Every day spent with horses is a learning experience for Alexandra Sherman, an apprentice jockey in her first season at Tampa Bay Downs. But she’s discovered more about herself than she expected after an administrative delay prevented her husband, trainer Justin Sherman, from acquiring his Florida license until last month.
While Justin – a former bodybuilder who also owns a gym in the Cincinnati area – remained behind to run his business and train a handful of horses at Turfway Park in nearby Florence, Ky., Alex, who began riding races four years ago, took on the dual roles of trainer and jockey for six horses at the Oldsmar oval.
Although her horses have made only 10 starts here with one victory, one second and one third, all with Alex in the saddle, the 34-year-old athlete has found herself capable of meeting each challenge she’s faced while strengthening a relationship of mutual trust with her horses.
“Yeah, it’s been challenging,” she said, laughing. “I grew up in Cincinnati and my parents, grandparents and all my family live there. This is the first time I’ve been by myself. Justin has been down here six times during the meet and we FaceTime and text each other all the time, but it’s been a lot to get used to.
“We’ve always worked as a team – he’ll ask me ‘How did this horse feel?’ or I’ll tell him ‘This horse doesn’t quite feel right’ – but it is all me here, so at times it’s been a little overwhelming.”
Sherman has always felt a connection with horses, allowing her to confront each situation on its own terms. When she was 11, she began taking riding lessons from ex-trainer George Wisbey, lighting a spark within that still burns. “Learning to ride a racehorse is no easy feat, and I credit him for giving me the foundation that enabled me to be a successful exercise rider and a jockey,” she said.
A couple of years later, Sherman got a walking horse named Willie, participating in area 4-H events. She graduated to jumping and event horses after high school, competing on the United States Eventing Association circuit at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington and other venues.
After two years of college and five years working for a life insurance company, she decided to follow her heart, joining Justin at the racetrack and devoting her energies to helping get the best out of each horse in his barn.
Saturday’s Tampa Bay Downs card will provide another measuring stick when she rides owner Jay Gates’s 7-year-old gelding Breadman and his 4-year-old filly Kozak Spirit – the 11th and 12th starters of her training career – in the second and fourth race, respectively.
Justin, who originally had concerns about her taking on too much responsibility in a brand-new environment, found out quickly she was up to the test.
“As far as being by herself (plus her two Dachshunds, Bailey and Darby), I’m always worried about her. But concerns she was going to do something wrong? None at all,” Justin said several weeks ago. “When I was down there (earlier in the meet) I thought the horses had her a little worn out. But she loves what she does, so it doesn’t wear on her as much as a person who is just doing a job.
“One of our goals is to have her eventually take over training all our horses, and she is showing she is fully capable of doing it,” continued Justin, who works with as many as 75 clients at My Body Of Change, the gym he has operated for 16 years. “She has always been the backbone of the barn, the person who makes sure everything gets done day-to-day, and her communication with the horses is second nature.”
Tampa Bay Downs trainer Kelly Spanabel, a former jockey who has known Alex since 2019, is impressed by her eagerness to absorb information and praises her attention to detail.
“Her background with event horses is a big plus. She knows everything about all her horses, inside and out,” Spanabel said. “I don’t think her being a jockey takes anything away from her training – it adds to it. She can tell what’s going on when she’s on the back of a horse because she’s done it all her life.
“She’s overcome a lot this meet, being in a new place by herself with a lot of responsibility on her shoulders. I have no doubt she’ll succeed. Whether it’s as a jockey or a trainer or someone on the street, she’s a topnotch person.”
The Shermans have been together 14 years and married for seven. Both raced endurance horses, primarily Arabian-breds, throughout Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky for several years. Races were anywhere from 25-100 miles. “You learn a lot about conditioning and soundness putting that kind of mileage on horses,” Alex said.
After they ventured into Thoroughbreds and Justin got his first racetrack license eight years ago, he agreed to let her gallop all of their horses. The opportunity proved a dream come true for Alex, who rode her first race in March of 2021 at Turfway Park. Her first victory came more than a year later at Belterra Park in her hometown aboard Feeling It, a then-5-year-old gelding who was trained by Justin and is now owned by Alex’s mother, Aniko Smith.
Despite showing steady improvement, opportunities to ride races were few and far between, and Alex began gravitating more toward the training side of the sport, still managing three wins last year as a jockey on Feeling It and one on Justin’s (then)-4-year-old filly For the Biscuit. For now, she has no intention of giving up her jockey’s career.
“I love riding,” said Alex, who as a trainer is only allowed to ride the horses in her own stable. “But it is hard to be a jockey without doing it, and I wasn’t getting many opportunities at Belterra. Being a jockey is one of the few career paths that you don’t really get to practice; you can do everything on a horse in the morning, but you’re never going to get race-fit without riding races.
“Between fitness and rhythm and all the pieces coming together, I feel they are out here and I’d like to bring them all in, but it is hard without doing it,” she said. “When it’s ‘go’ time and you have horses on both sides of you and everybody is doing their thing, you don’t get to practice that. You have a lot of pressure on you because your owners and trainers are counting on you, the other riders are counting on you not to do something stupid and the betting public is counting on you.”
Make no mistake: Alex Sherman is not fazed by pressure. More than many jockeys, she knows what her horses are capable of. She is realistic about her own ability and grasps the importance of striving to improve.
Veteran jockey Vernon Bush, who has ridden almost 3,300 winners, has been a mentor to Sherman both here and at Belterra Park. He and trainer Steven Cahill had encouraged the Shermans to compete at Tampa Bay Downs this season. Bush believes her willingness to listen to advice increases the likelihood of her enjoying a fruitful career.
“I applaud what she’s doing here, even though training is taking away from her outside (riding) business,” Bush said. “When she gets back to Belterra, she’ll only get better by riding more races. And when the time comes for her to be a (fulltime) trainer, she can step right back into it because she’s a very good horseperson.”
Bush believes Sherman has accepted the demands of her dual roles with aplomb and a positive attitude. “She is always laughing, always smiling,” he said. “She’s a very positive person and people can see how much she loves what she’s doing.”
Like every jockey, Sherman craves the feeling that comes with winning. When she scored her lone Tampa Bay Downs victory on Feb. 7 aboard Kozak Spirit with a last-to-first rally in a 7-furlong maiden claiming event, the high was virtually indescribable.
“There is no better feeling than when you ask a horse and they take you somewhere. When we got to the eighth pole in front, I’m like ‘OK, Alex, don’t screw this up.’ ”
The victory was Kozak Spirit’s first, coming in her third career start, all this season. It was Sherman’s eighth win as a jockey and her first as a trainer.
“The feeling is even more special when you’ve done everything to prepare for that moment, taking that horse from never running to getting to the winner’s circle,” Sherman said.
Preparation, that’s the key for Alex Sherman. She arrived at Tampa Bay Downs with a game plan for each horse, and wants to make sure they are ready to do well when they return to Belterra Park next month. That’s where she hopes her attention to detail will pay off.
“When you walk in their stall, you know if they’re not feeling good or something is a little off. We don’t take that lightly,” she said. “If a horse doesn’t run that well, you have to ask yourself why – was it too short of a layoff time, or just that the race didn’t pan out, or were they not 100 percent that day? They’re kind of like people, each with their own personalities and quirks and their likes and dislikes.”
And Sherman can’t help getting attached to some more than others. She’s pretty sure her mom’s 9-year-old gelding Champagneonme has lost his zest for racing, but that hasn’t lessened her love for him and respect for all he’s given. So last September, more than three years after he last ran for Justin, she talked her mom into claiming him for $4,000 from different connections from a race at Belterra Park.
“Some horses you kind of click with more than others, and he’s my ‘heart’ horse,” Alex said. “When you’re in his stall, he’s in your pocket. He’s a really cool, personable horse, and I want to keep him for my next show horse.”
Although the results in Oldsmar haven’t quite matched what she hoped for, Alex Sherman knows she has grown by embracing the challenge.
“Coming here I kept asking myself ‘Can I do this?’ Being 900 miles away from home, with everything falling on my shoulders,” she said. “And the fact I’ve done it and the horses have done pretty decent, I’m excited. It’s a confidence boost that I can do it by myself.
“Not that I don’t want the help,” she added, her smile brightening the shedrow.
Apprentice Cesar Gonzalez is Jockey of the Month. After attending the Eibar Coa Jockey School in Venezuela about five years ago, Mother’s Restaurant Jockey of the Month Cesar Gonzalez believed he had made enough progress to test his skills in the United States.
First, though, he had to raise the money to get here. So after moving to Panama in the fall of 2022 to gallop horses, the Caracas product found a second job washing cars in the afternoon. He finally arrived at Tampa Bay Downs last season with a degree of financial security and began working horses to keep himself fit and prepare for an opportunity to join the riding colony.
Last April, he rode his first winner in his second start on 26-1 shot Papa Katz for trainer Monica McGoey. He spent the summer at Monmouth Park, taking in what insights he could from the top riders and sharpening his skills while preparing for his return to Oldsmar.
Now 27, Gonzalez is realistic about what it takes to forge a career in race-riding. “It’s a very difficult profession. You have to ride horses with different qualities so that you can learn and progress,” he said.
Steve Worsley, his agent, says Gonzalez’s improvement is encouraging. “He is very patient on a horse, which is an ability not many apprentice jockeys have, and his form has definitely improved,” Worsley said. “It’s been very rewarding to see someone who works as hard as he does achieve some success.”
Gonzalez’s confidence continues to rise, as well. On March 23, he rode 70-1 shot Nouveau Riche, a 4-year-old filly, to her first career victory for trainer Nestor Cascallares, shocking just about everyone except himself.
“I ride all my horses with a strong desire to win, so I approached that race no different than any other,” Gonzalez said. “She warmed up very good and that gave me a good feeling. It was a nice emotion to win on a horse no one believed could win.”
Around the oval. Hector Rafael Diaz, Jr., rode two winners today. He captured the fourth race with Mr. Sweets, a 3-year-old gelding owned by Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners and trained by Tim Hamm. Mr. Sweets was claimed from the race for $16,000 by trainer Jon Arnett for new owner Kelly’s Racing.
Diaz added the sixth race aboard Moon Gate, a 3-year-old filly owned by Blue Devil Racing Stable and trained by Christophe Clement.
Thoroughbred racing at Tampa Bay Downs continues Saturday with a nine-race card beginning at 12:30 p.m. The track races Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays and is open every day except April 20, Easter, for simulcast wagering, no-limits action and tournament play in The Silks Poker Room and golf fun and instruction at The Downs Golf Practice Facility.
