Rosario, Justify, Gun Runner Reach Hall of Fame in a Hurry

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y.- When Joel Rosario arrived in California as a virtually unknown jockey from the Dominican Republic in 2006, his mission was simple: survive. Eighteen years after his first races at Fairplex and Golden Gate Fields, Rosario will be inducted Friday into the National Museum of Racing's Hall of Fame. He was elected in his first year of eligibility.

“I never thought I was going to be where I am today,” Rosario said. “I thought I would come here and try to make a living. Riding horses and trying to make a living.”

Rosario, 39, has done that, for sure, and much more. In California, he quickly emerged as one of the premier riders of his generation and since 2012 has been primarily based in the East.     Through Sunday, he ranks just outside the top 100 in career victories at 3,632, but with $322,237,757, he is fourth on the career earnings list. He was 95 Grade I victories.

Forevermore, he is Hall of Fame jockey Joel Rosario.

“It means a lot for me,” he said. “For me and my family and the other people in Dominican Republic who follow me and follow the racing, it's great. I'm the first from my country to become a Hall of Fame jockey, so it's even more special.”

Triple Crown winner Justify (Scat Daddy) and 2017 Horse of the Year Gun Runner (Candy Ride), also elected the first time they were on the ballot, join Rosario as the group of contemporary division inductees this year. Also being saluted and welcomed into the Hall of Fame in the nine-member class are: jockey Abe Hawkins and racehorses Aristides and Lecomte, selected by the Pre-1900 Historic Review Committee; and from the Pillars of the Turf Committee, Harry F. Guggenheim, Clement L. Hirsch, and Joe Hirsch.

Gun Runner was bred by Ben Leon's Besilu Stables, acquired by Three Chimneys Farm as part of major bloodstock purchase with Leon and raced in a partnership with Winchell Thoroughbreds LLC. Trained throughout his career by Hall of Famer Steve Asmussen, he won 12 of 19 starts, six of them Grade I, and earned $15,988,500.

Brazilian Goncalo Borges Torrealba and his family bought a controlling interest in Three Chimneys Farm in the summer of 2013. Torrealba said the first task was to change the farm's focus away from being a boarding operation. A year later, he and Leon had reached an agreement on the sale of the Besilu holdings.

“Slowly but surely, we got into the market to buy a good, respectable broodmare band and so on,” Torrealba said. “This was, very frankly speaking, a turning point for us.

“He was going out of the business. He had put together, in a very short amount of time really, an amazing bunch of horses. We did the deal by which we bought all 52 horses of his. Gun Runner was a yearling. His dam (Quiet Giant) was there. His granddam (Quiet Dance) was there. And the sisters to him. It was a stellar group of horses really. He's stayed in. I liked him. He was a good friend.”

The agreement with Besilu was finalized on Aug. 4, 2014, 10 years to the week  before Gun Runner's induction. Three Chimneys was intending to sell Gun Runner as a 2-year-old in training, but reached a private deal with owner-breeder Ron Winchell.

“Winchell came to us and made the proposal for us to be partners,” Torrealba said. “Him being the owner of Tapit fit 100% the description of what we're looking for in a partner,  someone who's invested in the deal. And it turned out really great, because as part of the deal, he went to Steve.”

Torrealba said he could spend a couple of hours praising the way Asmussen trained and managed Gun Runner.

“He did a great job,” Torrealba said.

Gun Runner was a top 3-year-old in 2016, but became an elite runner in 2017. He finished second in the G1 Dubai World Cup when Arrogate turned in a jaw-dropping performance after stumbling leaving the gate. Arrogate was never the same, but Gun Runner finished the year with four straight Grade I wins–by a total of 24 3/4 lengths–capped by the Breeders' Cup Classic. Torrealba said the championship-clinching win at Del Mar was a very proud moment.

“But the wins at Saratoga were fantastic, when he won the older horse races, the Whitney and the Woodward,” Torrealba said. “It was incredible. When he came back from Dubai, the amount of confidence we had on him, he just couldn't lose.”

Gun Runner closed his career with a score in the $16.3-million 2018 GI Pegasus World Cup and went home to Three Chimneys, where he has quickly become a standings-topping stallion.

“Well,” Torrealba said, pausing ever so slightly to make his point, “I think he's as good as they come.”

Gun Runner | Coglianese

John Gunther and his daughter Tanya bred Justify, who finished first in all six of this career starts for the ownership group of China Horse Club, Head of Plains Partners LLC, Starlight Racing and WinStar Farm. Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert developed the 13th Triple Crown winner–the second he handled in a span of four years–whose purse earnings were $3,798,000.

The Gunthers's 2015 foal crop was beyond-belief amazing. Not only did they have Justify arrive that spring, but Grade I winners Vino Rosso (Curlin) and Without Parole (Frankel) were dropped, too. Vino Rosso won three Grade I races, topped by the Breeders' Cup Classic, and earned $4.8 million for Repole Stable and St. Elias Stable. The Gunthers raced Without Parole, winner of the G1 St. James's Stakes at Royal Ascot and he is now standing at stud for them in England.

Gunther said that Justify was a standout from the start.

“As a foal, he did a lot with Vino Rosso in the same paddock, and Justify knew he was the king between the two of them,” Gunther said. “He was always anxious to go out. He was just an unbelievable foal. We had both of them at the yearling sale and my daughter didn't want to sell either one of them.”

Gunther said he put high reserve prices on the colts, figuring they would take them home. He was wrong. WinStar bought Justify for $500,000 and Repole-St.Elias paid $410,000 for Vino Rosso.

“My daughter, she actually cried when we lost both of them,” he said. “It was quite a year.”

Gunther said his son thought he was crazy when he predicted that the colts, unraced at the time, would both run in the Derby. He was correct and after the Derby win, he said publicly that Justify would win the Triple Crown.

“I really felt that way at the time,” Gunther said. “Then he won the Preakness and we flew to New York for the Belmont and I just knew he was going to pull it off.”

Rosario grew up on a farm in a massive family–he said his mother Angela had 15 children–and like many of the boys in his country, spent a lot of time playing baseball. He was introduced to racing as a young teenager by a brother and attended his country's jockey school. He said his parents had to sign papers that permitted him to begin his professional riding career as a 14-year-old.

“My mom didn't want me to go and do it,” he said. “She had seen me riding horses all the time, but it's a little bit different, racing and riding on the farm. She was a little bit worried about it, but in the end, she was fine with it.”

Rosario rode for six years in the Dominican Republic and was the leading jockey the last four seasons. With Dominican trainer and bloodstock agent Herbert Soto providing some guidance, the 20-year-old Rosario made the move to the U.S. He started out at the Northern California tracks, Bay Meadows and Golden Gate Fields and on the fair circuit. In less than a year, veteran jockey agent Vince DeGregory convinced Rosario to move to Southern California and the top-level tracks of Hollywood Park, Del Mar and Santa Anita Park.

Riding morning works and DeGregory's years of contacts helped introduce Rosario to the trainers in Southern California to get him mounts in the afternoon. Rosario credits John Sadler with putting him on horses and getting him rolling.

“He was my main guy,” Rosario said. “If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have been able to make it to where I am today. He really gave me a big chance with his horses. He gave me the first call on his horses that had a good chance to win. That helped. When you have somebody like that, it helped.”

Sadler was well aware of what Rosario was doing at the San Francisco-area tracks.

“I sent a horse up to Northern California and he rode it for me,” Sadler said. “I think the horse got beat a nose, but I was very impressed with him even before he got here. When he came down, I think one of the very first horses I put him on he won and he got going from there.”

Sadler recognized what other top trainers like Bobby Frankel were seeing and Rosario was an immediate hit. In 2007-08, he finished fourth in the Santa Anita standings.

“He was just so strong, such a good rider, and looked so good on a horse right away he caught my eye,” Sadler said. “When he came down to Southern California, when he made the transition down, I started riding him more and more and more. He rode a lot of great horses for me.”

Joel Rosario | Lauren King

The Sadler-Rosario team has compiled some notable statistics. According to Equibase, Rosario has ridden 245 winners from 1,030 starts for Sadler, a 24.7% rate, finished in the money at a 58.4% clip and earned $21,361,905 in purses. In stakes, they are 48 for 227, 21.1%. Rosario has won 14 Grade I races on 10 different horses for Sadler.

In 2008, his first full year in California, Rosario jumped to 20th nationally in purse earnings. He was fifth in 2009 and has not been lower than sixth since. He led the nation in 2021 and earned the Eclipse Award as the outstanding jockey. In 2013 on Orb (Malibu Moon), he won the GI Kentucky Derby for trainer Shug McGaughey. Earlier that year he won the G1 Dubai World Cup on Animal Kingdom (Leroidesanimaux {Brz}). Rosario has two wins in the GI Belmont Stakes and 15 victories in the Breeders' Cup.

Success has not changed Rosario, Sadler said, that he is the same friendly, upbeat, humble man he met nearly two decades ago.

Rosario said he has maintained the same habits that he developed in the Dominican Republic, where he realized that he was too small to be a major league baseball player and embraced another sport.

“There was a lot of hard work, a lot of dedication and a lot of help from people that I appreciate,” he said. “They give me the horses to get me there. So many people. At my young age, I never thought so early, I was going to be in the Hall of Fame. It's very exciting. The hard work paid off and I'm very excited about it.”

The ceremony at the Fasig-Tipton sales pavilion will begin Friday at 10:30 a.m.