Umberto Rispoli begins riding again, targets July return at Del Mar

Umberto Rispoli has moved from rehab to the first real step back toward the Southern California riding colony. The 37-year-old began exercising horses at Santa Anita, a clear sign that his return is no longer theoretical and that a summer comeback is now the target.

Rispoli’s path back has been long because the injury was severe. He was unseated from Unconquerable Keen when the gelding clipped heels in the stretch of the Jan. 24 Gulfstream Park Turf Sprint at Gulfstream Park, leaving him with ankle and fibula injuries that required surgery the next day and another operation six days later. By March 15, his agent Matt Nakatani was still saying there was no timetable, and Rispoli had only recently started physical therapy. Even with that slow timeline, Rispoli told Idol Horse on June 12 that he had passed a doctor’s check in California and hoped to be race-riding again in about three weeks.

That puts the calendar squarely on the summer circuit that matters most for his profile. Nakatani said Rispoli plans a brief return at Ellis Park in Kentucky in early July before shifting his focus to the Del Mar summer meeting, which begins July 17. For owners and trainers, that is more than a medical milestone. It restores one of the most trusted riders in the colony just as the Del Mar meet opens, when every live mount matters and the rider colony often helps shape betting pools from the first race onward.

Rispoli’s absence changed the look of Santa Anita. He was leading the winter-spring meeting when he got hurt, and the rider roster kept moving without him, with major California names such as Juan Hernandez, Hector Berrios, Victor Espinoza and Joe Valdivia Jr. picking up the slack. But Rispoli’s own record shows why his return carries weight. He won 129 races in 2025, with mounts earning more than $13.4 million, both career bests in the United States, and he has 710 U.S. victories overall. He also won Del Mar’s 2025 autumn riding title with 17 wins, his first title at Del Mar or Santa Anita since moving from Hong Kong to Southern California in December 2019.

His name still resonates most because of Journalism, the colt that carried him to his first American classic win in the 2025 Preakness Stakes after already winning the Santa Anita Derby and finishing second in both the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes. If Rispoli stays on schedule, his return will do more than close a rehab chapter. It will bring a proven closer back into the Southern California equation at exactly the moment Del Mar needs one.