Mirco Demuro © Benoti Photo
Two full weeks into the 2025 Bing Crosby Season and we have a new name atop the jockey’s leaderboard while a trio of Del Mar veterans sort out the trainer’s standings.
Mirco Demuro, a top rider in Japan for years and a new addition to the Del Mar jockey colony this summer, won five races last week to grab a slim lead in the jockey standings. He now has eight victories, one more than last week’s leader Umberto Rispoli.
Demuro served notice on Opening Day of the Bing Crosby Season when he won three races, including the Let It Ride Stakes aboard Tempus Volat. He’s already exceeded his win total at the recently concluded Autumn Meet at Santa Anita, where he won seven races. He also won seven races during the summer at Del Mar, his first full meet riding in California.
Hector I. Berrios and Antonio Fresu are next in the jockey standings with six wins followed by defending champion Juan Hernandez and Edwin Maldonado with four. One of Maldonado’s wins came aboard Man O Rose in the The Chosen Vron Stakes Saturday.
Rounding out the Top Ten are Flavien Prat, Irad Ortiz, Jr., and Armando Ayuso with three wins and Joel Rosario, Tyler Baze and Tiago Pereira with two.
Berrios has the most stakes wins of the jockeys at Del Mar with three, including his Breeders’ Cup win in the Juvenile Fillies on Super Corredora. Ryesui Sakai, Forever Young’s rider, has the earnings race sewn-up with the $3.7 million from his Breeders’ Cup Classic victory, but Berrios leads the local riders with $1,708,740 in earnings.
The trainers race is led by the top trio of John Sadler, George Papaprodromou and Doug O’Neill with five wins a piece. They’re followed by Jeff Mullins and Steven Miyadi with three victories. Bob Baffert, Philip D’Amato, Vladimir Cerin, Leonard Powell and Genaro Vallejo round out the Top Ten with two wins each.
Mullins leads the local trainers with two stakes wins. Yoshito Yahagi tops the trainer’s leaderboard in earnings with $3.7 million thanks to his winnings from the Breeders’ Cup Classic but Baffert’s $2.4 million and Sadler’s $1.4 million lead the way among the local trainers.
Field sizes are trending higher than at this time last year. Excluding Breeders’ Cup, the average field size in 2025’s fall meet is 7.47 compared to 7.27 last year. There have been 24 turf races with an AFS of 7.7 and 20 dirt races with an AFS of 7.20.
Fourteen horses have qualified for ‘Ship and Win’ compared to 12 last year.