) on the same card, Ortiz's record earnings for 2019 checked in at $34,109,019.

"It wasn't a fluke, what he did in 2019," Weisbord said. "He rides hard 12 months a year. He didn't get lucky. He's out there breezing horses five days a week, and the only reason it's not seven days a week is because his trainers are not breezing horses those days. Both brothers have a great work ethic. Irad is a great human being, and I can't say enough good things about him."

With a boost from the $5.5 million he bankrolled in about an hour by winning the two richest Breeders' Cup races, at the end of the year the 27-year-old native of Puerto Rico surpassed the previous record of $28,120,809 set by Javier Castellano in 2015.

As masterfully as he rode Repole Stable and St. Elias Stable's Vino Rosso  for Pletcher in the Classic, his winning ride in the Turf, when he extracted Bricks and Mortar from a tight spot between horses, was even more of a gem.

"He's the best turf rider in the nation," Kumin said. "His patience, his hands, his decision-making is incredible."

All told, Ortiz won four Breeders' Cup races in 2019 worth a combined $6.6 million.

"It's crazy to pass $30 million, and I'm happy to be the one to break that mark," said Ortiz, whose 34 graded stakes wins included 11 grade 1s. "I'm so proud of it. I can look back now with pride on all the hard work from the beginning of the year. It's a dream come true."

It's no coincidence Brown and Ortiz had record-breaking years. While they may not be as attached at the hip as Pletcher and Hall of Fame jockey John Velazquez, they have become as effective of a trainer-jockey combination as there is in the sport.

"It was an interesting journey. Their first big horse together was Lady Eli," said Kumin, owner of the 2017 champion female turfer who provided Ortiz with the first of his nine Breeders' Cup wins in the 2014 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf (G1T). "I remember Chad telling me how talented Irad was. He told me him and his brother (Jose) could really ride. He said we're all young and these are the guys we're going to be successful with for a long time. Since then, we've seen Irad and Chad explode on the scene."

While Brown will also make frequent use of Jose Ortiz, Irad's younger brother, and Castellano, his totals with Irad are superlative.

Of the 1,099 horses trained by Brown and ridden by Ortiz, 289 have reached the winner's circle for a success rate of more than 26%. Those mounts have accumulated $41,156,407 in earnings.

In stakes, they have 89 wins from 340 mounts together (26%) and earnings of $29,007,390.

In 2019, they had 55 winners from 207 tries overall (27%) for earnings of $11,890,652, meaning they were each responsible for at least one-third of the other's record-breaking figures.

In 2019 stakes, they teamed for 20 wins from 68 starts (29%), with earnings of $9,754,275.

"They're a great team," Weisbord said. "They have so much confidence in each other. Chad loves how Irad is a great listener, and Irad loves the confidence he has when he rides Chad's horses."

All those wins reflect the respect Brown and Ortiz have for each other.

"Chad has been important to my career," said Ortiz, the 2018 Eclipse Award winner. "He has a good eye for horses and picked some good ones for me. He'll say things, and sometimes I'll think he's crazy. He'll tell me which horses are going to win big races at the end of the year—then it happens. I have such respect for what he tells me. He can make the call before it happens. That's why he's at the top of the game."

Brown agrees that working with Ortiz has been mutually beneficial.

"It's been great for both of us," said the 41-year-old Brown, whose year also included the ups-and-downs of sweeping the four graded stakes on the Arlington Million (G1T) card and being one of several prominent New York-based trainers hit with fines in 2019 in a crackdown on racetrack labor practices. "I have a lot of respect for Irad. He has a great attitude. He wants to learn and get better at his job. He's very gifted athletically. If he stays healthy and stays on the course he's on, he'll not only make the Hall of Fame, he'll break a lot of records as well."

Both are also thankful for the help of the people closest to them.

Ortiz, who started riding in the U.S. in 2011, was quick to credit the work of his agent, Steve Rushing, for putting him on so many good horses, and the support of his brother and other jockeys, such as Velazquez, as well as his parents.

"None of this would have been possible without Steve and so many great owners and trainers. I've also had the support of my family from day one," Ortiz said. "They are with me through good and bad times. I can't say how happy I am to have the kind of family that enables me to do something I love as much as riding."

Brown was quick to credit assistant trainers Jose Hernandez, Reynaldo Abreu, Whit Beckman, Luis Cabrera, and Thomas Brandebourger for their roles in the stable's success story.

"I have highly skilled team members who have everything covered," he said. "I have great assistants and great people like Asia Savasta, our on-site office manager, and our hard-working foremen, who are an intricate part of our communication process. We have the best exercise riders in the country who buy into the Frankel method of working horses. 

"The best thing about winning an Eclipse Award is not the trophy or the write-ups, but getting a few minutes to thank everyone."

Whether Brown and Ortiz get another chance to offer their thanks will be determined Jan. 23 at the Eclipse Awards ceremonies, but what seems more certain is that at some point their records will be broken—probably by the current holders.

"If anyone can break their records, it will be them," Weisbord said. "Chad runs the sport's biggest stable in an unbelievable fashion. He's built an empire that I don't see toppling anytime soon, and Irad has no weaknesses. Short, long, dirt, turf, he's great."