Nicanor question again?

Question

Is there any info on who will be riding Nicanor? Will Edgar Prado ride him? Or what? Or is there no say...

Becuase so far we know that Michael Matz is still going to train the colt but whose the rider going to be??

Anybody heard anything?

THaNKs!

-mel

Answer 1

The other answerer is right, as Nicanor is only a yearling it will be at least another 6 months before he makes his debut on the racecourse, probably even longer.

He has probably not even been broken in yet: most stables will start breaking in their yearlings over the winter, once the big races are out of the way and they can concentrate on the youngsters.

As for who will ride him, it will depend on who is available at the time.  If his trainer has a retained jockey that it will more than likely be him, but if - as with most trainers - they use whoever they think is best for the job and available on the day.

As he is a full-brother to Barbaro there will be a lot of interest in how his career progresses, so you are unlikely to miss any news updates on his progress.

Just don't get your hopes up: he is NOT Barbaro and in all likelihood will not be as good as his brother.  It is very rare for full-siblings to be as good as each other and so many things can cause setbacks for a young horse in training - look at what has happened with The Green Monkey!  Training a champion racehorse is not just about bloodlines and ability - a lot of it is luck!

I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for you though.

Answer 2

I don't think that they plan as far ahead as you want them to.  Nicanor is still just a baby...  he hasn't been broken yet and his training hasn't started.  Once a horse starts training they usually start making decisions like this...  sometimes it's just a matter of who is the leading rider for that trainer (like Pletcher's go-to jockey is Johnny Velasquez and Garrett Gomez picks up a lot of the mounts that Johnny doesn't take) and sometimes it's a matter of who gets along best with the horse (remember how they took Mario Pino off of Hard Spun for the Belmont).  Given the connections between Matz, Gretchen and Roy Jackson, and Edgar Prado, it's more likely than not that Prado will be aboard Nicanor.  I think Edgar would have been aboard Ready Set last weekend if he wasn't injured.  That's just my assessment of the situation...  no inside info other than my general knowledge of how horse racing works.