Albarado Collects 900th Churchill Downs Victory

Nov 12, 2010 Gary Yunt

Jockey Robby Albarado became the fifth rider in Churchill Downs history to reach 900 victories beneath the Twin Spires when he guided Strike Impact to a front-running triumph in Friday’s sixth race.

 A 37-year-old native of Lafayette, La., Albarado has been riding for 21 years and been a regular at Churchill Downs since 1996. He has won one leading rider title (Spring 2008) and has a sizable margin in his bid for an initial Fall title with 14 victories through the first nine days of the 21-day meet that runs through Nov. 28.

 Pat Day is the all-time win leader at Churchill Downs with 2,482 and is followed by Calvin Borel (1,030), Don Brumfield (925) and Larry Melancon (914). Albarado has won 66 stakes at Churchill Downs, second only to Day’s 156.

   In Friday afternoon’s feature race, Steve Mongerson’s Mahindar posted a wire-to-wire victory in the $55,440 five-furlong turf sprint for fillies and mares, defeating odds-on favorite West Ocean by 1 ¾ lengths.

 Trained by Tom Amoss and ridden by Borel, Mahindar covered the distance on a firm Matt Winn Turf Course in :56.81. The victory was worth $33,600 for the 3-year-old Kentucky-bred daughter of Leroidesanimaux (BRZ) who improved her record to 13-7-1-1 with earnings of $136,375.

 Mahindar returned $12.40, $4.60 and $3.60. West Ocean, ridden by Michael Baze, returned $2.40 and $2.10 with Go for Jan finishing a neck back in third under Julien Leparoux and paying $3.40 to show.

 Racing continues Saturday with a 10-race program that begins at 12:40 p.m. (all times Eastern). Highlighting the card is the seventh running of the $100,000-added Commonwealth Turf (GIII) for 3-year-olds going 1 1/16 miles on the grass. The Commonwealth Turf will be run as Saturday’s ninth race with a 4:37 p.m. post time.

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