Jose Angel Medina rides 1,000th Thoroughbred winner at Fonner Park

Jose Angel Medina reached a career threshold that only the most durable riders ever see, guiding Flaming Glory to victory in Race 2 at Fonner Park for his 1,000th Thoroughbred win in North America. The six-furlong allowance for fillies and mares on fast dirt was over in 1:11.80, and Flaming Glory paid $4.00 to win for owner Jim Ostermeier and trainer Chris Coughlin.

The numbers behind the milestone show how much racing Medina has packed into a long run of work. As of April 18, Equibase listed his Thoroughbred record at 8,371 starts, 1,000 wins, 1,114 seconds and 1,134 thirds, with earnings of $15,005,218. He was also in the middle of a strong 2026 season, with 191 starts, 42 wins, 37 seconds and 37 thirds through that date.

Medina’s path to the mark has stretched back to December 4, 2004, when he made his debut at Calder Race Course in Florida. He earned his first victory 12 days later aboard Smart Confidence, then built steadily through different circuits and levels of competition. His first stakes win came on October 28, 2011, when Ted’s Folly delivered the Oklahoma Classics Juvenile Stakes at Remington Park. The record also reflects a rider who has stayed active beyond Thoroughbreds, with one win in Quarter Horses and two in Arabians.

That breadth matters because Medina’s milestone was not just about a number, but about longevity in a business that punishes anyone who cannot keep adapting. Jockeys live by weight, travel and timing, and the path to 1,000 wins is measured in ordinary races as much as in headline afternoons. Medina’s first 100-win season did not arrive until 2024, when he won 112 races, and he followed that with a career-best 121 wins in 2025, a late-career surge that made the 1,000-win mark look less like a peak than the latest step in a sustained climb.

At Fonner Park, a track where live racing still carries outsized meaning, Flaming Glory’s win gave the Nebraska oval a milestone tied to a working rider’s daily grind. Medina’s career now sits in the same bracket as the sport’s most enduring names, and the horse he rode into the record books, a 4-year-old Flameaway filly bred by John C. Oxley, became part of a resume built race by race, start by start.