Trainer feels ‘at home’ at Assiniboia Downs

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This article was published 23/05/2019 (2556 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“I think it’s great!” trainer Juan Pablo Silva said when asked how it feels to be on top of the trainer standings heading into the third weekend of racing at Assiniboia Downs.

The charismatic 42-year-old from Tijuana, Mexico, has been from top to bottom as a horse trainer since 1997 and right now, he’s in the midst of a long, steady upswing.

Silva followed his opening-day win in the Don Gray Memorial with six more victories on the second weekend, including the first two stakes of the meeting.

His seven victories put him two up on Tom Gardipy Jr. and three ahead of Jerry Gourneau.

Silva saddled long shot Settle Down Eileen ($22.40) to win the $18,000 Preservata Overnight Stakes with Richard Mairs in the saddle last Friday for his Tijuana Racing Stable and partner Jeff Jacobs, and the next evening, he won the $18,000 Magic D’ Oro Overnight Stakes with Hot Rodin ($4.00) for MJ Racing Stables with Alex Cruz in the irons.

Hot Rodin won an amazing 10 races last year, which tied him for second with three other horses for most wins in North America in 2018.

“He’s a cool horse to be around,” Silva said.

“He’s classy. He doesn’t bite. He doesn’t kick. And he’s very smart.”

A former Maiden Special Weight/Allowance type at Santa Anita and Del Mar, the six-year-old Heat Shield gelding was purchased from California-based trainer Kristin Mulhall for $3,000 after an operation, and he has now compiled a record of 12-4-4 from 27 starts for earnings of US$138,688, much of it for Silva.

Silva worked for Hall of Fame trainer Richard Mandella in California before going out on his own, and he proved he could coax the best from his charges long before Hot Rodin.

In 2002, he claimed Debonair Joe for $12,500 at Fairplex and won the Vernon O. Underwood Stakes-G3 at 53-1 odds and the Grade 1 Malibu Stakes at Santa Anita at 22-1, the latter race making Julie Krone the first female jockey in history to win a Grade 1 race in Southern California.

Taking a page from the book of one of his idols, late Hall of Fame trainer H. Allen Jerkens, Silva brought Debonair Joe back from a lung infection, put some weight on him and trained him without shoes before the Malibu.

Success came too fast and too early for Silva, however, and like so many other talented 25- to 26-year-olds who have crashed and burned too early, he couldn’t dodge the curse.

He ended up going through a tough divorce.

“I lost everything,” said Silva, who credited his father, Jose, also a horse trainer, for teaching him how to work, and his wife of 10 years, Yesenia, for helping him find his way back.

“It’s been tough. Life’s not easy. I didn’t have $2 in my pocket. I was 32 and I was done. Yesenia helped me a lot. Thank God. I didn’t even have a job when I met her.”

Silva made a brief comeback in 2007-08, but packed it in before making his third try a winning one in 2014.

He’s been rolling ever since.

“We started in Albuquerque and I had the Horse of the Meeting there, Cherish,” Silva said.

“Then, I bought Fried Pickles for $3,000 and she made me $25,000. Then I bought Gottem All Buzzin for $1,000 and he made me $20,000. They were honest claimers and they helped me get back on my feet, but we had to work for everything we got. Nobody was giving us anything.”

Now in the sixth year of his comeback, Silva has 45 horses and his whole family at the Downs for his second season here, including Yesenia; sons Juan Pablo Jr., 13, and Miguel, 9; and daughters Melissa, 16, and Miranda, 18. All are capable hands in the barn. Silva also has assistant trainer Rodrigo Mendoza, grooms Juan Jose Garcia and Ricardo Daniel Mendoza, and jockeys Nicolle Disdier and Alex Cruz helping in the mornings.

“Cruz helps a lot,” Silva said.

“He’s a team guy. He doesn’t just want to ride them at night. He gets here in the morning and he works.”

Silva said Canada’s “the best.”

“People here are very nice. I’ve been to a lot of different racetracks and they don’t treat people like they do here. Here, they take care of you like good horsemen do, they take care of each other. It’s like family. That’s why I came back here. (Assiniboia Downs CEO) Darren Dunn, (board president) Harvey Warner, they’ll do anything they can to keep you happy and help you. They did everything to help me out,” he said.

“You feel like you’re at home.”