With all of the training titles Claudio Gonzalez has collected from Maryland over the past decade, it would be easy for him be blasé about the prospect of yet another one.
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Princess Georgia took the Spruce Fir Handicap with Carlos Hernandez aboard, giving trainer Calixto Juarez (right) his first stakes win
Calixto Juarez did his best to try to convince his son – jockey Nik Juarez – to ride the horse he trains, Princess Georgia, in Monday s $76,500 Spruce Fir Handicap at Monmouth Park in Oceanport, N.J.
When that failed he had to settle for the next best thing: Watching Princess Georgia score a late-running three-quarters length victory, doing so by running past Diamond Play in deep stretch.
Diamond Play s jockey? Nik Juarez.
The victory in the six-furlong dash for Jersey-bred fillies and mares 3 and up marked the elder Juarez s first stakes win as a trainer. He began training in 2014 and didn t have a starter in 2020.