Juan Hernandez Wins Three Stakes at Santa Anita, Achieving Rare Career Hat Trick

Turning 34 on March 7 is a good enough birthday. Turning 34 while riding three stakes winners on the same Santa Anita card is something else entirely, and Juan Hernandez did exactly that over the March 7-8 weekend, achieving the rare feat for the fifth time in his career.

Hernandez guided Splendora to a commanding victory in the Grade 1 B. Wayne Hughes Beholder, then capped the weekend Sunday with Forced Entry winning the Santa Ysabel Stakes (G3) for trainer Bob Baffert. By the time Forced Entry crossed the wire, Hernandez had logged four graded-company wins on the weekend, three of them for Baffert.

Forced Entry, a bay filly by Charlatan out of Violent Times, broke her maiden in style. Racing for owners Pegram, Watson and Weitman and bred by Stoneriggs Farm in Kentucky, she paid $7.60 and earned 50 points toward the Kentucky Oaks with the victory. The win extended Baffert's extraordinary run in the 1 1/16-mile race for 3-year-old fillies, giving him a sixth consecutive Santa Ysabel and a record 11th overall. Bankshot finished second, French Blue third and Piney Woods fourth.

The weekend was the fifth time in Hernandez's career he has swept three stakes on a single card, a marker that places him in rare company among active riders. His pattern of big afternoons at Santa Anita traces back to Memorial Day 2022, when he won three stakes in a single afternoon: the Grade I Gamely aboard the Simon Callaghan-trained Maxim Rate, the Grade II Charles Whittingham aboard David Hofmans' Award Winner, and the Grade II Triple Bend aboard Bob Baffert's Magic On Tap. On opening day of the 2022-23 Classic Meet, December 26, he swept the Grade I La Brea with Baffert's Fun to Dream, the Grade I American Oaks with Rhea Moon for trainer Phil D'Amato, and the Grade II San Gabriel with Dicey Mo Chara for trainer Leonard Powell.

The numbers behind Hernandez's rise at Santa Anita are striking. He led the 2022-23 Classic Meet with 63 wins, finishing 32 ahead of Flavien Prat, who was second with 31. At the 2023 Hollywood meet, he topped the rider standings for a third time with 42 wins from 165 mounts, a 25 percent strike rate. Among all North American jockeys in 2022, he ranked ninth in purse earnings at $15,021,265 and 11th in wins with 211. His career total now exceeds 2,400 wins, making him Santa Anita's top jockey by the track's own reckoning.

The path to that standing started in Perote, Veracruz, Mexico, where Hernandez was born on March 7, 1992. He earned his jockey license in 2008, became Mexico City's leading apprentice in 2009, and broke his maiden November 27, 2009, aboard Broken Express at Camarero in Puerto Rico. After transitioning to the Bay Area, he accumulated roughly 1,700 winners riding primarily in Northern California before establishing himself as the dominant rider at Santa Anita, where he now lives in Glendora with his wife Melissa and their two sons, Juan Jose and Emilio.

Five career three-stakes afternoons don't happen by accident. They happen because the horses trust the rider and the trainers keep calling. On the weekend he turned 34, Hernandez gave Baffert three more reasons to keep picking up the phone.