Breaking the Age Barrier : Apprentice Jockeys Magallon, Cisneros Are Racing Among Youngsters

Jockey Pablo Magallon has a five-pound advantage and, perhaps, a 10- to 15-year handicap.

He has a weight advantage because he is an apprentice jockey. His disadvantage may be that he is a 33-year-old in a sport in which most apprentices are in their teens.

But to Magallon, who track people say is one of the oldest apprentice jockeys ever, age doesn’t matter.

“I didn’t start late,” said Magallon, a Panamanian who speaks little English and whose words were being translated by John Cisneros, 30, another apprentice jockey older than most of his peers. “It just took me a long time to get here. . . . It doesn’t matter what age I am. It’s no problem for me. It’s never too late to learn.”

Or to attempt a comeback.

As a teen-ager, Magallon learned how to ride by working with wild horses back home in Panama.

He attended Panama’s only jockey school for a year. Later, while working toward his accounting degree in college, he drove 2 1/2 hours twice a week for three months each year to get mounts at the Presidente Remon track.

While competing against many experienced jockeys for a limited number of mounts, Magallon rode just two winners in approximately 160 races in five years.

That was enough horse racing for Magallon--at least for a while. He worked in a post office and in his family’s fruit business in Panama. He took four semesters of computer training at a college in Guadalajara, Mexico. When his grandfather--who was supporting him--died, Magallon had to leave school and went to work for a tile company. But the devaluation of the peso led him to the United States last November.

Magallon also felt it was time for him to be reunited with horses. Horse racing is to Panama what basketball is to Indiana. Youngsters growing up in Panama idolize such famous countrymen as Manuel Ycaza, Braulio Baeza, Jorge Velasquez and Laffit Pincay Jr.

“That’s what motivated me to come here (the United States),” Magallon said. “I saw these guys who I knew from there (Panama). I wanted to do the same thing.”

He started exercising horses in Rancho California. He found an agent, Vic Lipton. He got his immigration papers. And during the final three weeks of the racing session at Hollywood Park, Magallon was competing on the very tough Southern California circuit.

Suddenly, Magallon was borrowing equipment from Pincay and racing against him. He quickly made a favorable impression in the barn area, where he is affectionately called “Pablito,” and on the track, where in less than two months he has eight wins and has earned approximately $6,000. At Del Mar, he has three wins, a second and two thirds in 48 mounts.

Of the five apprentice jockeys racing at Del Mar, Aaron Gryder, 17, is the youngest and most successful. Going into Thursday’s card, he ranked seventh among all jockeys with 9 wins, 8 seconds and 12 thirds in 117 mounts.

As for Magallon, after he won his first race in the United States aboard Toulange at Hollywood Park July 6, was just as thrilled as any 17-year-old.

“It was very emotional,” Magallon said. “I had been out of horses so long, and then I won.”

Said Lipton: “He’s older, stronger, more mature physically and mentally--and he’s talented. Technically and physically, he’s a very strong rider for an apprentice rider. The fact that he is 33 gives him an edge over someone 17. One’s a man, one’s a boy.”

Magallon is finding his transition back into the sport, and adjustment to life among the Pincays and Chris McCarrons, to be easier than anticipated.

“I thought the competition would be tougher,” Magallon said. “It’s about the same as in Panama.”

Having raced in Panama can be a big plus on a jockey’s resume. Lipton has had a number of successful Panamanian jockeys as clients.

Magallon, who is single, exercises regularly by running and playing volleyball on the beach. Like many of the people around the track, he is working horses at 5:30 a.m. Apprentice jockeys get many of their mounts from trainers, who watch them working out the horses.

After racing at Del Mar, Magallon will head to Los Alamitos Race Course in Orange County two or three times a week to ride on the evening card.

“It’s still a hard struggle,” Lipton said. “A lot of people don’t know him. But if nothing unforeseen happens--like an accident--I believe he will be successful in the business.”

For some apprentice jockeys, success hasn’t come so easily.

Just ask Cisneros, 30, who has 41 career wins in two years. He was granted an extension on his apprenticeship when he didn’t have 45 wins in a year.

At Del Mar this session, Cisneros has 2 wins in 14 mounts.

Cisneros, from Bolivia, attended Cypress College in Orange County for three years. There is no horse racing in Bolivia, so he had to come to the United States to ride.

“I wish I had started earlier,” Cisneros said. “I’m almost through with it (his apprenticeship ends with four more victories, at which time he would become a journeyman). It hasn’t been easy.”

Cisneros, who has a wife, Cindy, and 2-year-old daughter, Kathleen, feels being an older apprentice has posed some problems. He says it’s a struggle to get mounts, a struggle to be riding 50-1 longshots, a struggle to be accepted by trainers and peers and a struggle to make a living.

“It gets in your way a little,” Cisneros said. “Everyone expects an apprentice to listen. You can’t listen like a young kid can.

“I started at 100 miles an hour, thought I knew it all, but I was very green,” he said. “The veterans are more cautious (than they would be if he were younger) about telling me things. But here (the Southern California circuit) is the best in the world. I have to learn from these people. Maybe I’ll make it someday like them. Better late than never.”

Cisneros’ big moment came when he rode Davids Smile, the third choice at 6-1, to victory in the Spotlight Handicap at Hollywood Park May 2.

“I fell in love with the horse,” Cisneros said. “I was lucky to get on a horse like that.”

Cisneros won four races with Davids Smile, but then the mount was taken from him. “They gave it to (Eddie) Delahoussaye and he lost. They (people around the track) couldn’t believe they took me off after winning four straight. Sometimes you can’t explain things in this business. But I had fun.”

As an apprentice, Cisneros has spent most of his time on longshots.

“Riding longshots, it gets more challenging,” said Cisneros, who had a $99.20 winner in Jazz Player in the first race at Del Mar Wednesday. “You know the horse isn’t very competitive. You try to make him more competitive. You tend to get more tense on a favorite, more relaxed on a longshot. You know you can’t do any worse. After you run a quarter of a mile, you know what you got. I just keep riding them. They might decide to run again.”

But if the horse is way back and struggling, Cisneros said he will ease up. “You worry about the horse more than the race,” he said. “He might have bleeding inside. He might not be good enough to be a race horse. You take care of the poor animal.”

Nothing indeed.