2010 Black-Eyed Susan Stakes at Pimlico

Another feature of the Friday before the Preakness is the $50,000 Pimlico Jockey Challenge, with the 8 riders competing in 4 designated races to score points in a 12-6-4-3 format. Javier Castellano, who officially won the 3rd Challenge race and was second in the 1st Challenge race behind a non-Challenge participant rider, was the winner of the $14,000 first place check. He said, “It feels so great. I had a great year last year and got beat in the last race. I’m so excited to get it done today. For me, it worked out great. All my horses, they ran pretty good. They responded pretty well today.”

The final score was Castellano with 24 points, Kent Desormeaux with 22, John Velazquez 15, Ramon Dominguez 12, Julien Leparoux 11, Jeremy Rose 7, Garrett Gomez 6, and Rosie Napravnik 3. The Challenge brought together eight riders who have won nine Eclipse Awards, 10 Triple Crown races, 23 Breeders’ Cup races, as well as more than 23,000 races and $1 billion in purses overall. Five of the eight who competed ranked in the top 10 in the country this year in purse earnings.