If you enter any kind of fun competition with the family of J.J. Gonzales, just understand that “fun” is subjective.

It doesn’t matter if it’s basketball, cornhole or, in this case, quarter horse racing, the Gonzaleses are in it to win.

“If you’re playing the Gonzales household, that Gonzales is going to try and kick your butt,” said James Gonzales III, the oldest son of J.J. Gonzales, a noted jockey turned trainer. “We didn’t sign up to lose.”

Winning seems to be a family trait. It started with James Gonzales Sr., who was an accomplished New Mexico quarter horse trainer, and was followed by J.J. Gonzales. He made his name as a jockey for 17 years and won each of the quarter horse racing’s Triple Crown — the All American Futurity, the Rainbow Futurity and the Ruidoso Futurity — along with more than 1,000 thoroughbred and quarter horse races. That led to his induction into the Ruidoso Downs Racing Hall of Fame in August.

The winning lineage continued with his sons, James III, Sebastian, Matthew, Jesse James and Nathaniel Gonzales. Combined, they were a part of two state championship football and basketball teams at Las Vegas Robertson and played on three other teams that made it to the championship game.

They can add trainers to that list, as James III and Sebastian Gonzales have become successful trainers over the past three years. That has seen the Gonzales family racing stable grow considerably, from about 45 horses to as many as 188 before settling to about 145 as the racing season heads into the fall and winter seasons. James Gonzales III said he considers the family one of the top five trainers in the nation.

It’s a growth that J.J. Gonzales never saw coming, but he is hardly disappointed with how his sons have followed in his footsteps.

“They have the love for the game, the love for the horses, and that’s just in them,” J.J. Gonzales said. “They love it. That’s their job. Some people have a job they don’t like, and they go to work every day because they have to. I guess it makes it easier to go to work when they love the game.”

Horses trained by J.J. Gonzales have earned more than $8.6 million in races and won more than 300 races. James Gonzales III already has trained horses that have 215 wins and more than $8.5 million in earnings.

As for Sebastian Gonzales, his training career got off the ground and he is having a fairly successful 2025 with his horses winning four times and earning $124,522.

Matthew Gonzales started working for the family as the stable manager after spending 1½ years on the New Mexico Highlands University men’s basketball program. And J.J. said Jesse James Gonzales, a 2025 Robertson graduate, is eyeing a jockey career.

In the background is his wife, Antoinette, who is the accountant, but was so much more than that when J.J. Gonzales was a jockey.

“She did a hell of a job when she was alone with five boys and [having to raise twins Jesse James and Nathaniel],” J.J. Gonzales said. “I couldn’t be there all the time, so she had to wake them up and take them to school.”

That is life in the horse racing business, whether it’s as a jockey or a trainer. The family is a staple in the New Mexico racing circuit, with horses competing in Ruidoso, Albuquerque, Hobbs and Sunland Park, but the Gonzaleses also have horses competing in Texas and Oklahoma.

This weekend, Sebsatian is overseeing the action at the Downs of Albuquerque, while J.J., James and Matthew Gonzales are at Dallas’ Lone Star Park. The tie that binds the family is horse racing.

“You know, I love it,” Matthew Gonzales said. “There’s a lot of ups and downs, and we’re obviously gonna disagree on a lot of things sometimes, but that’s just part of the business. That’s part of family, and at the end of the day, we all put family before these horses. It’s just a blessing to be able to work with my brothers and my dad every day.”

Ranch life has been a staple in the Gonzales family for decades. James Gonzales Sr. was a noted quarter horse trainer who worked primarily out of the now-defunct Downs of Santa Fe. J.J. Gonzales grew up on the ranch in Villanueva and was indoctrinated into the horse racing life early.

“In the summer, I’d go down to the Downs at Santa Fe and I always worked there,” J.J. Gonzales said. “It was my dream to become a jockey.”

He started racing while attending West Las Vegas, and he kept himself in shape by playing basketball and running cross-country.

“I wanted to play football, but my dad said, ‘No,’ ” J.J. Gonzales said.

Even though he was known in local racing circles, J.J. Gonzales said a good jockey needs a break, and he got one in when renowned trainer Blane Wood used him as a jockey on Beduinos Call. The pair won 10 of the first 11 races, including the Santa Fe Downs Futurity and the New Mexico State Fair Futurity in 1997.

“When people saw I could handle the pressure and ride a good horse, I went from two rides to four,” J.J. Gonzales said. “Then from four to eight, and it just kept piling up and it caught fire.”

That started an eight-year stretch when J.J. Gonzles was one of the top jockeys in the region. He notched wins in each Triple Crown race, including the All American Futurity, the richest quarter horse race in the world, in 2003. From 2000 to 2007, J.J. averaged more than $1 million in purse earnings.

J.J. Gonzales said he was blessed not to suffer a severe injury that could have taken him off the track for a long time, but the accumulation of injuries led to the end of this jockey career.

The transition to training occurred quickly, and his reputation in the saddle helped. By 2009, J.J. Gonzales said he had a stable of about 30 horses, which was better than he anticipated.

“James and Sebastian had started middle school, and we had moved from El Paso back to Vegas,” J.J. Gonzales said. “I was gonna train five or six horses and watch the boys play sports. At least, that was the plan.”

Still, J.J. Gonzales had a solid training career, and he balanced it with watching his two oldest sons compete. By 2019, his career started to take off as his horses won 37 races and earned $1.7 million. And he was able to balance work with his sons.

J.J. Gonzales was there when his oldest son was a part of the 2013 state championship team, and Sebastian Gonzales played on the 2015 state runner-up squad. By 2018, Matthew Gonzales was a freshman on the 2018 state runner-up team.

By that point, Sebastian Gonzales was starting to work for his dad, while James Gonzales III was a teacher and assistant coach at Robertson. It took the COVID-19 pandemic to change family’s history.

James III GonzalesWith the state in a pandemic lockdown, the Gonzaleses spent a lot of time together in 2020. When the racing season started to pick up, James Gonzales III joined his dad and started learning the ropes.

“Even when I was in college, I had classes Monday through Thursday, but I couldn’t wait for Thursday so I could get to El Paso or Hobbs or wherever just to watch races for the weekend,” James Gonzales III said.

It didn’t take long to make an impact. His horses won 19 races in his first year in 2021. That total grew to 32 in 2022, and James Gonzales III broke the $1 million earnings barrier. That earnings total grew to $3.4 million in 2024 and he sits at $1.9 million in 2025.

James Gonzales III said he and Sebastian Gonzales grew their stable to as many as 80 horses, seeing the value in quantity. He added, finding five or six “Michael Jordans” was better than two or three.

“That first year, we had a really big crop,” James Gonzales III said. “We broke in about 45 [horses]. Of the New Mexico-bred horses, we had 28 of them. Twenty-four of them were winners by the end of the year, and 18 qualified for juvenile or futurity races.”

J.J. Gonzales said while he oversees the training operation, he gives plenty of latitude to his sons as he trusts their judgment. That allows him to bounce from city to city to watch his horses. He spent time in Albuquerque last week before leaving for Dallas on Saturday to watch a pair of horses run later in the day.

“They picked up the ins and outs of all these things real quick,” J.J. Gonzales said. “I don’t have to worry about hardly anything. I handle more of the [public relations] with my clients and they handle everything else.”

The Gonzaleses added that their success doesn’t happen without the faith and trust of the horse owners who hire them. It says a lot, James Gonzales II said, because training horses can be a crap shoot.

“You can spend $500,000 on a horse, and he just doesn’t have the speed,” he said.

If anything, James III and Matthew Gonzales said, the attention to detail and preparation they learned in football under then-head coach Leroy Gonzalez helped immensely in quarter horse racing. Because they receive horses as yearlings, they have no racing experience and the Gonzales have to teach them everything.

“We start them in October to do the groundwork and learn how to ride and learn how to be a racehorse,” Matthew Gonzales said. “Galloping, exercising, learning the starting gate and how to run and actually stride out. But just seeing the progress from Day 1 to the time some of them make the big race, that really caught my attention and really made me love this.”

And once the work is done, the fun really begins for the Gonzales family.

They love a good race as much as anybody else, and they’re betting on themselves to win.