Under-fire jockey Sonny Leon will keep the ride on Kentucky Derby winner Rich Strike in the Breeders’ Cup Classic with trainer Eric Reed saying the rider did nothing that was “blatantly wrong” at Churchill Downs on Saturday.
Leon was suspended for 15 days after he appeared to use his elbow to try to impede Tyler Gaffalione on Hot Rod Charlie who went on to win the the G2 Lukas Classic by a head after a frantic tussle between the pair.
Although Leon claimed his saddle had slipped, the stewards said Leon was “intentionally attempting to interfere with and impede the progress of a rival by repeatedly making physical contact with another rider in the stretch”.
In an interview with Nick Luck on the broadcaster’s Nick Luck Daily podcast, Reed gave a detailed explanation of what he believed was going on in the closing stages and was asked if Leon will stay aboard Rich Strike at Keeneland next month.
“Absolutely,” he said. “He’s not the only rider to be suspended this year. The top rider in the country has been suspended multiple times this year for the same kind of stuff. It’s part of racing.
“If you are trying to throw him off the horse that’s a different ball game.” Reed went on. “But gosh, this is race riding 101 and a lot of horses and jockeys, they rough each other up sometimes and sometimes they go over the line.”
Leon was criticised in several quarters with former jockey and pundit Richard Migliore claiming his actions cost Rich Strike victory. Speaking on Twitter, he said: “When does this BS stop? It’s horse racing not jockey racing. Enough.”
Reed said: “I don’t think the jockey had anything to do with the outcome of the race. There is a lot that went on in the race. The biggest thing that most people just don’t understand is, Rich Strike is still very inexperienced as to how he runs.”
The trainer said that when Rich Strike had edged ahead of Hot Rod Charlie in the stretch, he started to drift out towards the middle because he couldn’t see a horse to his left and started to “let up”.
He explained: “What riders do when they feel a horse letting up, they’ll try to pull them back where they can feel the horse next to them and that gets them going again. Tyler Gaffalione made the comment that he had started to drift Hot Rod Charlie out to re-engage. So both riders were doing the same thing.
“What happened to Sonny is when he went to pull to the left the saddle shifted slightly, just enough where his balance wasn’t normal, and he rides to the left of the horse’s neck anyway. That’s just his style.
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“So now the horses are laying on each other. It was aggressive riding on Sonny’s part from that point on. Both horses shoved each other equally but not enough to create a stewards’ inquiry.”
Reed went on: “Everybody can take it for whatever they want. There are opinions both ways. Sonny, when the saddle shifted, could have definitely wrapped up and finished second, beaten half a length and said, ‘I lost my balance’.
“Instead he kind of risked all, let him drift on that horse which kind of stabilised everything and then of course his elbows are right there messing with the other rider too. I’m not saying he did nothing wrong, but I don’t think he did anything blatantly wrong.”
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