an outstanding rider Juan Carlos Diaz Obviously, he won’t be satisfied with being the only one in his class to reach 4,000 and 5,000 wins in Puerto Rican races, races that are held primarily in Puerto Rico. And that, if all goes as usual, Camarero’s top race winner could reach the 6,000 mark this year, as he is just 39 first-place finishes away from reaching that number.

Not only is Diaz the only driver with at least 4,000 wins at Camarero, Camarero Racetrack official Hector Cotto said, but he will be the third Puerto Rican to reach the 6,000 mark, giving up only his retirement. Angel “Junior” Baranchyk (7,057) and an asset John Velasquez (6496). However, it should be noted that the number of victories for Cordero and Velázquez presented in the Equibase database does not include the final races that these two jockeys did in Puerto Rico before the 2000s, the year they began to consider Puerto Rico records. Rico.

Meanwhile, Heartbreaker, as Diaz is known in Puerto Rico, would be the twenty-second jockey to reach 6,000 wins in the history of horse racing in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico if counted by Equibase. Equibase has a Diaz file that includes the Puerto Rican’s stats through 2023, but does not include him on the all-time winningest list.

Juan Carlos Diaz is also the only Camarero driver with at least 4,000 wins.

However, Diaz is closing in on 6,000 wins. He has 62 wins in 2023 and needs 39 to reach 6,000, Cotto explained.

“If God gives me health, we will be here at the racetrack. God willing, in a month and a half, two months, I’ll be there,” Diaz said this Wednesday morning while working on the horses he will ride in the Camarero programs that begin this Thursday and end Sunday with the Puerto Rican Classic. derby

Among his mounts this weekend, Diaz has Bastian, a Sonata stable stallion trained by Jose Dan Velez, who is a strong contender in Sunday’s Puerto Rican Derby, the first leg of the Puerto Rican Triple Crown.

Juan Carlos Diaz, aboard Golden Grant in the Roberto Clemente Classic, will become only the third Puerto Rican in history to reach 6,000 wins.
Juan Carlos Diaz, aboard Golden Grant in the Roberto Clemente Classic, will become only the third Puerto Rican in history to reach 6,000 wins. (Added/Carlos “Manchego” Kalo)

Not only has Diaz been nicknamed the Heartseed, but he’s also been called the sequence king in Camarero.

He has won at least 200 races in every season since 2001. In those 23 seasons, Diaz has led the Camarero in 19 wins. The other four times he finished second. His most successful season was 2009 with 339 wins. And in 2021, he won the Caribbean Classic for the first time with Tamborero.