Mario Gutierrez may have two jewels of horse racing’s triple crown to his name as well as local fame from his time at Hastings Racecourse, but the noted jockey hasn’t yet won his adopted province’s biggest race: the B.C. Derby.
The 32-year-old Gutierrez aims to change that this weekend astride a Five Star General.
Saturday’s B.C. Derby and B.C. Oaks races will be the best day of racing at Hastings Racecourse in years, says horse owner Glen Todd. Todd has horses in four stakes races, but it’s the B.C. Derby that will be the most hotly contested, with a thriller of a field competing for the $250,000 purse.
“Anybody could win,” said Todd.
Two-time Kentucky Derby-winning jockey and Hastings hero Gutierrez will be riding for Todd in the B.C. Derby. And while Gutierrez, now based in Santa Anita, Calif., is also a Preakness Stakes winner, he’s never won the B.C. Derby.
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