Luis Contreras

They call it "pilot error." It's just that you have all the correction of perspective, right there, that anyone could possibly require. If a jockey makes a mistake, the consequences obviously tend to be a good deal less drastic than for a guy flying a plane.

They call it "pilot error." It's just that you have all the correction of perspective, right there, that anyone could possibly require. If a jockey makes a mistake, the consequences obviously tend to be a good deal less drastic than for a guy flying a plane. Besides, I have never liked the kind of blame culture that unites handicappers and horsemen in casting jockeys as the villains of their woulda-coulda-shoulda world. To be fair, perhaps that's rather more common in my native environment, racing on turf in Europe, where the...

Briland Farm's Secret Oath (Arrogate), preparing to take on the boys in the Apr. 2 GI Arkansas Derby, worked a bullet five furlongs in :59.40 (1/34) Thursday at Oaklawn Park. Clockers caught Secret Oath covering her first eighth of a mile in :12, a quarter-mile in :23.80 and three furlongs in :36 before galloping out six furlongs in 1:12.40. "The filly, that's a running machine, man," said jockey Geovanni Franco, who was aboard for the work. "She was nice. That's a great experience for me. I was the work rider...