If no one else has realized it yet, Garrett Gomez sure has. He’s packed his tack and headed east to the circuit of the stars of the Derby.
To win the Kentucky Derby, Calvin Borel and Kent Desormeaux have ridden at Belmont, Pimlico, Gulfstream and the like, because that’s horse racing American style. Nothing fancy. No plastic, wax or rubber to put a bounce in the step of their young hopefuls. Just good old fashioned dirt. The kind at Churchill.
Gomez has ridden out west for years where he has comfortably led the jockey colony away from the star circuit. And until recently that was working just fine.
Stars of the past like Gary Stevens, Eddie D., McCarron and Shoemaker all did it from out west. Even the ‘now’ jockey, Victor Espinoza, did it for Baffert in 2002 when War Emblem won the Kentucky Derby.
As a matter of fact, that’s where all the stars of yesteryear rode, and shined so bright you couldn’t see a difference between riding in the east or west if you wanted to win the Derby.
Boy those were the days. A jockey could pick his spot. The sunny California Pacific coastline, or the Bluegrass of Kentucky and the Everglades of Florida. Just thinking of those days brings back fond memories of Affirmed holding off Alydar in grueling races to become the last horse to win the Triple Crown. Steve Cauthen rode Affirmed. He was 18.
Gomez isn’t getting any younger and he has now watched, from behind, Calvin Borel win three of the last four runnings of America’s crown jewel of racing. And he must realize why.
Only time will tell what other effects the switch to synthetic surfaces might have on the Triple Crown. Literally, after several years of trial and error, Gomez must have decided that to win the Derby the horse is going to have to come from the east.
On Saturday, Monmouth Park opens with a bang! They’re touting this season with $1,000,000 purse days and that’s attractive. How long Monmouth is able to maintain the purse promises and keep a top rider like Gomez interested is a matter of time.
And at 38, you can bet he realizes that for him to win the Kentucky Derby, it’s also a matter of time.
