Charles Town wraps up 2025 season
Ted Black
December 14, 2025
This past Saturday night as onlookers braced for the possibility of a winter storm expected to arrive during the latter portion of the card, Charles Town honored its leading jockey, trainer, and owners, each receiving a handsome plaque commemorating their success at the Jefferson County oval.
Jockey Arnaldo Bocachica, who attained the 3,000th win of his career earlier this year at Charles Town, notched his eighth consecutive local riding title while posting stakes victories for trainers Anthony Farrior and Jeff Runco. Bocachica 196 wins at the meet, and his nearest active competitor is JD Acosta with 64.
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“It means a lot to be leading jockey here again,” Bocachica said. “It’s tough enough to win one riding title, but now this is eight straight for me. I have the opportunity to ride for Jeff [Runco] and Anthony [Farrior] and then get to ride in the stakes and that’s what makes it easier to get up in the morning. I’ve been able to win a lot of races here for a lot of good trainers and owners, and being leading rider here still means a lot to me.”
Farrior earned his fourth consecutive leading trainer title with 130 wins during a very busy campaign and is currently fourth nationally in wins with 238.
Farrior, who still has an outside chance to saddle 250 winners this year, notched his fourth consecutive training title and earlier this year enjoyed celebrating his first victory as a breeder with the very first horse he ever bred, Edy’s Flame. Farrior would also saddle Faster Gator to a lucrative stakes score at Mahoning Valley last month and sought to downplay his recent success and current status as the track’s leading conditioner four years running.
“I have a lot of good help and really good owners,” Farrior said. “A few years ago, I just wanted to be leading trainer here. My whole mission was to just beat out Jeff [Runco]. But now I’ve been able to run a lot of horses here and my best horse, Faster Gator, was third in the [$500,000 Robert Hilton] big stakes here. It takes good help and good riders to help make you look good. Having ‘Boca’ and J.D. [Acosta] riding for me definitely helps.”
Longtime local horsemen Ronney Brown and wife Nicole Brown boasted their second consecutive title as leading owners and have 54 wins at the meet.
Known for their past success with two-time Cavada heroine Original Gold and more recently Full Moon Lover among many successful homebreds, the Browns enjoyed having another chance to be in the limelight.
“We had a really good year,” Ronney Brown said. “We had a number of our homebreds win, and next year we’re going to have some really good West Virginia-breds by Barbados.”
“We won so many races with so many different horses, I don’t know if there was really one highlight,” Nicole Brown said. “It was a lot of fun. We’re already looking forward to next year. We had the chance to see Barbados on the farm and he’s probably the nicest stallion I’ve ever met.”
With mandatory payouts, two carryovers, and major nighttime signal Turfway Park canceled by a winter storm, Charles Town saw its horizontal wager pools leap exponentially as bettors chased the closing night mandatory payouts. The closing night Pick 6, which started with almost $77,000 carried over, saw its total pool swell to $424,310.
Then one race later the late pick-5 pool opened with roughly $31,000 in the carryover and vaulted to a total pool of $319,368. The first leg of the sequence went to 2-1 favorite Wiley Willard for owner-trainer Ronney Brown with apprentice jockey Juan Belisario aboard.
Trainer Jeff Runco may have yielded the conditioning title to Farrior for a fourth consecutive year, but he and jockey Arnaldo Bocachica remained a formful tandem. On Saturday night Runco gave a leg up to Bocachica aboard Jeannette the Jet, and the three-year-old daughter of Tale Of Ekati rallied late for a 5-1 upset in a two-turn allowance for state-bred fillies and mares. It was the 100th win of the year for Runco, who now sits 104 wins shy of reaching the 5,000-win plateau in his career.
Charles Town will take a brief hiatus through the remainder of 2025, then kick off the 2026 live racing season on Friday, January 2. Charles Town is slated to race four nights each week through March and offer a total of 165 live programs in 2026.
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