Jeiron Barbosa is fixing to trade in crabcakes for crawfish.

Barbosa, the 20-year-old jockey who has made his name, thus far, mostly in Maryland, will shift his tack to the Fair Grounds. The New Orleans track’s meet opens November 22, and Barbosa’s agent, Tom Stift, said that the rider would head down to the Crescent City following Laurel’s November 3 card.

“I’m very excited,” Barbosa said. “I’m young, so I want to try something new.”

Barbosa, a native of Puerto Rico, learned his trade at the island’s Escuela Vocacional Hipica, the famed jockey school that has produced countless good riders. He began riding professionally in 2022, first at home before moving to Maryland in March of that year. 

He won with his first two mounts at Laurel, and he now has more than 435 wins with purse earnings in excess of $15.7 million in his career. This year Barbosa has 87 wins and nearly $3.6 million in purse earnings through November 2.

The Fair Grounds meet includes 76 days of live racing through March 23, 2025. Its robust stakes schedule includes one of the most prominent routes to the Kentucky Derby, with the mid-March Louisiana Derby the highlight of the meet.

It was trainer-turned-agent Ron Faucheux who put the Fair Grounds bug in his ear, Stift said, and when Barbosa got wind of the idea, he was all in. The uncertainty in Maryland contributed to his decision.

“After I heard about the Maryland, you know, I knew they cut days and everything, I said, ‘Well, now it’s time to take a shot,’” Stift said. 

Stift and Barbosa have already visited Louisiana multiple times to try to meet people and lay the groundwork for the meet to come. It is, both acknowledge, a big change.

“I [went down there] to work because nobody knows me,” Barbosa said. “I need everybody to know me, right?”

“You never do better unless you put yourself in an uncomfortable position,” Stift said. “I’ve woke up a few mornings and jumped up at three in the morning with my heart racing, like, ‘Man, what am I doing?’”

The key to the meet, Stift said, will be hard work and, ideally, a fast start. Win a few early, convince some trainers that Barbosa can ride, and the rest should follow.

“I think that’s all it’s gonna take is to get lucky the first week or two and then that’ll help you, because, you know, then people will be able to see he can ride and stuff,” the agent said. “If that doesn’t happen, that means you just gotta grind and work harder. It just, it’ll come slower.”

And if it doesn’t come, there’s always the option to return to the Mid-Atlantic. But Barbosa, for one, is a young man with his eyes on the future.

“I love Maryland,” the rider said. “But I want to try to go up to the next level.”

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