Jose Francisco D'Angelo © Benoit Photo

Last year’s Breeders’ Cup was a coming out of sorts for 36-year-old trainer Jose D’Angelo. He won his first Breeders’ Cup race with Shisospicy in the Turf Sprint. Then before the young trainer could get the confetti out of his hair, he scored his second Breeders’ Cup race with Bentornato in the Sprint. For even the best trainers it can take years to win two Breeders’ Cup races. For D’Angelo it took less than an hour.

“That was a big day for my team,” D’Angelo recalls. “We shipped the horses from Kentucky to Del Mar, and I remember every day perfect. I was training the horses, and they were going to show good. I was very confident in them.” 

Suffice to say the Breeders’ Cup experience left a lasting impression on the Venezuelan conditioner. Of Del Mar in particular. So much so that this summer he’s sent a string of horses and is running a stable at the seaside oval. It’s always hard for a new trainer to make an impact on Del Mar. It can take some lean years. So far through racing on Sunday, D’Angelo has only visited the winner’s circle once when Bojaca Blessing won on July 23.

“I’m trying to get better horses and I’m trying to show my skills,” D’Angelo says. “I decided to send some horses to California because every time we went, we had success with the horses. I feel these horses that I send match up perfect with the track. Every horse has run good for me.”

D’Angelo’s roots in horse racing run deep. He was born into a family of horseman, dating back several generations.

“I’ve been in love with horses since day one,” D’Angelo recalls. “My father was a trainer in America and Venezuela, so I was at the barn when I was a baby. I learned everything from him. My grandfather was a journalist in Venezuela, so I was always around horses.”

His grandfather was a respected race writer and handicapper for local publications and Venezuela’s version of the Racing Form. His father was “Kiko” D’Angelo, a champion Thoroughbred horse trainer in Venezuela who brought his training career and family to South Florida in 2018.

“I was at the university pursuing a career in business when a friend asked me to train some horses for him,” D’Angelo explains about his start as a trainer. “I told my father I wanted to be a horse trainer. He was concerned knowing that I was close to finishing my schooling, but I told him I could do both and he said I had his support.”

That was in 2010. In Venezuela an aspiring trainer must take two years of school to get a license, so D’Angelo didn’t saddle his first runners until 2012. 

“In December of 2012 I had my first race and I got DQ’d,” D’Angelo states. “But I loved horse racing and in 2013 I got my first win. Later I won the big race in my country, the Classico Simon Bolivar (held annually in Caracas). I was the youngest person to ever win the race.”

That was with Dreaming of Gold in 2014. D’Angelo would win a national training title in 2018 and Venezuela’s equivalent of an Eclipse Award. But by 2019 his father had moved his stable to the U.S. and D’Angelo was looking for new challenges. 

“I came to the United States at the end of 2019,” D’Angelo remembers. “My very first horses were between four or five thousand (dollars). We did pretty good with them. A lot of trainers helped me because I started asking questions about everything. They were very good to me. I thank Bob Baffert, Kenny McPeek and Chad Brown; they really helped me here. They gave me good advice because every track is different. They went there before you and they know everything.”

 His days of training four-or-five-thousand-dollar claimers were numbered because one day a son of Tapiture came along and D’Angelo’s life would change forever.

“The horse that put me on the map was Jesus’ Team,” he says. “He ran third in the Preakness in 2020, second in the Breeders Cup (Dirt Mile) in 2020, and second in the G1 Pegasus World Cup in 2021. Later we got Shisospicy and Bentornato.”

Shisospicy winning 2025 Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint at Del Mar © Benoit Photo

D’Angelo now has horses at Palm Meadows, Gulfstream Park, Colonial Downs, California and New York. Bentornato is done for the year after suffering a small sesamoid fracture but D’Angelo hopes to have him back in 2027. Shisospicy developed a fever and later an infection that derailed her 2026 campaign, but she’s back in training. 

“She’s doing very good,” D’Angelo states. “She’s up at Saratoga. We plan to run her in September to get her ready for the Breeders’ Cup again. We’re still looking for a race but she’s very close to being ready.”

As is the case with Venezuelans across the globe, they wonder and worry about their countrymen back home following the devastating earthquakes in June.

“All of my family was good,” D’Angelo says. “But so many people lost everything. I feel really bad about it.”

As his country slowly gets back on its feet, D’Angelo keeps plugging away with his string of horses at Del Mar. 

“Everybody here is so nice,” DeAngelo remarks. “Like (Racing Secretary) David Jerkens and the people who work at the track. That’s why I’m very happy with what I have there and I’ll keep supporting the horseracing over there.”