Jason Hoyte, the go-to exercise rider for Woodbine’s leading conditioner Mark Casse, is enjoying life in the fast lane as he helps the team prepare five contenders for the Breeders’ Cup World Championships, in Arcadia, California, on Friday, November 2, and Saturday, November 3.
Hoyte, a 26-year-old native of Barbados, has travelled across the continent in 2012 as the regular morning partner for Spring Venture, Spring in the Air, Delegation and Dynamic Sky.
While jockeys Patrick Husbands and Luis Contreras will get the glamour and the glory of riding in the Breeders’ Cup, Hoyte, a well-regarded ‘breeze’ rider, has certainly commanded the respect of Casse, a four-time Sovereign Award winner as Canada’s outstanding trainer.
Each morning, when Hoyte brings a horse back from their a.m. training session, Casse will ask Hoyte how things went.
“If Jason says he wasn’t quite happy with him, I’ll go and see if I can find something that might be bothering the horse,” starts Casse. “But, if he comes back, smiles big, and says ‘Good, boss’ we know we have something. He’s a man of few words.”
Casse is quick to point out the traits of a top-quality exercise rider. “Good hands, confidence and when they get really good, they can tell you when something is off with the horse,” says Casse. “We’re fortunate to have a lot of riders that have been with us for years, and I take their opinion serious when they tell me something.”
Norm Casse, assistant trainer to his father Mark, points out that Hoyte has developed a particularly strong bond with Juvenile Fillies Turf contender, Spring Venture.
“He’s been the regular rider of Spring Venture since we got her up to Woodbine,” offers Norm. “She’s actually a tricky horse to ride. She’s what we call ‘spirited’ and, really, no one else can get on her.”
In seven years with the Casse barn, Hoyte has earned his reputation as a strong rider by going out each and every morning and bringing back a better horse.
“He’s always been the guy that gets on the rogue horses,” says Norm. “He got on Seaside Retreat when he was a three-year-old and the horse refused to work. He got on Hailstone for us, which was another horse that never wanted to train. Jason was the only one that would get him to go for us. When we have problems with horses, it’s nice to have a guy on the team who can handle that. Especially when the horses are this talented.”
Both Seaside Retreat and Hailstone went on to comepte well in graded stakes company, including a Grade 2 Nijinsky Stakes score for the former.
Hoyte, as forewarned by Casse, is truly a man of few words. But the appreciation he has for his job, and the horses he rides each day, come across loud and clear.
“I love what I do,” says Hoyte. “Mark and I get along well and it’s nice to get on good horses.”
Hoyte’s career started at the age of 12, riding horses in the fields of his native Barbados. In time, Hoyte became a jockey, winning ten of 99 races, before hanging up his tack. Despite his natural ability to ride, at 135 pounds, the game didn’t fit his not quite slight enough stature.
“I wanted to be a jockey my whole life, but when things weren’t working the way I wanted to, a friend suggested I try Canada,” explains Hoyte. “So far, it’s worked out very good.”
Although Hoyte would dearly love to ride horses in the afternoon, he takes pride in the comments he’s received from the jockeys he shares the course with each morning.
“In 2008, after I worked a horse, Gary Stevens came up to me and said, ‘Kid, you’re a good rider, you look good on a horse,'” recalls Hoyte. “Another morning, I was working a horse and after I pulled the horse up, Tyler Baze came up beside me on his horse and said, ‘I was wondering who that jockey was!’ It’s nice to hear that.”
Hoyte, uncomfortable talking about himself, would rather talk about his horses – in particular, Dynamic Sky.
“Honestly, he’s training much better over the dirt than the ‘Poly’,” says Hoyte. “I get on him in Canada too, but on the dirt he’s unbelievable.”
When the subject turns to his number one filly, the words come much easier for Hoyte.
“Spring Venture is a freak. I love her,” he grins. “She’s my girl, but the way they’re all training right now, they all have a big shot.”
That Spring Venture, the rogue horse, is one Hoyte loves to ride comes as bit of a surprise.
“She not a bad horse once she gets someone in front of her to start out,” explains Hoyte. “She’ll go pretty good from there, but you still have to watch her. She can do anything, at any point.”
Legged up on Juvenile Fillies contender Spring in the Air, Hoyte is at home. Perfect posture, big smile and very much in command of a filly that was a legitimate winner of the Grade 1 Darley Alcibiades at Keeneland.
Hoyte and his filly soon capture the attention of the Santa Anita backstretch.
The quirky Spring in the Air has developed a Zenyatta strut, reaching forward with her right foreleg, as if in tribute to the filly that had a statue erected in her honour at Santa Anita early this year.
As horses and riders pass by in both directions on their route to a foggy Santa Anita main track to train, Hoyte angles sideways in his saddle for a better look at the filly’s showboating.
Assembled horsemen point and whisper, ‘Look, she’s doing the Zenyatta’ as the filly finally reaches the main track.
On the track, it’s all business. Hoyte gallops Spring in the Air around Santa Anita’s main track, expertly crouched, and always in control.
When their gallop is completed, Hoyte steers the filly to the starting gate where she practices backing in and out of the gate as part of a schooling session for Friday’s race. Spring in the Air learns her lesson well and as she stands quietly in the gate, Hoyte offers her a few reassuring pats on the neck.
On the way home to the barn, the Santa Anita backstretch is treated to a little more showmanship from Spring in the Air. It takes a little longer than usual to walk home as people stop to take photos. Hoyte, a little uncertain about the attention, nods to all who take time to wave hello or make a comment.
The back and forth routine of training horses is repeated for each contender as the sun gradually burns its way through the fog.
Finally, after Hoyte gallops Dynamic Sky, and with the day’s training nearly completed, Casse, with a wink acknowledging an earlier exchange, asks the rider how the colt trained.
“Good, boss,” smiles Hoyte. Casse, confident in his rider’s assessment, matches his rider’s grin with a smile that’s twice as big.
And at morning-line odds of 12-1, many Woodbine-based punters will hope to be smiling just as wide as Hoyte and Casse after Saturday’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.
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