By Dick Jerardi
Paco Lopez will go anywhere to ride a racehorse. And if he is riding, he is winning.
The proof is in the numbers. Just this year, he finished third in the Gulfstream Park Championship meet standings with 92 winners. He won the recently concluded Monmouth Park meeting with 76 winners. And he is currently sixth at Parx, his third home, with 53 winners.
It may seem like Lopez has been riding forever, but he only started in 2007. When he came to the United States from Mexico, his intention was to ride Quarter Horses. His grandfather told him years before that he would become a jockey. He was not so sure.
“I never thought I would ride thoroughbreds,” Lopez said by the Parx paddock Monday between mounts. “I came to ride Quarter Horses…The economy collapsed in Florida in 2007.”
That was it for the Quarter Horse game there so Lopez started galloping thoroughbreds. Then, he got a chance to ride in some races. He started winning. And has never stopped.
Sunday, in the $250,000 Indian Summer Stakes at Keeneland, Lopez got win No. 4,000 on Governor Sam at 5 1/2 furlongs on the grass. The 2-year-old colt has already won three stakes, all with Lopez, for his ownership group which includes Houston Astros third baseman Alex Bregman.
Governor Sam has now won four straight races at four different tracks (Saratoga, Monmouth Park, Colonial Downs, Keeneland). The last two wins were under pressure while leading all the way, typical Lopez rides where he puts his horse into the race and just keeps on going.
“It was great,” Lopez said of 4,000.
Last week was classic Lopez. He rode Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at Parx (four mounts each day), five at Gulfstream Park Friday, four at Keeneland Saturday and three more at Keeneland Sunday. And yes, he was back to ride the first and ninth at Parx on Monday, the celebration over as it was time to get back to work.
“When you work hard, you make it,” Lopez said. “I like to work. I worked really hard the last month to make 4,000.”
Lopez has been in the top 10 at Parx each of the last four years, even though he is not there year-round like the others in the standings. But he has been there enough to get nearly 1,000 rides and more than 250 winners.
To become just the 84th rider in history to get to 4,000, Lopez had to average 235 winners over his 17 years. Lately, his numbers are getting even better. He is second nationally in wins (231) this year behind only Irad Ortiz (252). Last year, he finished with 279 winners, again second to Ortiz (366). During that time, Ortiz has had 450 more mounts.
It took Lopez 19,329 mounts to get to 4,000. At his current rate, which includes a career-best 320 wins in 2021, Lopez will pass 5,000 in four or five years. Only 39 riders are in that club. Just 21 jockeys are in the 6,000 club.
Lopez has won dozens of graded stakes, including three Grade I stakes, the most memorable when he won the 2018 Breeders’ Cup Sprint on Roy H. He also won the 2014 Woodward and the 2017 Jenny Wiley.
“I don’t have a favorite horse,” Lopez said. “I just like to ride horses.”
He remembers those Grade I winners, but he remembers his first winner even more. That would be the filly Anarkali on July 13, 2007 in a $6,250 claiming race at Calder. It was just Lopez’s fifth mount.
“I’ll never forget that one,” Lopez said.
According to Equibase, Lopez did ride in 10 QH races at Hialeah in 2009, winning one. He will go over 20,000 TB mounts sometime in 2025. And he will be loving every minute of it.
When asked if Parx was his favorite track, Lopez smiled and said: “I love everywhere I go, Maryland, Keeneland, Parx, Delaware. I like to win races, I like to work.”
