The Week in Review: Bugboys Riding High Atop Delaware Standings

Approaching the start of the sixth week of the season at Delaware Park, a pair of apprentices–one a five-pound bugboy and the other still with his seven-pound allowance–are riding high atop the jockey standings.

Through Saturday's racing, the Delaware win totals by Gabriel Maldonado (25) and Ederik Robles (18) matched the rookies' ages.

Maldonado just finished a blast-off week that saw him winning nine races in a four-day span at three different tracks.

On Wednesday, the five-pound apprentice tallied with the last of six afternoon mounts at Delaware, then traveled 85 miles to Penn National to score with his lone ride on the evening program. Maldonado won four races back at Delaware on Thursday, went 2-for-2 at Monmouth on Friday, and on Saturday wired the opener by a nose at Delaware despite stumbling at the break.

Wrapping around into this upcoming week, Maldonado was booked at Monmouth on Sunday, Parx on Monday, Penn National on Tuesday, and Delaware on Wednesday and Thursday, highlighting the no-letup aspect of being an in-demand apprentice on a competitive circuit.

“Every day he's learning,” Maldonado's agent, Eddie Joe Zambrana, told TDN. “He's a hard worker, he listens to what the guys who have been professionals for a long time are telling him. He's got a little bit of everything going for him. The plan for the rest of the summer is to just keep riding here in the mid-Atlantic, where there are lot of tracks close together and lots of opportunities.”

TDN had wanted to speak with Maldonado himself, but Zambrana said the bugboy was already fast asleep in the next room at 7 p.m. on a Saturday in the aftermath of his whirlwind tour of mid-Atlantic winner's circles.

Maldonado has only been riding since May 21, 2023, at Gulfstream. It took him nearly a month to break through with his first victory, but when he finally scored one year ago this week, it was with a 9-1 shot who ran up the score by 10 lengths.

“He started working as a farrier at the beginning,” Zambrana said. “But then he decided to start galloping horses instead of shoeing them. He caught on with Chad Brown at Palm Meadows, and once he got the experience he made it out to Gulfstream because he wanted to ride in races.”

Maldonado didn't truly start to pick up steam–and live mounts–until switching his tack to Tampa Bay Downs late last year.

“I started working for him at Tampa,” said Zambrana, who was a jockey himself between 2002 and 2018. “I had a few friends call me who wanted me to take his book. So I talked to the kid, and I saw a few videos of him on his first few winners at Gulfstream, and I liked the way he looked. So I took his book at Tampa and we started winning some races.”

Maldonado's first win | Ryan Thompson

That win total was 57 by the meet's end in early May, good enough for third in the overall Tampa standings. Maldonado was the top apprentice there by 16 victories over the next-closest bug rider.

“After Tampa, we were supposed to go to Monmouth,” Zambrana said. “But I have another good rider, Jose Batista (a seven-year journeyman currently tied for fifth in wins at Delaware), and we talked about what we wanted to do this summer. We decided to make some changes and go to Delaware instead of going to Monmouth. And Gabriel, he said he wanted to go wherever I wanted to go. So all three of us made the decision together, and everything is working out good.”

Yet when Delaware opened May 15, Maldonado wasn't the only up-and-coming rookie from Puerto Rico. He was joined by Robles, a graduate of that island's respected jockey academy, the Escuela Vocacional Hipica Agustin Mercado Reveron. Between the two of them they won nine of the first 23 races of the meet.

Robles, who piloted his first mount on Jan. 1, 2024, had ridden through early April at Camarero in Puerto Rico. He arrived in the mid-Atlantic a few weeks later, and also started winning races in bunches after Delaware opened. He doubled at Delaware May 25 and 30, tripled (including aboard a 32-1 winner) at Laurel June 2, and rocketed home with a four-bagger at Delaware June 14.

“He's young, he's a really good kid, a hard worker,” said agent Mark Mace. “He's great out of the gate, and he's got great hands. He's just solid, very young and very talented.”

Mace is representing Robles at Delaware while Tom Stift (who booked mounts for 2023 Eclipse Award-winning apprentice Axel Concepcion for most of last year) is handling business for the seven-pound apprentice in Maryland.

“Tom and I are good friends, so he's helping me out in Maryland until Delaware ends, and then I'm going to take over Maryland,” Mace said.

But Robles's will to win–and chance-taking to do so–has also caught the eye of the Delaware stewards.

“He already served two days for stick violations, but now he's got two weeks for [two disqualification-related suspensions for] very incidental contact,” Mace said. “So you won't see him for a little while. I guess because he's a bug rider, they're trying to teach him a lesson and school him pretty good.”

Asked why Delaware has been so ripe for the two apprentices this season, Mace said he believed part of the answer has to do with how the condition book came up.

“I think early in the meet they use a lot of cheaper races,” Mace said. That aspect can lead to trainers taking a shot on with less-established riders, he explained, “so the bugs got an early jump start on everybody. And then, you've got two very talented riders. [Maldonado] is very good too. He's s lot older than my kid, but he's been getting on horses a lot longer.”

Sophomore summer wide open…

Batten Down's wiring of the 1 1/8-miles GIII Ohio Derby at Thistledown on Saturday represented a step forward for the Tapit-sired full-brother to both MGSW Tacitus and GSW Scylla considering the colt was progressing out of an 8 3/4-length maiden win.

Batten Down in his first win, an Apr. 30 blowout score at Churchill | Coady Media

But the race came back on par with the same Beyer Speed Figure of 93 the gray earned in that blowout Apr. 30 Churchill Downs score, and the unchallenged manner in which Batten Down controlled the Ohio Derby pace–a quick opening quarter of :22.86 that dwindled to a :26.02 fourth quarter while never seriously threatened–leaves it an open question about where this Bill Mott trainee stands in an already wide-open sophomore division.

Underscoring the uncertainty at the top of the 3-year-old totem pole, counting the Road to the GI Kentucky Derby points series and the Triple Crown itself, Batten Down's win as the 3.3-1 second choice in the first sophomore graded stakes route of the summer now makes it six times in the last seven races within that division that the favorite has gone down in defeat.

With Mystik Dan (Goldencents) upsetting the Derby at 18-1, Seize the Grey (Arrogate) wiring the GI Preakness Stakes at 9-1, and Dornoch (Good Magic) breaking out big-time at 17-1 in the GI Belmont Stakes, we almost had three different horses win the Triple Crown races at double-digit odds.

That hasn't happened since 2011, when Animal Kingdom at 20-1, Shackleford at 12-1, and Ruler on Ice at 24-1 lit up the Triple Crown tote board (credit to @GaryDougherty of the Racing Stats & Info account on X for unearthing that stat).

The July 20 GI Haskell Stakes at Monmouth and the July 27 GII Jim Dandy Stakes at Saratoga loom as the next major races for 3-year-olds.

On Saturday, trainer Todd Pletcher confirmed that both 'TDN Rising Star' Fierceness (City of Light), who was 15th as the beaten favorite in the Derby, and Mindframe (Constitution), the runner-up in the Belmont Stakes, are both aiming for the Haskell.

GI Arkansas Derby winner and 'TDN Rising Star' Muth (Good Magic) has also been pointing toward the Haskell since scratching out of morning-line favoritism in the Preakness with a fever.

Belmont S. winner Dornoch could use either the Haskell or Dandy as a prep for the Aug. 24 GI Travers Stakes at Saratoga.

'TDN Rising Star' Sierra Leone (Gun Runner), the beaten favorite when third in the Belmont, breezed a solo :49.66 half mile in blinkers Sunday morning (6/30) over Saratoga's Oklahoma training track. He could go next in the Dandy or train up to the Travers, trainer Chad Brown said.

Trainer Kenny McPeek said on Sunday that Mystik Dan won't go in either of those preps. The Derby winner, who was second in the Preakness and eighth in the Belmont, is being freshened after scoping with some mucus after the third leg of the Triple Crown.