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Joe Bravo aboard Pura Vida Princesa \u00a9 Benoit Photo<\/p>\n
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One of the new faces in the Del Mar jockey room this summer is actually a rider who tried California a few years ago before deciding to return to his east coast roots in Florida.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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That was in 2023. Now Joe Bravo is back and, so far, he\u2019s putting together a nice meet. Through Saturday\u2019s racing Jersey Joe has six wins from 45 mounts. He also has four seconds, one of which came a week ago when he got rundown in the lane by a 50-1 shot.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cI\u2019m loving it,\u201d Bravo states. \u201cWith the limited mounts we have they\u2019ve been running great. I\u2019m really impressed with how my agent Riley Shapiro has started out. He\u2019s a young kid who\u2019s really hungry but really knows what he\u2019s talking about. He\u2019s impressed me for the short time we\u2019ve been together.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The two can be found most mornings walking the backside barn area, pitching trainers for mounts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe were figuring out what to do during the summer,\u201d Bravo explains about his return. \u201cI spend most of my time on the east coast but after spending a couple years being here in California it\u2019s hard not to resist coming back to Del Mar. Not just because of the weather but it\u2019s a great lead into the fall. We have Kentucky Downs and the Breeders\u2019 Cup and a lot of those types of horses are sitting here at Del Mar more than at any of the other bases I\u2019ve been in. Sort of a little pre-game for two great events.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Bravo is quick to note that having been at Del Mar, like he was in 2021 and 2022, has helped make the adjustment in California go much smoother.<\/p>\n
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\u201cOh, a hundred percent a big difference,\u201d Bravo contends. \u201cFirst couple of times I came here I was like a lost pup not knowing the people you\u2019re dealing with day in and day out. You know the Bob Baffert name or the Mark Glatt name or Phil D\u2019Amato and now you can put a face to the names. Having been here in the past helps a lot. Being there for the morning workouts talking to people and knowing your clientele and knowing who they are is a big advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n
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It\u2019s not like Joe Bravo is not a recognizable name in horse racing. He\u2019s won 5,758 races and 118 graded stakes. He ruled the New Jersey jockey colony in the 1990\u2019s and 2000\u2019s, winning 22 riding titles between Monmouth Park and the Meadowlands.<\/p>\n
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\u201cOn the day that I hang up my pants, I want to be recognized,\u201d Bravo admits. \u201cI\u2019ve been doing this a long time. I\u2019ve been lucky enough to win the Mike Venezia Award and the George Woolf Award. The one award I would really love is the Hall of Fame and the only way you can do that is to put a staple in racing. Good horses can do that for you. I think it\u2019s going to be a good story when I finally do decide to hang it up.\u201d<\/p>\n
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If the 55-year-old jockey is giving any serious thought to retiring, he doesn\u2019t mention it. He\u2019s too busy trying to drum up new business on the backside.<\/p>\n
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\u201cSuccess is easy,\u201d Bravo points out. \u201cIt\u2019s when you\u2019re in the lulls and suffer the injuries that put you on the sidelines. It\u2019s always fun coming back from them. It\u2019s always easy to ride the best horse. Trying to get noticed on not the best is what makes it more fulfilling.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Bravo has ridden some talented horses in his time. Big Blue Kitten; Breeders\u2019 Cup Distaff winner, Blue Prize; Sheer Drama and A.P. Indian. But ask him who his favorite is and he\u2019s likely not going to tell you.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe next horse I throw my leg over is my favorite,\u201d Bravo states. \u201cIf I tell you about a couple, I\u2019ll be disrespecting other good ones. Every horse has been amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n
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He has equal respect for his fellow jockeys, especially the ones he rides with at Del Mar these days.<\/p>\n
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\u201cMy next door neighbor is Juan Hernandez,\u201d Bravo says. \u201cI love to see the new generation coming up. Living in Florida you see these young new faces coming up through the gateway. South American riders that come into America. Here you have a lot of European riders that you don\u2019t have at other tracks.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Bravo says it\u2019s nice to be riding with more experienced riders, riders who have been around a while. But not many have been able to pull off the kind of feat that Bravo accomplished one June weekend in 2016. He won three different stakes races at three different tracks in three different states.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cI didn\u2019t want to lose any of those horses,\u201d Bravo recalls, \u201cand I knew I had to be there for all of them. Another person I have to thank in this horse racing game that makes stuff like that happen is a fellow named \u2018Stretch,\u2019 from Walter J.J. Travel. He put me in places. I don\u2019t know how I got in and out of a racetrack so quickly.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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That\u2019s one of the things he likes most about riding in California. You don\u2019t have to do all the traveling jockeys on the east coast have to do to make a good living.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI remember I had one agent named Cory Moran,\u201d Bravo adds. \u201cBetween him and Stretch I won 13 graded stakes races 13 weekends in a row. You can only do that with good people around you.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Joe Bravo aboard Pura Vida Princesa \u00a9 Benoit Photo One of the new faces in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":441578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,8504,100,8939,174951],"class_list":["post-441577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-del-mar","tag-news","tag-press-releases","tag-stable-notes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/441578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}