Southwest Jockey Gomez Earns 1,000th Thoroughbred Win

Multiple stakes-winning jockey Enrique Portillo Gomez secured his 1,000th Thoroughbred victory in North America Feb. 22 when he rallied South Fresno from seventh place early to win the fifth race at Turf Paradise.

Riding primarily in Arizona and New Mexico since becoming a rider in 2010, Gomez has finished in the top 100 riders by wins in four seasons and by earnings once. Through Monday, he had compiled a 1,000-1,062-957 record from 6,993 starts for purse earnings of $19,273,197.

Gomez may be best known as the regular rider for nine-time stakes winner Isn't He Clever, who earned $940,995 racing from 2011-15. Gomez guided J. Kirk and Judy Robison's Isn't He Clever to six of those stakes wins, including in 2014 a narrow victory in the $159,000 Zia Park Distance Championship Handicap. That victory was the most lucrative of the Smarty Jones gelding's career and capped a three-race win streak, all stakes.

In earning his milestone win Monday, Gomez and Harris Farms' South Fresno prevailed by three-quarters of a length in the five-furlong maiden claiming race. South Fresno, a 4-year-old Cyclotron gelding, is trained by Dan Morgan for owner/breeder Harris Farms. He paid $8.40 to win.

Gomez also has 59 wins in races for Quarter Horses or for multiple breeds.