Courtesy of Benoit Photo, have a look at the images as Javier Castellano picks up his prestigious award – voted for by his peers in the jocks’ room.
USA: Four-time Eclipse Award-winning jockey Javier Castellano accepted the prestigious George Woolf Memorial Jockey Trophy at Santa Anita on Sunday [March 19].
The Hall of Famer was accompanied by friends, family members and a number of fellow riders as he accepted the trophy from the track's general manager Nate Newby in a winner’s circle ceremony.
The Woolf Award has been presented annually by Santa Anita since 1950. The winner is determined by a vote of jockeys nationwide and is named for one of the greatest big money riders of his era.
Castellano, who left his native Venezuela in 1997, was one of five Woolf finalists for 2023 alongside Daniel Centeno, Terry Houghton, Edwin Maldonado and Willie Martinez.
After Sunday’s program, the 45-year-old Castellano had ridden 5,628 winners and banked more than $378.5 million in purse earnings, which is second all-time in North America behind only John Velazquez ($463m), who won the same award in 2009.
Before Castellano, the most recent winners were Luis Quinones (2020), DeShawn Parker (2021) and Joe Bravo (2022).
Currently based in Florida, Castellano has won ten Breeders’ Cup races, including the Classic on the brilliant Ghostzapper in 2004. Other big wins are headed by two editions of the Preakness Stakes (Bernardini 2006) and Cloud Computing (2017). He topped the US prize-money earnings list four years in a row between 2013 and 2016.
The Woolf trophy is a replica of the life-sized statute of Seabsicuit’s rider that adorns Santa Anita’s Paddock Gardens area.
• Visit the Santa Anita website and the Jockeys’ Guild website
Elbow room please: what’s it like to shoot an Eclipse Award-winning photo?
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