Hernandez, Fresh Off ‘Bittersweet’ Title At Churchill, Gets Off To Quick Start On Ellis Park’s Opener

Brian Hernandez Jr., winner of the 2012 Ellis Park riding crown, didn’t waste any time taking the first steps toward potentially another riding title, winning Sunday’s second race aboard Menacing on the opening day of Ellis’ 2018 meet.

The Louisiana native was at Ellis the day after wrapping up his first riding title at Churchill Downs in his adopted hometown of Louisville, 43 wins to 38 for runner-up Florent Geroux. But the sheer joy that the accomplishment should have brought was countered by the anguish when the tight title tilt with his close friend and 15-time Churchill riding champ Corey Lanerie ended with the sudden death of Lanerie’s wife, Shantel.

Lanerie, who won the last two Ellis Park jockey titles, hasn’t ridden since June 21, when Shantel, who was undergoing treatment for Stage 1 breast cancer, had emergency surgery after an infected colon led to sepsis and cardiac arrest. She died the next day.

“It was a bittersweet moment,” Hernandez, who held a 36-35 lead over Lanerie on June 21, said of winning the title. “As everyone knows, Corey Lanerie and I were close in the standings, and his wife fell ill the last nine days of the meet and she succumbed to it. Our heart goes out to their family. It’s bittersweet to be able to win the title. But I wish we’d had Shantel here with us.”

Lanerie and their 10-year-old daughter, Brittlyn, came to Churchill’s closing day Saturday to be part of the presentation for the meet’s leading jockey.

“That was really special,” said the 32-year-old Hernandez, who in 2004 won the Eclipse Award as America’s outstanding apprentice jockey and in 2012 captured the $5 million Breeders’ Cup Classic on Fort Larned. “That was one of the requests Corey asked of me, to go ahead and try to win the title in Shantel’s memory. Like he said, if he couldn’t do it, she’d have loved for me to go ahead and do it. It was really special for him and Brittlyn to come down and get in the winner’s circle presentation and photo. It was just a special family moment.”

Hernandez spent one summer riding at Saratoga’s elite in upstate New York before deciding it made more business sense to stay at home in Kentucky with wife Jamie and their two young kids, riding at Ellis and shipping out for stakes for his clientele as needed.

“Especially the last couple of years, the 2-year-old program at Ellis has really gotten strong,” Hernandez said. “This is a great place to get young horses going in the summertime, and the track is always in great shape.”

Hernandez won 13 races at the 2017 Ellis meet, good for sixth place while missing a lot of days to ride in stakes out of state.

“That will kind of be the same deal this summer,” he said. “We do emphasize the stakes program, then try to go around the country to ride the better horses. That’s really what it’s all about. You want to be able to pick up better horses and keep moving forward with them.

“And that’s one reason we do come to Ellis because we pick up some nice 2-year-olds to go with the rest of the year and beyond. It makes it nice because you can come here and ride and then go home at night and spend quality time with the family. And with racing here only three days a week, it’s almost like a little summer vacation.”

Camacho makes first mount at Ellis memorable with a 43-1 winner

Jockey Sammy Camacho, trying to break into the Kentucky circuit after riding in New York, rode at Ellis Park for the first time in Sunday’s fourth race. He made it a most memorable debut, rallying from last on Del Loveland’s 43-1 shot Sage Master to nail the front-running favorite Shanghai Point by a head in the $7,500 claiming race. Sage Master paid $88.20 to win.

“First, I thank the trainer and owner for the opportunity,” Camacho said. “I’d never before been on this horse. I made my move, went outside and he gave me an amazing win in my first time at Ellis Park. That way you can show the people (you can ride). I love to win, and it’s really exciting.”

Camacho’s agent is a very familiar face at Ellis Park and throughout the Kentucky and Midwest circuits. As a jockey, Francisco Torres rode and won many races at the Pea Patch. Torres retired as a jockey last fall. He had made his latest successful comeback after sustaining a broken neck — his fourth — but when he went down in another spill at the Fair Grounds in New Orleans last Thanksgiving, he decided it was time to walk away while he could.

Torres was beaming after Camacho’s victory. “I’m so proud of him,” he said, adding cheerfully to the camera, “He’s a great rider, great up-and-coming rider. So if you can put him on amount, please do.”

Torres also is trying to break in, not on the circuit but as an agent lining up mounts for a jockey.

“It’s tough, not easy,” he said. “I thought me being well-known around the Kentucky circuit, it was going to be easy. But it’s not. You’ve got some of the top riders in the nation here, and to break into is hard. So we’re trying hard, working our butts off, during everything we can to try to get the better mounts.”

Starving Artist wires field in allowance field

The wealth was spread on opening day, with nine different jockeys and trainers winning. Among them were jockey Adam Beschizza and trainer Joe Sharp, who teamed to win the $43,000 first-level allowance feature with the 3-year-old filly Starving Artist. The cleverly-named daughter of Paynter, out of the mare Salary Drive, beat older fillies while covering the mile over firm turf in 1:34.29, paying $6.20 as the favorite. Sharp co-owns Starving Artist with Great Point Stables’ Sol Kumin, also a partner in the Brad Cox-trained Kentucky Oaks winner Monomoy Girl.

In her last race, Starving Artist broke from an outside post and led into the late stages at Churchill Downs before weakening to third, beaten a total of a length. She started from the rail Sunday.

“She’s a filly who sort of likes to get her own way,” said Beschizza, riding at Ellis Park for the first time as part of his circuit change to Kentucky. “I had her in front at Churchill Downs, and probably took a little too much (out of her) just to sort of sustain the lead. But today we got the inside post and everything worked out. I think you can get her in top gear. She’s got a fair amount of ability, this filly. It’s just trying to squeeze it out of her. These people (Kumin) have jumped in on board, Monomoy Girl’s owners, so I’m sure they’ll be pleased.”

Starving Artist needed six starts to win, doing so at the Fair Grounds the first time Beschizza rode her. Now 2-1-4 in 10 races, her only poor effort came at Keeneland over yielding turf.

“I’m delighted to ride my first winner here my first-day riding,” Beschizza said. “She was getting pretty flustered in the preliminaries, and I was a little bit worried. But she’s got an engine, she’s got a bit of class. She’ll improve. She likes fast turf, and on opening day today, the turf is in pristine condition.”

Bork anticipates ‘one of our best meets ever, no question’

Ellis Park doesn’t charge admission, so exact attendance isn’t known. But a sizable crowd, many families with young children, came out amid the track’s frequent companion: summer heat and humidity.

“It’s the beginning of summer and we are where we should be: Ellis Park,” said racing secretary Dan Bork, standing in the paddock near the track. “It’s not overly packed, but it’s a good crowd. We take all the precautions for our human and equine participants. We have water stations all the way around the track, we have water hoses here (through the stretch) and water hoses in the paddock. We have our state veterinarians closely monitoring everybody.

“We do have a lot of experience with this, and everybody helps out.”

Bork anticipates this being “one of our best meets ever, no question.”

Ellis Park is offering a record $230,000 in average daily purses and has added four stakes for a total of 10 throughout the meet that ends Labor Day.

“With our purse structure, stakes schedule, and the anticipation coming in, the people who are planning on running here, I think it will be one of our strongest meets ever,” Bork said.

Ellis Park is dark Monday and Tuesday, then resumes racing Wednesday with the July 4 card the first of five straight race days before the track goes to its Friday-through-Sunday schedule for the remainder of the meet, which concludes with the Sept. 3 Labor Day card. The track is open seven days a week for simulcasting and Historical Horse Racing gaming.