LOS ALAMITOS : Danny Cardoza Will Retire at Meeting’s End

Danny Cardoza, the all-time winningest rider at Los Alamitos, will retire on Jan. 18, the final right of the quarter horse season, after a 24-year career at or near the top of the nation’s quarter horse jockey standings.

Cardoza, 42, who began riding at Los Alamitos in 1968, decided to retire two months ago and only recently announced his decision. He will leave the sport with more than 3,300 victories and a career that included riding champions in four decades.

“I’ve been thinking about this all year,” said Cardoza. If I get out now, I can get into something else. I can ride another four or five years, but then it might be too late to do something else.”

Cardoza has a few options and would like to stay involved with racehorses, perhaps breaking young horses. He owns a cabinet shop with fellow jockey Ralph Pauline and did not rule out the possibility of training. Walking away, he said, on his terms, from something he began the year after he graduated from high school will not be hard.

“I’m ready,” he said. “I’ve won just about every major stakes there is from the West Coast to as far east as Latonia, Ky. (now Turfway Park).”

Cardoza won the 1979 All American Futurity with Pie In The Sky and the Champion of Champions in 1984 aboard Dashs Dream. Other major stars that Cardoza rode to major stakes victories include First Down Dash, Gold Coast Express, Way Maker and Takin On The Cash.

Each year, from 1977 to ‘90, his mounts earned more than $1 million. This year, through mid-December--the most recent statistics available from the American Quarter Horse Assn.--Cardoza’s mounts have earned $641,325.

Cardoza grew up near Fresno. He graduated from high school in 1967 and went to work for Don Farris, now a New Mexico-based trainer, working with young horses in Tulare. In March 1968, Farris sent Cardoza to Bay Meadows to gallop quarter horses and ride for trainer Earl Holmes. Soon after, Cardoza began riding at Los Alamitos.

“There was never a doubt in my mind that I was going to be here,” Cardoza said. “Especially riding against the guys I’ve read about for years--guys like (Bobby) Adair, (Curtis) Perner, (Charlie) Smith, and (Ronald) Banks. I was looking through the program (recently) when I realized I used to ride this horse’s father and this horse’s mother. I used to laugh at Adair when he did that.”