Jockey Eurico Rosa da Silva celebrated a major sports achievement as he broke the long-standing record for most wins at a Woodbine meet on Saturday at the Toronto racetrack.
Da Silva earned his 222nd victory this season to break the previous record of 221 that was established by Mickey Walls at the Woodbine meet in 1991.
The 43-year-old reinsman earned the record-breaking victory in the 10th race aboard two-year-old filly Souciologist, trained by Kevin Attard and owned by Al and Bill Ulwelling. Da Silva maneuvered the maiden-breaking daughter of Gemologist through the 10-horse field and drew off in deep stretch to score the 1-3/4 length victory in a final time of 1:25.33 for seven furlongs.
“I’m very, very excited, but in the meantime, I want to say thank you to all the horses I rode, trainers, grooms, exercise riders and owners,” said Da Silva. “I’m very grateful to be at Woodbine. I love Woodbine and I feel like this is my home; I come here and I don’t feel like I’m working. All the time I feel happy to be here and I feel like everybody here is my family. I also want to thank my wife and my mom – without them, I never could do that.”
Despite missing the first six race days of the 2018 meet, Da Silva has dominated the Woodbine jockey standings and holds a 61-win lead ahead of runner-up Rafael Hernandez. This is the fourth straight year he has topped the 200-win mark and fifth time as the overall meet leader (also taking the title in 2010 with 190 wins).
The Brazil native, who also leads all Woodbine jockeys for earnings ($7.9 million) and stakes wins (28) in 2018, is a multiple Sovereign Award winner as Canada’s Outstanding Jockey and surpassed the 2,000 mark for North American career wins this past September.
Woodbine’s 133-day Thoroughbred meet began on April 21 and continues through December 16.
Live Thoroughbred racing resumes on Sunday afternoon, featuring the $100,000 Sir Barton Stakes. First race post time set for 1 p.m.
More from Canadian Thoroughbred:
