• Height: 5'4"
• Weight: 112
• Born: March 14, 1964, Babylon, N.Y.
• Residence: Arcadia, Calif., and Garden City, N.Y.
• Family: wife, Carmela, sons Joseph 16, Philip Salvatore, 12; Luciano, 10, and daughter, Gabrielle Rose, 6.
• Through Oct. 7, 2007, ranked 21st nationally with $6,706,832 in earnings.
• Through Oct. 7, 2007, he had ridden 105 winners from 758 mounts.
• Best Breeders' Cup finish from 12 mounts was a third in 1985 Turf aboard Mourjane.
• Top mounts this year have included Student Council (G1 Pacific Classic), Dixie Chatter (G1 Norfolk), Bordonaro (G3 Count Fleet Spring H), Desert Code (G3 Affirmed H and G3 Baldwin), Icy Atlantic (G2 Arcadia H), Fairbanks (G3 Tokyo City H), Kip Deville (G1 Frank E. Kilroe Mile, G2 Maker's Mark and G3 Sir Beaufort) and Barber (Green Flash H). 
• Growing up on Long Island, he'd bike to a nearby farm. Migliore and his friends bought ponies and pretended to race them. After winning a close race aboard a gutsy pony, Migliore went home to watch Bill Shoemaker, aboard Forego, edge Honest Pleasure in the 1976 Marlboro Cup and vowed to be a jockey.
• As a teen, Migliore went to work for trainer Steve DiMauro at Belmont Park. Rode first race at The Meadowlands on Sept. 29, 1980 and first win came less than a month later aboard Good Grip on Oct. 24, 1980 at age 16.
• Won Eclipse Award as leading apprentice jockey in 1981. Topped the standings in New York as an apprentice in 1981 and as a journeyman in 1985.
• First grade 1 win came in the 1984 Meadowlands Cup aboard Wild Again ... Wild Again (with Pat Day riding) went on to win the inaugural Breeders' Cup Classic.
• In 1988, suffered a near fatal neck injury. "The doctor told me I would never walk again," said Migliore, who left the hospital six weeks later using a walker. Six and a half months after that he rode his first race back at Aqueduct.
• Earned his 4,000th career victory aboard Benjamin Baby at Aqueduct on Feb. 4, 2005.
•  A series of injuries over three consecutive years caused the number and quality of his East Coast mounts to decline. Most notably, broke his leg and injured his Achilles tendon in a paddock accident at Belmont Park nine days prior to the 2005 Breeders' Cup and lost the mount on Artie Shiller, who won the Mile. In 2004, rode Artie Shiller to a 12th place finish in Mile but was later diagnosed with a broken wrist, ribs and pelvis from a gate accident two days prior ... After 26 years of riding on the East Coast, moved West in fall 2006 ... Despite missing his family, which remains in New York, he plans to continue riding in California and travels back frequently aboard Jet Blue.
• Honors include winner of the Eddie Arcaro Award (outstanding jockey) from the N.Y. Turf Writers in 1981 and 1985 and 2003 Mike Venezia Memorial Award.
• Held in high regard by racing community, Migliore traveled to Australia with Santa Anita President Ron Charles and fellow jockey Aaron Gryder to evaluate Pro-Ride, a racing surface.
• This year's Pacific Classic score with Student Council was his second in a $1 million race. He also won the 2004 G1 Florida Derby aboard Friends Lake.

Migliore enjoys brief stay in Hong Kong

RICHARD MIGLIORE

Shigeki Kikkawa photo

It is a good thing that Richard Migliore can sleep well on planes.

“Oh yeah, I’m a champ,” the bicoastal commuter said with a smile.

Well-practiced from his once-weekly flights back home to New York from his base in Southern California, Migliore arrived in Hong Kong on Tuesday night from Los Angeles, competed in the Hong Kong International Jockeys’ Championship on Wednesday evening at Happy Valley, and despite not returning to his hotel until well after 11 p.m., caught the 9 a.m. flight back home and was riding at Santa Anita by 1 p.m.

“I can do it.I won my first race back from Japan,” he said.

His third trip to the Japan Cup (Jpn-G1) this year led to his first adventure in Hong Kong. He met up with former New York Racing Association Director of Operations Bill Nader—now the Hong Kong Executive Director of Racing—in Tokyo, and was asked to participate in the International Championship.

Migliore did not score any points in the Championship, but nevertheless had a great time.

“The hospitality here and in Japan is unparalleled,” he said. “And the crowd is so enthusiastic. It’s been good to talk to the guys on the bus.”

Migliore wryly commented that he could make weight here so much more easily than at home.

“I had salmon and it was really good, and then I come here and two of my horses I have to ride 116, and it’s no problem,” he said.

Migliore is resurging in his career after moving to California, where he says the style of the jockey colony differs from New York, with less interaction in the jocks’ room in California.

“I love going around the backside in California, and meeting people and talking to trainers,” he said. “It’s so refreshing to see guys you’ve read about, and be able to walk up to a guy like [Richard] Mandella  and say, ‘I’ve admired you for 20 years and would love to ride for you’, and genuinely mean it.”

Richard Migliore Autographed / Signed 1991 Jockey Star Card

Called "The Mig," which is a type of fighter jet for his tenacious style of riding, he lives with his wife, Carmela, and children in Floral Park, New York, but works wherever the race horses are. He's always loved animals, especially horses, ever since he was a child growing up in a crowded home in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. When he was 11, his family moved into a bigger house, but even better, the outside was bigger too. There was room for bike riding...and for horses. On one of his endless bike rides, he turned down an unexplored lane that ended in a dressage horse farm. It was a whole new world. Called Hunting Hollow Farm, it was managed by the respected Hugh Cassidy. Cassidy gave The Mig his first chance to work with horses and his first riding lessons. He loved it, but in dressage he found too much restraint. He wanted to open up and see how fast the horses could run. Before he was 13 years old, he and a few friends bought ponies to start a pony-ride business. The pony rides turned into pony racing on the athletic fields of the Brentwood schools. They broke the ponies themselves, and rode them, charging a $5 entry fee for others who raced. It was a bonanza. All the other kids were trained in equestrain style riding—they couldn't break, they couldn't rate, they couldn't decide when to turn it on, they didn't stand a chance. But the day Richard saw Willie Shoemaker win the Kentucky Derby up on the great Forego on TV, was the day he decided to be a "real" jockey. The way The Shoe rode Forego to beat Honest Pleasure was the way he rode his best pony Sally to beat all the other kids. He felt like a kindred spirit. The trainer, Steve DiMauro, gave him his first job at a track and taught how to ride a race horse. Lucky for Migliore, he grew to be only 5'4” and weigh 112 pounds. His first mount was on September 29, 1980 and his first win was less than a month later aboard Good Grip at Meadowlands Racetrack, He won the Eclipse Award in 1981 as the leading apprentice jockey at the age of 17. In 1988 he came close to dying from a neck injury when he was thrown from Madam Alydar at Belmont Park. His accident was so spectacular it was featured on the television series "Rescue 911" in 1992. In July of 1999, he seriously fractured his right arm in another spill at Belmont and was out of the races for six months. Two days before the Breeders' Cup run at Lone Star Park in Texas, his horse, Paulina, fell on him. He rode in the Sprint anyway, mounted on Bwana Charlie, and in the Mile on Archie Schiller. As he said, "My desire superseded my logic." Later he found he had a broken wrist, broken ribs and a broken pelvis, Sidelined for two months, he took up yoga which he now loves. As he says, "It even keeps my weight down." The Mig is the recipient of the Eddie Arcaro Award from the New York Turf Writers Association as outstanding jockey in 1981 and 1985. He won the 2003 Mike Venezia Award from the New York Racing Association for "extraordinary sportsmanship and citizenship." This award is based on the votes of fellow jockeys, turf writers and an online vote by fans, and is given in memory of Mike Venezia, who was killed on October 13, 1988 in a spill at Belmont Park. In that same year, he was honored at the 2003 Thurman Munson Awards Dinner by the Association for the Help of Retarded Children. In 2005, he was awarded his second consecutive NYTB Jockey of the Year title, riding the New York-bred winners of 58 races and winning $2,246,398. In 2005, he won the Aqueduct Racetrack spring meet, as well as on February 4th, 2005, his 4,000th career race. His won twice that day, once on Hurricane Erica and the second time on Benjamin Baby. Richard is the 18th active jockey to reach that milestone and the 43rd in history to win as many races.

AHRC0040

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