Page 33 - NM Spring 2019

Top Left: Juarez’ biggest win was aboard Hence in the $800,000 Sundland Derby
Juarez wins the Mine That Bird Derby at Sunland Park two times... once aboard Proceed (top right) and again with Reride (left)
On his way home from the track one night, Alfredo stopped at a vendor’s stand and ordered a “bombaso’’ a type of bread stuffed with potatoes and meat. He was fine the next day when he went to work at the track, but became gravely ill after he got home that evening.
He began throwing up constantly and was rushed to the hospital in the middle of the night. “I was really, really cold and dehydrated,’’
he says.
“The doctors, they don’t find a pulse, they
don’t find my veins. I was going into a coma,’’ says Alfredo. “The doctor told my mom if they had waited one more hour, I wouldn’t have made it.’’
He was diagnosed with a stomach infection and spent nearly three days in the hospital hooked up to an IV. When he came out, he had lost nearly 20 pounds. The weight issue was now a non-issue. “From the bad came some good,’’ he says laughing.
Bad to good also describes Lisa’s first year of life. Within a month of her birth at a seemingly healthy seven pounds, her heart problem surfaced.
“I was a month old and every time I took my bottle my stomach would suck all the way
in and the milk would come back up,’’ says Lisa. “My grandma told my mom she should take me to the hospital.’’
Doctors determined the infant needed immediate heart surgery. Within weeks, she had
to undergo two more surgeries. She had a fourth surgery three years ago to repair a leaky valve.
These days, Alfredo is 5-foot-5 and tacks 117 pounds. Physically, he is a perfect prototype for a jockey. But it doesn’t matter how good you look in the saddle, it’s results that owners and trainers are looking for. To that end, Alfredo has delivered.
Since arriving in New Mexico in the mid ‘90s, Alfredo has won more than 2,960 races. He has finished second more than 2,500 times and third over 2,300 times. The horses he’s ridden have earned just over $53 million.
As of mid February of this year, Juarez had won 21 races from 95 mounts in New Mexico with 14 seconds and 16 thirds for earnings of $335,052. That means the horses he rode through that period finished in the money over 50 percent of the time.
He has been the leading rider at all five New Mexico tracks at one time or another during his career and has won countless stakes races. His biggest win came two years ago aboard Hence in the $800,000 Sunland Derby, a prep race for the Kentucky Derby.
His other major stakes wins include
a dead-heat share of the victory in the
Grade III Hawthorne Derby in 2000 with Rumsontheriver; the Grade III National Jockey Club Handicap with Chicago Six in 2001; the Dallas Turf Club Stakes with Trial by Jury in 2006 and wins in the Mine That Bird Derby at Sunland Park with Proceed and Reride.
Juarez rode War Emblem when the colt was starting to emerge as a future Triple Crown threat. With Juarez in the irons, War Emblem broke his maiden at Arlington Park, and later Juarez and War Emblem teamed up to win a prep race for the $500,000 Illinois Derby.
But Alfredo would not get to ride War Emblem in the Illinois Derby.
His agent at the time, Tom Morgan, wanted Alfredo to ride Fonz’s, a horse that had shipped in from California. Juarez says War Emblem’s trainer, Frank Springer, wanted Alfredo to ride him.
In the days leading up to the derby, Alfredo worked both War Emblem and Fonz’s and was convinced War Emblem was the better of the two. He says he and Morgan argued back and forth.
“I worked (Fonz’s) first and I didn’t like the way he worked,’’ says Juarez. “Then I worked War Emblem and I told him (Morgan), I want to ride War Emblem. He said, `don’t worry about that, I know what I’m doing.’ “I said, no you don’t. I never argued about what horses I rode but that day, I told him, you know it’s a half a million dollars (purse). It’s a lot of money and this horse is good. I want to ride him.’’
In the end, Juarez ended up on Fonz’s and Larry Sterling got the mount on War Emblem, who led wire-to-wire and won the race by more than six lengths. Fonz’s finished third, some 11 lengths back of War Emblem.
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