Del Mar a Comfort Zone as Rosario Aims for Big Weekend

On the morning before the start of the 2021 Breeders' Cup Championships, North America's leading jockey was cooling his heels in the stewards' outer office at Del Mar waiting for the officials to take him to task for a ride in a race the previous day. Joel Rosario, with nearly $26 million banked by his mounts so far this year, had been disqualified from fourth to fifth in an allowance optional claimer on the grass worth $72,000.

Rosario eventually entered the stewards' inner sanctum and pled his case. The horse, he said, was tough to control, and the bumping with another horse at the top of the stretch was the result. The stewards, in their wisdom, agreed. North America's leading jockey received no days.

It has been like that this season for Rosario. Luck has followed him coast to coast. The horses landed by his agent, Ron Anderson, have tended to sprout wings at just the right time, placing this 36-year-old rider in position to win his first national title after more than a decade of flirtation. Could Rosario's first Eclipse Award follow? Only the Breeders' Cup results will tell.

With Irad Ortiz Jr., breathing down his neck, Rosario needs a big weekend at Del Mar to pad his lead going into the final seven weeks of the year. Rosario has mounts in 12 of the 14 Breeders' Cup races—Ortiz rides in 11—but his best chances appear to be in two of the most contentious events over the two-day program, with Jackie's Warrior  in the $2 million Qatar Racing Sprint (G1) and Knicks Go   in the $6 million Longines Classic (G1).

Several of Rosario's other mounts have decent chances for a good share of the cash. Hard-trying Gufo  has moved up a couple of notches in the $4 million Longines Breeders' Cup Turf (G1T) with the defections of fellow American-based runners Domestic Spending  and United . The filly Kimari  looks live for Wesley Ward in the $1 million Turf Sprint (G1T). Rosario has landed on the unbeaten Echo Zulu  for the first time in the $2 million NetJets' Juvenile Fillies (G1). And if favored Letruska  can be beaten in the $2 million Longines Distaff (G1), there has been a groundswell of opinion that Rosario could do it with Royal Flag . They have come close twice before.

A Del Mar Breeders' Cup is always a homecoming for Rosario. Beginning in 2008, the native of the Dominican Republic waged a series of exciting summertime battles with Rafael Bejarano. Over a six-year span, Bejarano won three titles and Rosario won three. Then Rosario headed to New York, and Bejarano won four more.

Anderson has had Rosario on a plane often this season to take down handsome pots at places like Remington Park, Lone Star Park, and Prairie Meadows. During the brief, ridiculously lucrative Kentucky Downs meet in September, Rosario won 17 races, including three stakes worth half a million and one worth a million.

Rosario's attack on the richest possible stakes, coast-to-coast, was part of a plan that had no guarantee of success, especially during a year when exposure to COVID-19 was still very much a part of the travel picture.

"I have been fortunate," Rosario said, sitting on a couch in the Del Mar racing office. "No COVID. I am vaccinated, and I always wear a mask when I travel. I know a lot of jockeys have gotten sick, so I try to be careful."

Rosario prefers to take his chances when the money is down, out on the racetrack. In the $750,000 Resorts World Casino Sword Dancer Stakes (G1T) at Saratoga Race Course, the rider threaded a couple of needles coming from last aboard Gufo to spurt clear and then hold off the close of Coolmore's Japan . In the $500,000 Ainsworth Stakes at Kentucky Downs, Rosario clung to the rail aboard Koala Princess , kept her balanced around a rough turn and into the uphill stretch, and then let her roll to a victory that bodes well for their encore in the $1 million Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf (G1T).

Just as there are scores of talent scouts who knew for certain young Pat Mahomes was going to be a star, or that Timothée Chalamet will own the movie business someday, the line for the Rosario bandwagon formed early. In his first season in Northern California, fresh from a fledgling career at El Comandante in Puerto Rico, he began winning races in bushels.

"Vic Stauffer, the track announcer, had his book at the time," said veteran agent Vince DeGregory. "I got a call from a friend of mine up there named Joe Griffin. He said, 'There's a young kid from Santo Domingo up here you ought to be watching.' I told him I didn't have any time. I asked Joe, 'Can he speak English.'"

The answer was only a little, and not very well. But with horses, the kid from Santo Domingo could communicate.

"Joe called me back four days later," DeGregory said. "He said, 'Did you see that kid Rosario ride? All he did was win four races today.'"

Rosario also did his homework. DeGregory had already represented such national champions and Hall of Famers as Chris McCarron, Angel Cordero, and Laffit Pincay.

"He showed up down here in his beat-up pickup truck," DeGregory said. "I told him to park it in the garage. I didn't want him to be seen in that. I don't think he even had a license at the time. He lived with me for nine months before I told him it was time for him to get a place of his own so he could have his own life and some privacy."

Rosario was raw material for an experienced mentor like DeGregory.

"I told him he needed to learn to switch sticks and go left-handed," DeGregory said. "He'd be using his right hand all the time, and when he came to pass another horse in the stretch he'd have to check a few strides to straighten out his horse. I showed him that every time he did that he cost his horse a length, maybe two, and that was making the difference in losing a race. It wasn't the horse—it was him.

"At one point I got him with Eddie Delahoussaye," DeGregory went on. "Joel wanted to come from behind all the time and get up in the last part. Eddie told him he needed to move sooner and open up, especially with cheaper horses, who'd get brave making the lead. Joel was a good listener, and he wanted to learn."

Apparently, the learning curve was short. Through Nov. 4, Rosario had won 3,231 races and mount earnings of $257 million. He moved on to other agents, among them Ronnie Ebanks, but DeGregory, who turned 89 in August, looks upon Rosario's success with pride.

"A lot of jockeys won't give you any credit," he said. "I'll call Joel from time to time, and he'll always say to me, 'Papa, what you taught me is the reason where I am now.' That's very gratifying."

It was not too far into Rosario's rise in the ranks of elite jockeys that he started being compared to Pincay, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1975, at age 28. Rosario does not have Pincay's impressive shoulder span, but he is of similar stature otherwise and possesses that classic Pincay combination of light hands, brute strength, and perfect rhythm.

"I've heard that, yes, but I think Joel looks better than me on a horse," Pincay said. "He is more consistent. Because I had to diet all the time when I was younger, sometimes my legs felt weak, or my head was a little light. That made a difference on how I looked on a horse. Joel doesn't have to do that, and so he can always be 100%. At least, that's the way he looks when I watch him."

Rosario gave his best "aw shucks" expression when told of Pincay's comments. They have had a few encounters through the years, but their careers never overlapped.

"We don't really talk about horses," Rosario said. "We talk about other things—family, food, friends."

Rosario has four children from two families, all of them under the age of 18.

"I see them when I can," he said. "But it's not easy, with so much traveling."

Rosario had his first rides in Puerto Rico at the end of 2003, while Pincay suffered a career ending neck injury in March of that year, retiring with 9,530 winners. One of those came in the 1986 Breeders' Cup Classic at Santa Anita Park aboard Skywalker, who upset champions Precisionist and Turkoman with a sly, front-running ride from Pincay. To that point, Skywalker had never won a mile-and-a-quarter race. Rosario was asked if he would be able to coax 10 furlongs out of the brilliant Knicks Go on Saturday in the Classic.

"He can if he can relax," Rosario said. "And he will if I'm quiet and drop my hands. Then I can feel him breathe easy.

"But what did you say the name of Laffit's horse was? Skywalker?" Rosario added. "I think I'm going to look at that race."