Albarado is a Spanish name, and Louisiana, where Robby Albarado was born, in Lafayette, was under the rule of the Kingdom of Spain from 1760 until 1802. Indeed the majority of the architecture found in the famous French Quarter of New Orleans is actually Spanish in style, the earlier French colonists’ residences virtually eradicated by a series of major fires in the city.
Who knows if one of the jockey’s ancestors arrived on these shores way back then, but the name Albarado (or Alvarado) is thought to have been one of the oldest Spanish surnames to be found in North American archives. Their coat of arms suggests they were successful seafarers, so perhaps it was fitting that Robby Albarado successfully raided Pimlico last Saturday like a pirate, and successfully made away with the bounty. He has been doing that for years now.
His father rode bush races as a young man, and young Robby stood and watched him in his earliest years.
Born in 1973, by the age of 12 he was following in his father’s footsteps. By 16 young dark-eyed and sallow-skinned apprentice ‘bug boy’, Albarado was at Evangeline Downs, where he rode his first winner.
His career progressed smoothly at racetracks in Louisiana, Chicago and Arkansas. In his fifth year riding, he won his first Graded stakes. The first day he rode at Keeneland, in 1996, he rode a treble and then in 1998, at the age of 25, his tack at Churchill Downs, he won his first Grade 1.
Riding Curlin
It wasn’t all milk and honey though. He fractured his skull in 1998, and again in 1999, a titanium mesh still in his skull now. In 2000, he suffered head trauma again.
From 2000 until 2010, Robby Albarado hovered just in or out of the top ten riders nationally. In 2004, he won the George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award. That same year he notched his 3,000th career victory.
In 2007 and 2008, he rode the champion Curlin. They won a host of top stakes races, including the Breeders’ Cup Classic and the Dubai World Cup. He was invincible. The gods were smiling on him - or so it seemed.
In 2011, Albarado was to ride Animal Kingdom in the Kentucky Derby. Three days before the big day, a horse threw him and kicked him before a race, breaking his nose. Connections of the horse were concerned Albarado wasn’t in a condition to take the mount and replaced him.
He proved fit enough to win a couple of stakes that first weekend in May at Churchill Downs, Albarado, but he was on the sidelines when Animal Kingdom won the Derby.
With hindsight, that lost mount may have been important. From 2012 onwards, the rider whose mounts regularly banked around $10 million a year now won only half that.
And then, in 2019, business really dipped. The jockey with over 5,000 career wins and three Breeders’ Cup victories to his name managed just 24 wins, albeit with time off due to injuries. And then, this year, the wheels really came off.
Prior to Saturday, October 3, Robby Albarado had managed 21 wins. A man who in his best season bagged close to $20 million in 12 months had managed less than $400,000 in nine.
Swiss Skydiver carried all before her this year, crowned by an impressive victory in the G1 Alabama Stakes at Saratoga before a second in the Kentucky Oaks, both times ridden by Tyler Gaffalione.
Robby Albarado didn’t have a ride anywhere on Preakness day, and on the days he did it was generally at Indiana Downs now, and even there his services were not much in demand.
And then he got a phone call. The gods remembered him.
Bold call
Gaffalione had unexpectedly defected. Mike Smith had ridden the filly previously, but his agent didn’t commit either. They decided they wouldn’t travel to Pimlico to ride the filly in the Preakness, where she was due to take on the colts, including the winner of the Kentucky Derby.
It was such a bold call by the trainer it left some shaking their heads. And then the trainer made an even bolder one. He called the rider, who was colder than Alaska, and he was booked to ride Swiss Skydiver in the 145th running of the Preakness Stakes.
A filly in the Preakness? In 144 runnings, only five had ever emerged victorious, and this filly had been beaten in her previous race, one restricted to her own sex.
She probably shouldn’t have been there, and what was Albarado doing on her back? His last winner before he rode the Preakness was 13 days previously at Indiana Downs in $10,000 maiden claimer for Indiana-breds. That was his confidence builder for taking on Authentic.
He had two rides at the Pimlico meet before being legged up on Swiss Skydiver. They both finished last. In the 12 days leading up to Preakness day, he had taken part in just nine races.
Yet he produced a masterclass in race-riding. This from a rider so washed up he should have been covered in seaweed.
The boldness of the entry was matched by the boldness of the jockey. Robby Albarado is a decisive rider. He rode a few for Swiss Skydiver’s trainer, Kenny McPeek, at Keeneland a couple of years previously, when I was the assistant. They didn’t win, but they were impressive, decisive rides. Robby Albarado comes out of the gates and puts his horse where he has already decided it will be, and the horse doesn’t look like it gets much say in the matter.
Five furlongs out, Albarado was sat on the rail, just behind Authentic. By the four pole, he had moved off the rail and slipped past Authentic and stolen the lead, and maybe just as importantly the Pimlico rail entering the home turn. It was a breathtaking, confident, race-winning maneuver, a tactical display from a virtuoso. But still it wasn’t over.
Down the stretch, the Kentucky Derby winner bore down on her, gunning for her, matching her. But Albarado and Swiss Skydiver locked together. They looked Velazquez and Authentic in the eyes, and they won the Preakness Stakes by a neck.
There was no crowd there to cheer. But all around the nation, where people gathered around a television screen, fans erupted. It was a duel, a race to match Affirmed and Alydar in the Belmont Stakes. A race that will live in people’s memories, a race that makes people remember why they love this sport so much.
So Albarado is back. In the most unmistakable way possible, he demonstrated why he has been one of the nation’s top riders for so many years.
People had forgotten him. They won’t forget him again. He will be back in demand again, riding the big races again, his tack at Keeneland and Churchill again, where it always belonged.
He will be sat in his corner again, chatting with Todd, his valet, again, in turn criticizing or praising and helping my son Jack, who sits next to him in those jockeys’ rooms again, as he always did, since the young lad first entered the Churchill Downs room and Todd Taylor took him under his wing.
Russian artist Valeriy Gridnev drew a portrait of Robby and Jack standing in the paddock at Keeneland one year. There were three of them, Robby holding court. The old master and the sophomore stood opposite one another. It came up for auction at Keeneland and Jack bought it. I think it may have gone up in value now.
That is the tale of Robby Albarado, a tale of outrageous fortune and misfortune and a comeback so spectacularly dramatic and unlikely that, although it would make a great movie, who on earth would ever believe it?