Jockey on Tonight Show

Santa Anita jockey Joe Talamo

Santa Anita’s top up-and-coming jockey Joe Talamo, star of last season’s and this season’s “Jockeys” on Animal Planet, was a guest on NBC’s The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien at 11:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 28 to promote the start of Wednesday’s Oak Tree Race season at Santa Anita on September 29 at 1 p.m., which Conan noted is in Arcadia. (see video highlights below)

The very next morning the 19-year-old Talamo was with a different star, Mine That Bird,  upset winner of this year’s Kentucky Derby. The horse that arrived at Santa Anita at 2 a.m. Friday by van from New Mexico and jogged one mile on Santa Anita’s Pro-Ride synthetic main track at 8 a.m. registered his first full workout Tuesday morning, drilling five furlongs under Talamo in 1:01.80 in preparation for Oak Tree’s Gr. I, $350,000 Goodwood Stakes Oct. 10. (Story continues below video) 

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 Talamo was impressed.  “I was really looking forward to coming out and working this horse. He went off real easy and then around the (far) turn he went to picking it up.  He’s a small horse, but when he gets into stride he really covers a lot of ground.

“I’d have to think he’s sitting on a big race.  He just seemed effortless this morning.  He seems to do things very easily.  What a classy horse,” he added.

The last-to-first winner of the Derby is expected to next work five eighths on Tuesday.

Calvin Borel, who skimmed the Churchill Downs rail when producing the Derby shocker, will be back aboard Mine That Bird for the Goodwood. Although Borel took off the Derby winner to stay with Rachel Alexandra in the Preakness, he was back aboard Bird for his third place finish in the Belmont.  Hall of Fame Santa Anita jockey Mike Smith rode Mine That Bird in the West Virginia Derby and in the Preakness.

In addition to Mine That Bird, other prominent horses listed as possible Goodwood Starters include Chocolate Candy, Colonel John, Parading, Tiago and Richard’s Kid.

The Goodwood Stakes is a Breeders’ Cup “Win and You’re In” race and the winner will be automatically eligible to run in the Gr. I, $5 million Breeders’ Cup Classic Nov. 7.

Mine That Bird is also being positioned to run the mile and a quarter Breeders’ Cup Classic and finish well despite finishing last in a field of 12 in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Oak Tree.

The 41st Oak Tree meeting gets underway Wednesday, Sept. 30, at Santa Anita, with first post time at 1 p.m. All attendees will receive a beautiful collectors’ item stein with their paid admission. For more information, fans are encouraged to visit www.oaktreeracing.com.