Ricardo Santana, Jr.

  RICARDO SANTANA, JR.

 Born:   11/19/1992, Chorio, Panama

 Resides: Hot Springs, Arkansas

 Family: Single

• Santana, Jr. enters the 2013 Oaklawn meet off a career best year in which he led the 2012 Delaware Park
standings with 89 victories. Among those wins was the Carl Handford Memorial Stakes aboard Eldaafer, who
became his first Breeders’ Cup mount when seventh in the Marathon. He also rode the horse to a third-place
finish in the Hawthorne Gold Cup.
• He hails from Panama, which is also the birthplace of Hall of Famers Laffit Pincay and Braulio Baeza. He
is from a part of the country where you either join a gang or become a jockey and fortunately, he had the
footsteps of his father, Ricardo Sr., a former jockey, to follow.
• In his first meet at Oaklawn in 2011, he won 12 races from 154 mounts, including his first career stakes race
aboard Salty Wave in the $60,000 Spring Fever. In 2012, he won 16 races.
• The up and coming rider came to the United States in 2009 and settled in at Delaware Park where another
Panamanian Gabriel Saez was already finding success. His ability and work ethic quickly caught the eye of
trainer Ron Moquett, who had been told to “watch this kid” by Hall of Fame riders Jose Santos and Edgar
Prado. He considers jockey and another fellow Panamanian Cornelio Velasquez a mentor.