my $0.02...
Mig's a favorite of mine. Still going strong and he's overcome a lot.
In general.... The California jocks are overrated. Small fields in almost all the better races. They rarely need to adjust or adapt. Plus the syle of racing in SoCal is far different than back east. In Cali, they ride like hell to the quarter pole and hope to crawl home first. East coast it's more the opposite ... the jocks back east ride to get position then work from the 3/8 on in. PVal would make the top 5 at any meet but any of the others?
Apprentices are overrated. LeParoux, Rosie, Garcia. Cannot put them in the same sentence as top riders until they prove it after dropping the bug. 5 lbs may not be enough to win any one race, but it means an awful lot over several hundred races. Whatever happened to Foglesonger?
Jockeys who dominate lesser circuits are overrated. I.E., Bravo looks like Arcaro every year in Jersey, but looks very ordinary at Gulfstream. Happens every year. Another is Castro. Doing ok at Monmouth but last year at Calder, he looked great on everything he rode. Now, his inexperience is being exposed and there's been some races he's looked just awful, especially routing on turf. There are very few, if any, top jocks at lesser tracks who can compete with the big boys... Ramon, arguably can. Russell Baze? Nope. Castro? No. Jeremy? Arguably maybe, but I say no.
IMO, the top jockeys are easy to identify. They're the top money winners.
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