Dominguez
 

Success must breed confidence, because he's riding with brass balls right now. Five winners today, and check out the ride on Raffie's Dear in today's seventh. Rarely do jockeys win races, but Ramon schooled Castro and Russell in this one.

It's time his family sacrifices a little for him. He belongs in Florida.

When he winds-up that arm of his, I cringe for the horse he's on!

I think he's in the top echelon of riders and he wastes his time at Delaware during the Spring/Summer.

Seems like he's the east coast Russell Baze. Prefers a bunch of easy checks over proving himself amongst the best. I'm not knocking him, if he can get paid better at DEL and AQU, that's awesome, I'm just saying that's how I see it.

I'm not knocking him either Joe. I respect him not wanting to uproot his family. It goes with his whole persona. He's one of the nicest guys you'd ever want to meet.

If by 'schooled' you mean 'got a perfect setup', I agree: both in terms of the position on the track and the race dynamics.

You know, if horses consistently got good rides, then speed figures would be even more meaningless than they are now.

Deleware has had a decent number of $40K races thru the meet if memory serves me correct :eek: , but I totally agree. I watched and wagered this past year on Deleware when I got a day off early in the week and Ramon was money numerous times.

No, by schooled I mean, saved more ground than either of the other two, then darted in between Russell and a tiring pacesetter at the perfect moment. Diving to the inside at that moment was gutsy as hell.

I need to watch the replay for all this. From my single viewing, he basically came inside and ran down 2 horses that had taken over and were dueling the length of the stretch. Nothing more. He's supposed to win in that situation, as his horse hadn't run as much.

No doubt, he gets it when it comes to setups, saving ground, and basic race riding common sense, and, most of the others don't. Put him up against a fairly strong finisher with, approximately, the same trip and he gets beat every time. He's an average, in terms of physical ability, jockey riding against RETARDS.

EDIT: for an example of a RETARDED RIDE, check out PRADO on Giant Oak. He's proven he just can't ride inside, cause he has no balls, YET he insists on being there.

Lmfao, you are 2 funny

Maybe it'll look different from the head-on, but from the pan shot, it appeared to me as if he had an inch of daylight between Castro and the dying pacesetter and he hit the hole at the perfect time.

The guy does travel around on the weekends though.I think he is fine at AQU.Why should he go to FLA and ride full time when he gets good stakes mounts already.I think he's got it made,if you compare him to Gomez and the traveling he does in the summer.

Ramon is one of the best, he gets his chances on mounts for Motion, Frankel, and Pletcher. I read someone mention him to a east coast Russell Baze defintely not the case. I agree with left bank. Dominguez has the luxury of riding in the delware/maryland circuit but is still fortunate enough to be on top of some of the better stakes mounts

:rolleyes:

He gets more/better mounts than Baze, but don't be an idiot. You get my point.

Ramon Stays in New York Permanently.Good for him! He will do well.
http://www.delawareonline.com/articl...44/1002/SPORTS

Ramon is a good rider but he certainly didn't show that in either Wednesday's 8th or today's 1st. Sometimes being overly cute isn't the cleverest move.

Definitely for sure with Casual

Monday will be nice with him out of town to see the "B" list jockeys duke it out. No one's horses get overbet like Ramon's.

NT

He gets my vote. He was able to get Purrfect Bluff do something that Pablo Morales couldn't get through his thick skull in three previous tries - settle off, then move. She won going away under a hand ride.

If by 'Wednesday', you mean the 11th, and Pu Dew, I can't tell what he did wrong.

As for today's 1st: is it his fault, or the stewards, that Maragh, in the 3 path, decides to come in a path going into the turn, and squeezes him? This happens a few times a day, at every track, and the stewards, at some point, will realize that it's as dangerous as anything else that can happen on the track and will start fining jocks for not keeping a straight path entering the turn. Someday, it just might happen. There were a couple of blatant cases of this (squeezes into the rail on the turn) at TAM last week; I mean, these were so ****in brutal that it's a wonder the horse/jock didn't go down; and the stewards did **** about it. However, it's good to know that should a jock (other than Castellano or Sutherland) drift a half lane or so in the stretch, the stewards will be there for the takedown.

Dominguez is one of the best on the front end in a turf route - maybe the best. Other than that he is a solid jockey, he is classy and seems fairly smart, not the most physically gifted jockey in the world, more of a finesse and brains type.

You take a real risk jamming horses between horses in traffic, especially when you are on super logical horses that don't need to get lucky to win. Dominguez does this too often in my opinion. He did it with PU Dew and never was clear to be able to run. I have no idea what his plan was in today's opener. The winner was the lone speed, but he had the speed to stay close, yet left unaggressively and literally begged the others to shut him off. They obliged. Now, he may not have had any horse anyway, but I still thought it was a surprisingly amateurish ride.

Don't get me wrong, Dominguez is a very good rider, not as good as some people think, but overall he is very smart and capable. But, getting overexcited by his performance at Aqueduct, where he gets his choice of mounts in basically every race, and the overall colony isn't great, is to not see the whole picture. Sometimes he makes the mistake of riding overconfidently and gets into unnecessary jackpots.

I disagree. He consistently whips the horse in the run through the stretch and the headon shows that he does have a clear run with more than enough time to gain; if he had horse, which he didn't.

You and I have a basic disagreement. You think horses will always run between horses if given room and I simply do not.

We'll have plenty of more races to critique his performance if this report that he's coming to NY on a full-time basis is correct:

http://www.delawareonline.com/articl...44/1002/SPORTS

My focus is on the horses that are able to run on after encountering trouble, or run well against race dynamics; and there are certainly quite of few of them.

Of course, the '*****' horse will, at some point, get everything its own way and win. The game is like that.

The backing of a barn like Steve Asmussen was probably the final addition to the case that RD needed to stay in NY. If Asmussen uses Dominguez 1st call then Bridgmohan can stay away from Saratoga.

Trainers getting away from riders they've used for an extended period can wreck one's business. Look at Channing Hill, he's barely making ends meet without Hushion.

NT

Hill really needs to spend more time in the weight room. Riding like a girl in the lane just doesn't get it done. He has, however, provided me with much entertainment as some of his out of control, wide stretch runs are just RIDICULOUSLY COMICAL.

Dominguez has hardly ridden at all for Contessa this winter (after seemingly riding all his horses the past few winters), and he's still winning at the same clip. I'd assume that the added (successful) connections that he's made this winter lead him and his agent to conclude that he'll be able to make a go of it when "the big boys" return.

stop giving away secrets, if beyer and those speed fig. nit wits were right as much as they think they are. they would be rich winning bets instead of writing articles that say people are cheating when the figs don't work out ......lol. if it were as simple as a high number, no one would lose at this game.

Losing Contessa but geting Asmussen is a step UP not back. As-man doesn't start as many but he wins alot more. When Asmussen doesn't have a mount for him he still has lots of shots to ride the best in the race. Contessa sends out so many that it figures a jock like Ramon would be stuck on a lot of junk too.
I like Ramon's style because he seems to be able to get a horse to relax without fighting him. Trainers tell me they like him because he rarely uses "more horse" than he needs to.
As to any particular ride, they all make mistakes. I've seen brilliant rides from 7lb bugs (rare, but it does happen, often inadvertently) and bonehead moves from Hall of Famers. I've seen some times when I cannot figure out what Ramon is doing but others when I can't imagine that he can win and yet he does, often to beat me.
As someone who rides jumping horses I will tell you that horses are not baseballs, they don't always just go when you ask or stay where you put them. The perfect throw will tag the runner at third base, the perfect ride may still get you to the outside fence, or in a box turning for home or worse. Sometimes the rider give you the best ride and the horse just won't or can't cooperate.

One of the things about Dominguez that is interesting yet puzzling on a day-in and day-out basis is getting used to his style. He is almost all arms and legs on a horse so you never really know when he has a lot of horse or when he's really getting to the bottom of them. Because he's so tall you never really see him "sit down" on a horse but you can certainly see when he sets them down.

I think he's going to be the leading rider in NY by an incredibly wide margin for the year (no surprise because he will start on the Fla boys with a huge edge) and I doubt that the inner track riding title will be the last he one he earns in 2009.

NT