Carrasco Voted Top Apprentice Jockey
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Victor Carrasco beat out fellow Puerto Rican riders Manuel Franco and Edgard Zayas to win the 2013 Eclipse Award as the nation's outstanding apprentice jockey.
Carrasco led all North American apprentices with 215 wins and $4,357,715 in total purse earnings. Those figures ranked him 14th in victories and 47th in purses among all jockeys in 2013. Riding in the Mid-Atlantic region, he won the fall title at Laurel Park and was second at meets at Delaware Park and Pimlico Race Course.
The 21-year-old from San Juan became the 10th Maryland-based rider to win the Eclipse Award for top apprentice going back to Chris McCarron in 1974.
With 1,066 total mounts for the year, Carrasco posted a 20% win rate. At Laurel, he had one span of 11 multiple win days over the course of 15 programs. He rode She's All In to a runner-up finish in the Delaware Handicap (gr. I).
In an oddity, Carrasco, along with his fellow finalists in the apprentice category, are all products of the same jockey school—Escuela Vocacional Hipica in Puerto Rico. All three graduated in 2012.
The votes below represent only first-place votes from members of the consolidated voting entities, NTRA, Daily Racing Form, and National Turf Writers And Broadcasters:
Victor Carrasco, 172; Edgard Zayas, 18; Manuel Franco, 13; Emmanuel Esquivel, 8; Jose L. Ortiz, 4; Dylan Davis, 3; Trevor McCarthy, 2. Voter Abstentions, 29.