The 56-year-old Prado, who earned admission to the national racing Hall of Fame in 2008, retires with 7,119 winners from 39,725 starts to go with purse earnings of over $272 million. Prado retires as the ninth all-time money earner among jockeys and is eighth in wins.

He won 343 graded stakes, including 83 Grade 1 races. The first of those Grade 1 wins came aboard Leariva in the 1991 edition of the Washington, DC International at Laurel Park; 27 years later, in the 2018 Manhattan, he earned his final Grade 1 win, that aboard Spring Quality.

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That first Grade 1 win is in a sense especially notable. Prado, who was born in Lima, Peru, came to the United States in 1986, riding in Florida and Massachusetts before settling in Maryland. There, he became the state’s dominant rider of the 1990s, leading the state in wins six times and the nation three times.

He also became known as a top money rider during that period. He won 43 graded stakes during that period and zoomed to the head of the class as the top Maryland Million rider. In fact, he retires as the leading rider of Maryland Million winners with 18, one more than Ramon Dominguez and two ahead of Mario Pino, both of whom also are retired.

Prado shifted his tack to New York in 1999 and went on to enjoy extraordinary success in the 2000s, winning the Derby and the Belmont twice. Both of his Belmont wins came on longshots and denied Triple Crown bids. In 2002, he and 70-1 outsider Sarava denied War Emblems try for a Triple, while in 2004 aboard 36-1 Birdstone, he ran down Smarty Jones late in the Belmont.

In 2016, his New York business slowing, Prado returned to Maryland to ride during the spring and fall of that year. While based in Maryland that year, Prado earned local stakes victories in the Safely Kept and Laurel Dash, the latter aboard now-local sire Mosler, and he went to Delaware Park to win that year’s Grade 3 Robert G. Dick Memorial with Real Smart.

“It feels great to see all my friends and back in the winner’s circle after so many years,” Prado told The Racing Biz after winning at Pimlico that May (video above). “It’s where I first started and launched my career forward.”

Prado’s final Maryland Million victory came in 2018 when he piloted Saratoga Bob to a win in the Classic for trainer Katy Voss. That was 26 years after his first Million triumph.

“Nobody’s done it better than him,” Voss said afterwards.

“I’ve been blessed to have the opportunity to have success right here earlier in my career and to come back and win… this is the cream on the top of the cake,” he said then.

EDGAR PRADO PHOTOS