Ortiz Jr. Continues to Build Legendary Career

Thoroughbred horse racing has no shortage of legendary riders in its history, but, at the end of each year, Irad Ortiz Jr. continues to cement his legacy as one of the sport's best. The 33-year-old Puerto Rican rider closed out a record-breaking 2025 campaign with a return to the top of the earnings leaderboard—his sixth time in that position in the last eight years—while also leading all North American jockeys by wins for a ninth consecutive year. His goal for 2026? Keep on winning. "We always have the same mindset," Ortiz said. "We work since day one doing the same thing. (Agent Steve Rushing) does his job and I do mine, and we try to win as many races as we can and stay healthy and do the right thing. The rest, it will come." The five-time Eclipse Award winner set the new standard with $40,497,847 in earnings from his mounts last year; the first rider in history to top $40 million and broke his 2023 record of $39,193,365. His success at the top was year-long, grabbing the Pegasus World Cup (G1) in January aboard White Abarrio and sweeping a trio of Breeders' Cup victories aboard Bentornato, Shisospicy, and Cy Fair. That trio was nominated for a combined five Eclipse Awards. Other grade 1 winners ridden by Ortiz this season were Be Your Best (IRE), Clicquot, Mindframe, and Rhetorical. The remainder of the top five riders by earnings were Flavien Prat ($40,496,178), Jose Ortiz ($33,994,860), Luis Saez ($27,473,226), and John Velazquez ($21,284,926). The biggest change in Ortiz's season came in the second half when the rider, who has based himself primarily in New York since he began his riding career in the United States in 2011, decided to move his tack to Kentucky. In recent years, Kentucky's purse money has soared thanks to added gaming revenue from Historical Horse Racing machines. As the purses climbed and the Bluegrass state's racing became more lucrative while gaining added prestige, Ortiz found himself taking more trips to Kentucky in order to ride top horses he was committed to. The rider said it made more logistical sense to base himself in Kentucky moving forward throughout the spring and fall between wintering at Gulfstream Park and spending the summer at Saratoga Race Course. "We had to fly back and forth all the time to Keeneland, sometimes to Churchill, too," Ortiz said. "It was hard to have consistent business in New York when you have to in and out that much and people don't know if you're going to be there. We want to build strong business, and we love to win standings." Despite the travel spreading his wins across different tracks throughout the spring, Ortiz racked up four leading rider titles throughout the season for Gulfstream's Championship Meet (the first month of which took place in 2024), Saratoga's Summer Meet, Keeneland's Fall Meet, and Churchill Downs' Fall Meet. He also won the Bill Shoemaker Award as the Breeders' Cup's outstanding jockey and the Mike Venezia Memorial Award for displaying exemplary sportsmanship and citizenship. Horse racing is often a sport where the saying for riders is, 'it's not if you get hurt, but when and how bad.' Yet, Ortiz has displayed incredible physical and mental durability throughout his career, which could not be displayed any better by his continued reign atop the win leaderboard since 2017. "To win at the top level, you have to take care of yourself and be professional every day of the week," Ortiz said. "Sometimes other people see our profession as five days a week, it's not like that. To be a jockey, it's got to be seven days a week. Even the days you're not riding, you got to watch what you eat. Stay healthy, eat healthy, do some exercise, and try to stay fit and ready. That's how I do it. "You get sick or whatever, you can lose a week. You don't want to lose a week in this business because it's so hard. If you have some days (off), people are going to ride your horses." Ortiz rode 351 winners and hit the board 881 times from 1,631 starts in 2025—all ranking first among North American riders. Other riders to crack 300 wins this season were Paco Lopez (325 wins), Jose Ortiz (320), Prat (310), and Mychel Sanchez (307). Despite leading all North American riders in both earnings and wins, Ortiz is in for a fight when it comes to the Eclipse Award with Prat. Prat unseated Ortiz as the Eclipse champion and leading earner in 2024, and Ortiz's strong year in response is what makes their competition a budding rivalry. Ortiz has won the Eclipse Award in all five previous seasons he led North America by earnings: 2018-20 and 2022-23. "I have a ton of respect for Flavien," Ortiz said. "He's a professional guy inside the track and outside the track. We compete very professionally, we keep everything in the (jocks') room. We get along very well. I think that kind of thing pushes you to want to do a little extra, a little more." Prat had the edge in graded stakes wins (46) and grade 1 wins (13) this year and pushed Ortiz all the way to the wire in the earnings race. Also breaking the $40 million plateau, Prat came up a literal head short of repeating as the earnings leader when he finished fourth in his final start of the year. A third-place finish would have won him the title, but instead Ortiz held on by just $1,669. "It's amazing what we've both been doing the last few years. I haven't seen that in a long time," Ortiz said. "This year, everybody was watching and even more people started looking. We were so tight (in the earnings race) that people started looking and posting everywhere. "A lot of people were interested in what was going on. Maybe we are helping the sport go to another level, and that feels great."