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Positive thinking leads Edwin Maldonado back to the winner’s circle

It doesn’t bother jockey Edwin Maldonado that he’ll turn the big 4-0 on Dec. 1. You can’t beat Father Time. What does irritate the Ohio native is that he’s been labeled a speed rider. Don’t tell Maldonado he’s not an all-around solid jockey.

“In reality, I’m not (a speed rider),” he said during a telephone interview this week. “My first 10 years of riding, I was never on the lead. I love to come off the pace, especially riding at a mile. I love mile races.”

So how did he get the label?

“When I first got here, I wasn’t getting good mounts,” Maldonado said of his first Fairplex Park meet when he relocated from the Texas and Louisiana circuits to Southern California in 2010. “My thing was, ‘Well, I have no shot. I’m 30-1 and I might as well send this horse and put him on the lead, do something different.’ I knew the horse had never been on the lead before and if I’d get on a horse and he was 30-1, I’d put him on the lead. I started winning races like that, so that’s part of the label.

“A lot of jockeys who come from the UK, they label them as turf riders. I don’t think that’s right. We’re all jockeys and we all know how to ride horses and that’s what we’re here for. You can put us on any surface and there’s no difference. I think you’re either a good rider or a regular rider.”

After drifting away from a belief in the power of positive thinking, Maldonado is back to focusing on his mental state and can be labeled a winning jockey again.

Maldonado was at the top of his game 10 years ago. He won riding titles at Fairplex (snapping Martin Pedroza’s string of 13 consecutive titles at the Pomona track) and the Hollywood Park fall meet in 2012. He then tied Rafael Bejarano for the Hollywood Park spring-summer meet crown for a career year in 2013 with $8.3 million in purse earnings.

But 2014 began a downturn in Maldonado’s career until he slumped all the way to $1.6 million in earnings during the pandemic in 2020. But now that he’s back reading books and trying to be careful with his thoughts, he’s winning regularly again. Maldonado’s victory total is on the rise and he’s already surpassed $4 million in earnings this year.

Since the 2021 summer meet at Del Mar, he’s rejuvenated his career. Some of it can be attributed to his agent, Tony Matos, some to a successful working relationship with trainer Bob Hess, Jr. and then there’s that power of positive thinking.

“I think that had a lot to do with getting my career going again,” he said of hooking up with Hess. “I’m just thankful I get to ride for a guy like Bob Hess. He’s a good guy and a great trainer to ride for. He listens to the jockey and he doesn’t get mad if we lose a race. It gives you more confidence when you ride for someone who believes in you and lets you make decisions on the fly.”

Edwin Maldonado is congratulated by trainer Bob Baffert, right, after riding Defunded to victory in the Awesome Again Stakes on Oct. 1, 2022, at Santa Anita. (Benoit Photo)

Maldonado won the first Grade I race of his career during Santa Anita’s fall meet, guiding Bob Baffert’s Defunded to a gate-to-wire victory in the Awesome Again Stakes. It took a while, but he finally could put a check mark by that goal.

“Your thoughts are very powerful, and writing down goals, thinking about what you want instead of focusing on the negative,” he said. “One of the things I wanted was to win a Grade I and I said, ‘OK, this is going to be one of my goals.’ It didn’t take me a week after I wrote it down that I won that race. I’d been riding for 20 years and hadn’t won a Grade I, so accomplishing that was exciting.

“My state of mind, the way you think has a lot to do with it. I’ve been reading more books and I’m focusing more on my work. I’m gonna hit 40, so I gotta make the best of it these next 10 years. I’ve just been really focused these past two years.”

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Maldonado said he wants to ride at least another 10 years. He says he has another goal in mind, but he doesn’t want to reveal it.

“I don’t like to say my goals, but there is one specific one I would like to accomplish,” he said. “It’s coming. I know it’s coming.”

The way Maldonado has been riding since last year, nobody should doubt what he’s capable of accomplishing.

Follow Art Wilson on Twitter @Sham73

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