Discreet Lover Helped By Late Jockey Flores Helped On The Path To Breeders Cup
Trainer Uriah St. Lewis was in the tack room in his barn at Parx Racing watching the track’s feature race of the day on television as he waited to lead over a horse for the finale, when he saw the accident that killed 56-year-old jockey Jose Flores.
Flores was St. Lewis’s go-to rider.
St. Lewis, an affable native of Trinidad, has been wearing an especially broad smile for the last four weeks in preparing Discreet Lover for his next assignment in Saturday’s $6-million Breeders’ Cup Classic at Churchill Downs.
Two days earlier, he had guided St. Lewis’s best horse, Discreet Lover, to a third-place finish in a stakes race at Laurel Park, and he had been aboard the horse in 20 other races. Flores also was scheduled to ride the horse St. Lewis was about to lead over for the March 19 finale.
Flores, won 4,650 races, mostly at Parx since 1999 but he never competed in a Triple Crown event or the Breeders’ Cup.
Flores also had a hand in the development of Breeders’ Cup Sprint favorite Imperial Hint, whom he rode twice at the end of 2016, including a breakthrough, six-length allowance win at Parx. Imperial Hint was off to the races from there, winning of eight of his next 10 starts, but none further with Flores in the saddle.
Credit: Ritesh Jamkhedkar ritesh.jamkhedkar@secretariatsworld.com