After nearly a 10-year absence, jockey Patrick Valenzuela is days away from his return as a jockey. The 63-year-old rider is named to ride three horses March 30 at Turf Paradise in Phoenix, where he has been preparing for a comeback.
Once considered one of the country's most talented riders, Valenzuela had his riding career repeatedly derailed by substance abuse, legal troubles, and failures to comply at times with required rehabilitation measures.
Valenzuela, known as "P. Val," rode H-G-W Partners' Sunday Silence to victory in the Kentucky Derby (G1) and Preakness Stakes (G1) in 1989 in two of his most high-profile rides. Some credit Valenzuela's ride as a difference maker in Sunday Silence's nose defeat of Easy Goer in the Preakness.
Reflective of his up-and-down career, he missed the mount on the Charlie Whittingham-trained Sunday Silence in the 1989 Breeders' Cup Classic (G1) during that colt's Horse of the Year campaign after the rider tested positive for cocaine.
Hall of Fame jockey Chris McCarron replaced him and rode Sunday Silence to outlast Easy Goer in the Classic.
Valenzuela would return multiple times to race riding. After diminished success in the late 1990s, Valenzuela experienced a resurgence in 2002-03 and 2005, riding more than 200 winners each year, but his production later tailed off. He last rode in December 2016 at Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots in Louisiana.
He has ridden 4,372 Thoroughbred winners, registering 66 grade 1 wins, including seven in the Breeders' Cup. He has two additional victories aboard Quarter Horses, including one in 2016.
Valenzuela hinted at a desire to return to race riding while employed as an exercise rider in California in recent years. He underwent knee surgery several years ago.
Owing to his transgressions in California, which included failures to fulfill scheduled rides, he was unsuccessful there in an attempt to get relicensed as a jockey by the California Horse Racing Board, but was recently granted a license in Arizona. That license is reportedly conditional on his successful participation in ongoing drug testing.
On March 21, Valenzuela excitedly posted on social media upon receipt of his license, expressing appreciation to the track stewards, the Arizona Racing Commission, and others.
"I want to (say) thank you for all the support, all the warm wishes, my brother JR, my sister-in-law, Jodie, and everybody in Phoenix, who have (welcomed) me as family," he added on Facebook.
Valenzuela's first mount Monday is aboard Dads Estrella in the third race for owner/trainer Kasey Kemper. Two rides follow in the seventh and eighth races, respectively, on Chris Larsen's Factory Drive and Regan Anderson's Levi Gone Wild, both for trainer Vann Belvoir, a former jockey.
