Toledo, Gonzalez Land Laurel Winter Meet Titles

Calendar year 2022 picked up right where its predecessor left off, with a pair of familiar faces leading the jockey and trainer standings following the March 27 closing day of Laurel Park's winter meet.

Jockey Jevian Toledo and trainer Claudio Gonzalez reigned again as meet leaders following their titles at Laurel's 2021 fall stand as well as the year's overall Maryland championship.

Toledo, 27, did not have a mount Sunday but took a 10-win edge, 38-28, over five-pound apprentice Jean Alvelo into the nine-race program. Alvelo had six mounts Sunday, winning with Royal Thunder ($3.60) in Race 6 to finish with 29 wins.

It was the eighth career meet title, all at Laurel, for the Puerto Rico native, who is represented by agent Marty Leonard. Second to Victor Carrasco with more than $1.3 million in purse earnings, Toledo was also Maryland's overall leading rider in 2015 and 2017.

"I've won the summer meet and the fall meet but I never won the winter meet," Toledo said. "It's my first one, so it feels really good. It's another accomplishment in my career. My agent does a really good job and I have a lot of support from everyone. They give me a lot of opportunity to ride nice horses, and thank God we got the job done."

Toledo kicked off the winter meet with a triple on opening day, Jan. 1, and added two more Jan. 2. He had 10 other multi-win days, including hat tricks on Feb. 26 and March 6, and won two stakes—the Jan. 29 Fire Plug Stakes with Wondrwherecraigis  and March 19 Not For Love Stakes with his Brittany Russell-trained stablemate Whereshetoldmetogo .

"To be honest, this is probably my best start ever in my whole career," said Toledo, who had 14 wins at last year's winter meet. "Always in the winter I kind of slow down a little bit because we have no grass racing and shorter fields, but thank God I had a lot of support from all the owners and trainers and we're here."

Gonzalez entered Sunday with a 24-23 advantage over John 'Jerry' Robb after sending out a pair of winners on Saturday's card. Robb did not have a horse entered Sunday, while Gonzalez had runners in four races, winning with Danny Chen's Little Ms Scarlet  in race 4 and Magic Stable's I'm Not Slow  in race 9 to raise his meet total to 26.

A 45-year-old native of Chile and cancer survivor, Gonzalez has won nine consecutive meet titles in Maryland dating back to Laurel's 2019 summer stand. It was the 17th career meet championship at Laurel to go along with two at Pimlico Race Course for Gonzalez, who has finished as Maryland's overall leading trainer five consecutive years starting in 2017.

"I feel really good. It's like I say, to win one race is tough and to win the title again is a good feeling," Gonzalez said. "I have to thank all my people, my workers, all the assistants I have, the grooms, hotwalkers, exercise riders, blacksmiths. Everybody does a good job, it's not only me. If you don't have good help, you don't make it.

"My owners, they understand the game. They're very good and they know if we put them in the right spot, the horses will have a big chance to win races," Gonzalez said. "It's really special, and for my family, too."

Sharing leading owner honors were Danny Chen, Lugamo Racing Stables, and Jagger. Jagger is the stable name of trainer Jamie Ness, who also won five races as an owner in partnership with Morris Kernan Jr. and finished third in the trainer standings with 21 wins including One Two Kid in race 2 Sunday.

Laurel Park will kick off its spring meet with a nine-race program April 1 starting at 12:40 p.m. ET.