My Old Kentucky Home felt a lot like New York, New York on Saturday – before an upset of monumental scope rewrote the tune at the 148th Kentucky Derby.
Rich Strike, a 80-1 long-shot who wasn’t even scheduled to run at Churchill Downs until Friday, captured the Derby crown in shocking fashion, just ahead of Epicenter, Zandon, Simplification and Mo Donegal – the next four horses jockeyed by Long Island riders Joel Rosario, Flavien Prat, a recent transplant from California, Jose Ortiz and brother Irad Ortiz Jr., respectively.
Epicenter entered the race the favored horse at 4 to 1 odds, but was edged out by Rich Strike’s shocking burst down the stretch.The winning thoroughbred was jockeyed by Sonny Leon who races out of Mahoning Valley, Ohio.
A superfecta performance by New York riders, each based at Belmont Park, might have gone down as one of the crowning achievements in the history of horse racing — if not for the upset that shocked the sports world.
“We may have the greatest jockey colony ever assembled. Certainly in the past 40 years no question this is the best we’ve ever seen,” said New York Racing Association (NYRA) and Fox Sports horse racing analyst Andy Serling before the Run for the Roses.
Top-ranked Long Island jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. and little brother Jose — the Manning brothers of horse racing —headlineda “generational” collection of seven hard-charging New York riders among the 20 running for the roses in Saturday’s Kentucky Derby.
“It’s my dream. It’s all I know how to do. I only know how to ride horses,” Irad Ortiz, 29, told The Post in between training laps at Churchill Downs this week, adding that his8-1odds thoroughbred, Mo Donegal, “is getting better at just the right time. I honestly feel like I have a very good shot.”
Ortizenteredthe Kentucky Derby the top-ranked jockey in North America,according to Equibase. Jose, 28, whorode 40-1shot Simplification, ranks No. 4. Both live in Hempstead, LI, with their wives and three children each.
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“The Manning Brothers of horse racing,” as Jose’s agent, Jimmy Riccio of Monmouth Beach NJ, calls the Ortiz boys, have enjoyed a meteoric rise in the sport since moving to New York from Puerto Rico in 2011 and 2012, respectively.
Irad won the Eclipse Award as America’s most outstanding jockey three straight years from 2018 to 2020. Jose earned the same honor in 2017, and even boasts a 2018 best jockey ESPY on his resume.
New York’s 2022 Kentucky Derby jockeys also included three-time Derby winner John Velazqeuz (riding Messier to a 15th-place finish); Luis Saez (Charge It, 17th) and Manny Franco (Zozos, 10th).
The elder Ortiz has been celebrated for his prodigious talent but criticized for “careless” riding and volatility on and off the track in recent years. Among other incidents, he was fined in February 2021 for repeatedly punching fellow jockey Paco Lopez following a race at Gulfstream Park in Florida, the ugly fisticuffs caught on video.
He was also suspended for 30 days in December following a “reckless” push to the fence at Aqueduct in Queens that observers say jeopardized the safety of horses and jockeys. He was suspended again in February, this time for five days, for interfering with another horse, also at Gulfstream.
“I made a mistake, a big mistake,” Ortiz said of the Aqueduct incident. “It was an accident and I deserved the suspension.”
“He wants to win a $10,000 race as badly as he does a $10 million race,” said Irad Ortiz’s agent, Steve Rushing. “He just wants to win. Most of them are like that. They’re not baseball players. They don’t make money whether they hit or don’t. Jockeys have to win. They have to produce.”
All seven New York riders are scheduled to mount horses back at Belmont Park on Sunday.
“We have no vacations,” said Irad Ortiz. “We are 24-7 the whole year. If you don’t love it, you can’t do it.
