Last year’s encounter at Oaklawn Park was not a particularly good one for equestrian Cristian Torres. Virtually unknown on the track as he entered and sidelined the final five weeks of the meeting when, breaking his right ankle in an effusion, he won only 19 races, finishing 15th in the race. charts. Fast-forward about eight months and Torres is tearing the place apart. Two weeks into the meeting, he’s the leader with 11 wins and is winning with 33% of his mounts.
“We got off to a good start and had a great two weeks,” said Torres. “We are just trying to keep the momentum going and I just want to keep winning races. I am riding for Robertino Diodoro and he has a good stable, a good logistics team and his horse is ready. He’s doing an unbelievable job and so is Karl Broberg who I’m aiming for. It was a difficult encounter. There are a lot of good riders here so you have to give your best.”
Torres is being modest and perhaps that’s because the 25-year-old always remembers where he comes from. Too heavy to be admitted to the equestrian academy in his hometown of Puerto Rico, he trained to be a gymnast after graduating from high school.
“I joined the gymnast program at school,” he said. “The weight in Puerto Rico is lower than here for the bug boys. To get into the school, you have to weigh about 103, 105. That’s too low for me. So I decided to join the exerciser program because you might be heavier. We learn essentially the same things, except that the jockeys exercise at school for a year and the jockeys stay there for two years. In the second year, the jockeys participate in actual races. Gym goers don’t need that.
Torres came to the US in 2017 and rode at a gallop for two years before he decided to try his hand at jockey. He went on an extreme diet, lost more than 20 pounds in three months, and started an apprenticeship at Gulfstream in 2019. In Florida, he broke into the top 10 in the rankings but showed no sign. become the rising star that it is today.
“I did a pretty good job as a bug catcher, but after I lost my bug, the business went downhill,” says Torres. “I want to go somewhere else so I can start over.”
On the advice of his agent Ruben Munoz, Torres arrived in Oaklawn at the start of the 2021-2022 season and although he didn’t win many races, he began to forge relationships and take root. From there, he went to Lone Star Park, but missed the first four weeks of the meeting because of a broken ankle. Once fit, he started riding the winners and finished the Lone Star meet with 19 wins, taking eighth place on the leaderboard.
Next stop is Remington Park.
“I had high expectations for Remington because of the way we ended up at Lone Star,” Torres said.
But he could never have predicted what was to come. With 71 wins, he was the lead driver at Remington and won with 25% of his mounts. The key is to connect with Broberg, Remington’s top coach, and Diodoro, who is fifth in the Remington rankings.
Diodoro said: “He had quite a few things coming his way. “He has no problem behind the scenes. He’s just a hardworking kid and he’s only 25 years old. He is a very patient racer, especially when he is young. He is very grateful for everything. He stayed even. He can walk out of that athlete’s room after winning three races or winning 0 to 6 and nothing changes. When things don’t bother the riders, they are patient, well-weight and they have the right attitude to be a successful racer. At Remington he got some mounts directly from us, he got some from Broberg and some from others and he took full advantage of it. It was moved to Oaklawn. Riders can work as hard as they want if you don’t have stock which makes things pretty difficult. He has some direct mounts and takes full advantage of it. He’s on his way here.”
Top at Oaklawn won’t be easy. David Cabrera, Francisco Arrieta and Ricardo Santana Jr. were the top riders at last year’s meeting and all three are back and ready for strong campaigns. Nor does he often ride for Steve Asmussen, the dominant coach at Oaklawn. Torres says he’s up for the challenge.
“I feel like a better, more confident racer than I did a few years ago,” he said. “But I still have a lot to learn. I’ve only been driving for 3 and a half years. But since moving to Oaklawn last year, I feel like a better racer. I feel more confident and have more opportunities.”
After Oaklawn, he will return to Lone Star and then Remington. That’s the current plan, but he admits he has his eye on trying to infiltrate one of the main circuits, New York, Kentucky or California.
“We’re just trying to keep building our business,” he said. “My agent [Cody Autrey] and I’m working together and hope to keep building so that we’re in a good position if I decide to do it. But riding at the top tracks, that’s definitely a goal.
At Oaklawn, he proved he could win a top race. And the best is yet to come.
