Blue-collar jockey with ‘J Love’ emblazoned on his breeches set for a rare moment in the spotlight on Larry Rivelli-trained colt in America’s greatest race. Interview by Jon Lees
USA: If life had taken a different path, Jareth Loveberry could have become an architect. Instead he has designs on winning the greatest prize in American horse racing beneath two of the sport’s most iconic structures.
The 35-year-old jockey with the nickname ‘J Love’ emblazoned on his breeches will have his first ride in the Kentucky Derby on Two Phil’s, a colt he believes is more than a lively outsider to triumph in front of Churchill Downs’ famous Twin Spires.
Trained by Illinois-based Larry Rivelli, Two Phil’s has won four out of eight starts. The son of Hard Spun already has a victory at Churchill Downs, landing the G3 Street Sense in October last year, and sealed fifth place in the Derby points standings with a 5¼-length success in the G3 Jeff Ruby Steaks at Turfway Park.
‘I believe Two Phil’s can be right there’
“I really believe that Two Phil’s can be right there,” says Loveberry, from Mount Pleasant, Michigan. “He showed it last year at Churchill. He has been battling all spring with these horses and I really believe that he is a top notch three-year-old this year.
“I don’t believe it matters that the Jeff Ruby wasn’t on dirt,” the jockey goes on. “That was his only race on synthetic and all his other races were on the dirt. He is just a good horse and I think he can run on just about anything.”
Two Phil’s has been described as a working man’s horse as a result of his blue-collar origins at Rivelli’s base at gritty Hawthorne in the Chicago suburbs.
Loveberry, too, learned his trade during years working far away from the bright lights on the Midwest circuit. Indeed, in nearly 18 years in the saddle, he has recorded only four graded stakes wins – and two of those came on his Kentucky Derby mount.
“I only started riding top-level horses over the last four years and it’s been building up towards this,” he says. “It’s determination that’s got me here. I just keep grinding, grinding, grinding. Where I started, the best races I could ride in were $25-50,000 stakes for state-breds.”
Back in Mount Pleasant, Loveberry’s father worked in construction and his mother in banking, and had no connection with horse racing. “I had a neighbour who had a horse at a thoroughbred farm across the street from where I grew up,” explains Loveberry.
‘I just fell in love with them’
“When I was about 12 years old, for a summer job I would walk across the street and started cleaning stalls and taking care of the horses. I worked there from 12, started getting on horses when I was about 14 and just fell in love with them.”
That love was burnished at Great Lakes Downs in Muskegon County, Michigan, where he rode the first of his 1,759 winners. “I rode there for three years,” he recalls.
“It’s a small five-eighths bull ring and they would all run in the summer. In wintertime I would go to Beulah Park, Ohio. Both tracks are closed now.
“I was still in college to be an architect while riding at the same time,” Loveberry goes on. “It was really difficult to do both and keep up in my studies and work at the same time. I was going to take the winter off, but the horses just got in my blood and I kept with that.”
Loveberry rode 145 winners at Great Lakes and 96 at Beulah before hitting a more prolific spell at Mountaineer, West Virginia, from 2012. He rode 200 winners that year and the centuries and meet titles became a more regular occurrence.
“I started winning a lot more,” he says. “It was still not quite prestigious so you didn’t get your name out there, but I started going to Oaklawn after that and then to Remington and Canterbury, which is when I started picking up more business. But it really took off when I started going to Arlington about three years ago.”
‘I moved my family to Chicago’
Loveberry decided to make Chicago his home with wife Stacie and two children yet, just like Great Lake Downs and Beulah Park, the historic venue shut down in 2021.
“Before they were going to close Arlington, I was going to be able to ride there almost year round,” he explains. “So we bought a house in Chicago and moved my family here in the belief I would be here almost all of the time.
“When they closed it down, it kind of put a dampener on that. My family is still in Chicago and I’ve moved my tack to Kentucky. As of now I plan to ride in Kentucky and Fair Grounds, New Orleans. It’s five hours from Chicago to Churchill Downs but I get home on the off days.”
Loveberry rushed himself back from a gate accident in which he suffered a hairline fracture of his fibula to ensure he was fit to ride Two Phil's at Turfway. In his other preps, the colt finished second in the Lecomte and third in the Risen Star behind Angel Of Empire.
Loveberry and Rivelli have virtually identical career win tallies and such is their bond there has been no thought of changing saddles for Two Phil's’ next assignment, when he will become a first Kentucky Derby runner for both jockey and trainer.
“This means a lot more to me because I have ridden for Larry for so long that making it to this stage with him means a lot more,” says Loveberry.
‘Loyalty goes both ways’
“He’s always been very loyal. If ever I have won on a horse and he wants to take it to another track, he will give me the first opportunity.
“When you get to this stage it is in the back of your head, are they going to change for a big-name rider? But him sticking with me, that’s why I’ve stuck with him for so long too. Loyalty goes both ways.”
Loveberry has ridden just four winners at Churchill Downs so he has been busy doing his homework, watching all the other races in the Road to the Kentucky Derby series and previous Triple Crown races.
He says: “I’ve been watching other Derbys and it can be a rough race, especially going into that first turn, trying to get position and keep your horse in it without getting shuffled back harshly. It is a tough race. But Two Phil's has been in 10-12 horse races and he’s handled it very well.
“Right now Forte looks really good and Angel Of Empire showed himself in the Arkansas Derby and I really believe I am right there in contention with those couple of horses.”
The anticipation to his Kentucky Derby debut is building. “It means everything to me that 17-18 years of riding is culminating in this,” he admits.
“We’ve put everything into this – blood, sweat and tears, quite literally, so to get to this point is pretty outstanding.
“It’s hard to put into words. I don’t know if I will really believe that I’m there until sitting in the gate, maybe. It’s pretty surreal.”
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