Jim Bradshaw: Derby-winning jockey joins exclusive Louisiana club

When Lafayette native Brian Hernandez Jr. rode longshot Mystik Dan to a photo-finish Kentucky Derby win he joined a list of south Louisiana jockeys who have made racing history.
He said his race was inspired by one of them, Calvin Borel, a native of the St. Martin Parish community of Catahoula, who won the Derby three times in four years by keeping his horses as close to the rail as he could, saving ground and equine energy.
After his Derby win, Hernandez said he’d decided to do the same. “I said, ‘You know what? We’re going to roll the dice,” he told writers after the race. His bold move to the rail in the final turn saved just enough ground for one of the closest wins in Derby history. Mystik Dan finished barely a nose ahead of the favorite Sierra Leone, who was barely a nose ahead of third-place Forever Young,
Mystik Dan’s trainer, Kenny McPeek, credited his rider with the win. “He’s the difference between winning and losing,” McPeek said. ”We saved ground, saved ground, saved ground. I think we needed all of it.”
The historic win puts Hernandez on a list of south Louisiana Derby winners that includes Borel, Maurice native Kent Desormeaux, and New Iberian Eddie Delahoussaye.
Borel was inducted into the National Museum of Horse Racing Hall of Fame in 2013. His three Derby wins were just a part of his 1,189 triumphs at Churchill Downs over more than two decades. Overall, Borel won 5,146 races aboard mounts that earned more than $127 million in purses.
Desormeaux was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2004. He rode Derby winners in 1998, 2000 and 2008. In 1989, he broke the record for the most victories in a season with 599 wins. In 2019 he reached a milestone only 18 others in North America have met when he won his 6,000th race.
Eddie Delahoussaye was one of those 18 others. He retired in 2003 with 6,383 wins. He won the Derby in 1982 and 1983, after finishing second in 1981. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1993.
Hernandez, the latest Derby winner, is the son of Brian Hernandez Sr., who had a long career as a jockey in Louisiana. Brian Jr. began racing while he was still in high school and celebrated his first win in November 2003 at Delta Downs in Vinton. Over the next two decades he earned a reputation as a hard-working, savvy rider who could be counted on to give a good, steady, mistake-free ride whether it was in a high-stakes race or a lesser event.
That work ethic also puts him on another list of south Louisiana riders who did not win the Derby, but who came from little Louisiana tracks to earn big reputations.
They include Lafayette native Robby Albarado who retired in 2021 with more than 5,000 wins under his belt. Carencro’s Ron Ardoin, who won 5,226 times, mostly on Louisiana tracks; Erath’s Randy Romero, who, despite health problems that would have felled lesser men, came in first 4,294 times and was the leading rider at 10 tracks on 21 separate occasions; Shane Sellers, another Erath native who has 4,393 career wins; and Sunset’s Ray Sibille, who rode 4,263 winning mounts.
In 2007, when some of the greats gathered at Evangeline Downs for a race billed as the Cajun Jockey Challenge, somebody figured out that all of the wins by just the jockeys reared within 30 miles of Lafayette added together would come to “67,000 and counting.” That’s pretty impressive.
I don’t think anybody added up the number of wins by jockeys from across all of south Louisiana, but I would wager it’s close to 100,000 — and growing.
The legendary rider Pat Day, who was Borel’s chief rival at Churchill Downs for many years, was impressed by that success. He told an interviewer, “I don’t know of any other sport, in any country in the world, where you would see this level of success from such a relatively small area.”
I don’t know of one, either.
You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.