Jockey Manny Franco enters this year's Breeders' Cup World Championships with the goal of building upon an already wildly successful year.
The 31-year-old is in the midst of a career-best year after riding his first winner in his native Puerto Rico in 2013. Following in the footsteps of many other riders who gained experience there before coming to the mainland, Franco made the move to New York a couple months after winning with his fifth career mount. He has been a ubiquitous presence at New York Racing Association tracks ever since.
The fresh-faced and quick-to-smile Franco could pass for much younger, but don't let the youthful looks and absence of a scowl fool you. The rider is a fierce competitor on the racetrack and his stats back that up. With more than $200 million in purse earnings entering the Oct. 21 card at Belmont Park, Franco ranks 26th on North America's all-time leading earners list. Ten of the jockeys ahead of him are no longer riding, so it seems only a matter of time before he leapfrogs to even higher positions.
A winner of 19 NYRA meet titles and four year-end titles in New York, Franco made a new and bold statement this year by earning his first Saratoga Race Course title with a meet-record 73 wins. The previous record (68) was set at the traditional 40-day Saratoga meet in 2012 by Hall of Famer Ramon Dominguez. Franco's wins at this year's meet were accomplished by competing on 44 of the 45 cards during an expanded meet to allow for construction of the new Belmont Park.
Five weeks removed from the conclusion of the Saratoga meet, where he captured the Travers Stakes (G1) on Leading Change, and already scaling to the top of the standings at the Belmont stand, the sense of accomplishment from his sizzling summer lingered.
"It definitely hit differently," Franco said. "That was one of the meets that I would love to win one day, and this year I had the opportunity to do it. It was on my bucket list."
Franco has won six grade 1 races so far this year for five different trainers with horses Leading Change, Test Score (Pegasus World Cup Turf Invitational Stakes), Survie (Christophe Clement Turf Stakes), My Gun's Loaded (Alabama Stakes), The Good Life (Hopeful Stakes), and U. S. S. Valor (Champagne Stakes).
Whether because of injury or the connections' preference to run in another spot, the majority of those horses are not competing in the Breeders' Cup. But, not surprisingly, Franco will still be hustling from jocks' room to paddock come Oct. 30-31 at Keeneland.
When final entries are released Oct. 26, among the horses Franco is expected to be named on is the aforementioned Test Score in the Breeders' Cup Turf (G1T). The 4-year-old son of Lookin At Lucky is trained by Graham Motion, for whom Franco recorded his first Breeders' Cup winner, Sharing, in the 2019 Juvenile Fillies Turf (G1T). In addition to winning the Pegasus World Cup Turf Invitational Stakes with Test Score, Franco also won the Belmont Derby Invitational Stakes (G1T) and Transylvania Stakes (G3T) aboard the Amerman Racing homebred in 2025.
Another mount Franco has for four-time Breeders' Cup winner Motion is Roja in the Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint (G1T). He rode Roja, a 4-year-old graded stakes winner by Karakontie , for the first time in her previous start, which resulted in a victory in the Andy Guest Stakes at Colonial Downs.
Franco, who has been represented by agent John Panagot since 2022, also will hope to pick up his second Breeders' Cup victory aboard a 2-year-old after taking the 2024 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1) with Immersive. He is expected to ride the Miguel Clement-trained Brickyard Belle in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint (G1T). The undefeated Matron Stakes (G3T) winner has won her two career starts with Franco aboard.
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The rider incorporates a style that is very much adaptable to the situation in which he and his mounts find themselves. Patient when he needs to be, aggressive to gain position out of the gate if the horse and pace dynamics dictate, and always fully locked in to get the most out of his mounts in the stretch run.
When asked if he will enter this year's Breeders' Cup feeling more confident than other years because of how well 2026 has been treating him so far, Franco was having none of that. "The confidence is always there," he stated unequivocally.
He also doesn't leave anything to chance, whether he's riding in a claiming race on a stark winter's day in New York or on the world's stage Breeders' Cup weekend at Keeneland, amid an abundance of autumn's golden-hued leaves.
"I like to do my homework, watch all the replays of the horses that I ride, and the other horses in the race," Franco said. "I study the jockeys, too. You gotta study the jockeys, what they like to do, what they have done."
And his peers better be watching Franco, too.
