Mike Sellitto has taken the book of jockey Edgar Prado and will represent the Hall of Fame rider in New York while managing Kent Desormeaux’s book at Keeneland, the veteran agent said April 5.
According to Sellitto, who has represented Desormeaux since 2006, Prado will ride full-time in New York but will likely ship in to ride select stakes races at Keeneland as he has in the past. The Peruvian journeyman comes off a slow season Gulfstream Park, where his win rate is just 7% for the meet and he ranks 13th in the standings that he topped in 2002 and 2005. Longtime agent Bob Frieze had taken his book again this year after Prado, 43, had a subpar 2010 represented by agent James Riccio Jr.
“We’ve been friends for a long time, he’s a Hall of Fame jockey, and he has the work ethic of an 18-year-old kid,” Sellitto said of Prado, who is a winner of more than 6,000 races including the 2006 Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I).
Desormeaux, 41, ranks 11th in Gulfstream’s current standings and has a win rate of 12% for the meet. Also in the Hall of Fame and winner of more than 5,500 races including the Kentucky Derby in 1998, 2000, and 2008, he rode at Keeneland and Churchill Downs last year before coming to New York for the remainder of the Belmont Park meeting and continuing on to Saratoga for the summer.
Nationally, according to earnings in 2011, Desormeaux ranks 37th while Prado ranks 45th. Sellitto will be able to represent both riders this summer in New York thanks to a new ruling that allows agents to manage the business of two journeymen simultaneously on the circuit of the New York Racing Association. The ruling goes into effect starting with the Belmont Park meeting that opens April 29; until then, agents may represent only one journeyman and one apprentice.
