It’s mistake to count the old jockey out

When you hang around the back of the pack a lot, as jockey Alex Solis did much of last year and the first five weeks of this one, you have time to think.

“Retirement? Well, no,” he says. “Oh, I guess I thought about it, maybe a little. But the bottom line is, I still love being here.”

And so, when the horses go to the gate for 71st running of the Santa Anita Handicap today, Solis will be there, aboard Celtic Dreamin, and with no intention of hanging around the back of the pack.

Celtic Dreamin will break ninth in a 14-horse field, and, despite his 20-1 morning-line rating, has never been worse than second in nine starts, a history that may appeal to the bettors.

Solis, at 43, has a similar history.

He is the leading active money-winning jockey in the country with more than $206 million, built on 4,555 victories in his 27-year career.

He has won three Breeders’ Cup races, two in 2003 and one in 2000, and a Preakness, in 1986. He has been nominated several times for horse racing’s Hall of Fame and is among the nominees this year, leading to the summer induction at Saratoga.

“Yes, that would mean a lot,” he says.

This isn’t a story, however, about a seamless march to fame and fortune.

Along about the middle of January, while Santa Anita was trying to figure out what to do with a soggy racetrack, Solis was trying to figure out what to do with a slumping career.

In Hollywood Park’s summer meeting of 2007, he won 31 times, but didn’t crack the top 10 riders’ standings. He was also 11th at the Del Mar meeting, winning only 14 races; was ninth at Oak Tree but with only 12 winners, and fell all the way to 15th at Hollywood Park’s fall meeting with seven wins.

The start of the Santa Anita winter meeting wasn’t much better. From Dec. 26 through Feb. 10, Solis won only eight times.

He had loyal trainers such as Paddy Gallagher, Bruce Headley, Dan Hendricks, Mel Stute and Ron McAnally, who kept giving him a leg up. But he wasn’t getting the additional rides outside his regular stables that he was used to.

There were rumblings. He wasn’t breaking clean anymore. He wasn’t finishing through the pack, but trying to ride wide around it. He wasn’t taking chances, going for the holes. He was still haunted by the serious accident he had July 24, 2004, at Del Mar, where he broke his back and ribs and missed the next seven months.

Nothing creates knowledge and expertise faster than the presence of a $2 bet. Solis knows that and addresses it with restraint.

“People who really know how to watch races know that I was riding the same way I always have,” he says.

He also admits to going through a period of wandering motivation. That ended a few weeks ago.

“I can’t say exactly when it happened,” he says, “or if there was that one moment. But I just looked over things. I saw that I had to concentrate. I thought about what was important. I love riding, I love being here, and I love being in the [jockeys’] room.

“I get along good with the riders here. I’m the old guy, and they tease me about it, how they are going to kick my butt out there. That’s just what I need.”

In February, Solis won 15 races. Since Feb. 16, he has won 11. Before Friday, he was back up to 14th in national rankings for 2008, with 21 wins worth more than $1.2 million.

He has at least two potential stars to ride right now, and he has ridden each well.

On Jan. 26, he brought his Big ‘Cap entry, Celtic Dreamin, from 12 lengths back in the 1 1/8 -mile Sunshine Millions at Santa Anita, to second, with nice moves through opening holes down the stretch.

The next day, in the California Derby at Bay Meadows, he made similar moves with his probable Kentucky Derby horse, Yankee Bravo, going from second-to-last at the five-eighths pole to a victory.

He says he is in the best shape of his life and stays that way with sprints up nearby Mount Wilson with fellow jockeys David Flores, Aaron Gryder, Chantal Sutherland and Mike Smith.

Along with Smith, he is invested in a wine business. They purchased the grapes for their label, and this year, there will be bottles of Syrah called Jinetes, with a logo of whips and a saddle on the bottle. In Spanish, jinetes means riders.

His supply of horses to ride is also becoming enhanced by an owners syndicate that includes Alex Solis Jr., 23, his oldest son.

“He has a real eye for good horses,” Solis says. “I feel horses, but he sees them.

“It’s also nice to ride for him because, if the horse doesn’t run well, I can get off and yell at him.”

So, for the moment at least, life is better for Solis. That’s always the view from the front of the pack.

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Bill Dwyre can be reached at [email protected].

To read previous columns by Dwyre, go to latimes.com/dwyre.

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SANTA ANITA ‘CAP

Today at Santa Anita

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