Jockey Alberto Delgado retires after 43 years
Frank Vespe
December 28, 2025
Nearly 44 years after he made his riding debut, jockey Alberto Delgado reached the end of the riding road Sunday at Laurel Park.
Delgado, 61, piloted Beshareit, trained by his wife Alison Delgado, to a fourth-place finish in a $25,000 maiden claimer for the final mount of his career. Delgado, who hasn’t had more than 119 starts in a season since 2014, earned the final win of his career last October 27 aboard Police Woman.
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“It’s funny, because I always kind of made fun of these athletes when they retire, and you would see the speech and they’re crying,” Delgado said afterward. “I’m like, I can’t believe he’s crying. Now I’m in those shoes, and I know how it feels. It’s tough. It’s something you did all your life, and to walk away from that, it’s kind of tough.”
Delgado made his first career start March 16, 1982. Between then and now, he registered 2,951 wins while piling up more than $42 million in purse earnings. He won the Eclipse Award as outstanding apprentice of 1982 after winning 245 races in just nine months.
Delgado won 10 graded stakes in his career and may be as well known for a pair of near-misses. In 1995 he piloted the Maryland-bred Oliver’s Twist, trained by Bill Boniface, to a second-place finish in the Grade 1 Preakness, closing late to finish just a half-length behind winner Timber Country.
More recently Delgado had the mount on California Chrome early in that runner’s career. Delgado, whose brother Willie served as Chrome’s exercise rider, rode Chrome to his maiden-breaking score and to a win in the Graduation Stakes. But trainer Art Sherman replaced him aboard Chrome after a sixth-place finish in the Golden State Juvenile.
With Victor Espinoza in the irons, California Chrome reeled off a six-race win streak capped by wins in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness.
“It was bad racing luck, bad luck is all it was,” Willie Delgado told ESPN prior to the 2014 Belmont. “But [Alberto] understood why a change had to be made.”
“The first [horse I think of] is California Chrome, because I worked him for the first time, and I knew he was a super horse, and he went on to be,” Alberto Delgado said Sunday. “I told the owner, as soon as I broke his maiden, I said, ‘This horse will win the Derby next year.’ And he did. He was just something amazing.”
Delgado, the son of jockey Alberto Ramos, is a native of Puerto Rico. Just 17 at the time, he began riding professionally in 1982, winning for the first time with just his fourth mount, aboard Keelo Prince on April 12 and quickly took the riding world by storm.
On August 16 of that year, Delgado won seven races: five at Delaware Park and then the late double at Timonium.
“I couldn’t believe it,” he told the Washington Post. “That kind of thing comes once in a lifetime.”
He concluded that season with 245 wins to lead all apprentices and garnered over $1.7 million in earnings. It was the first of five consecutive seasons in which Delgado won 200 or more races.
In 1995 had his best year earnings-wise. His 163 winners that season helped him to nearly $2.8 million in purse earnings. That year Delgado and Oliver’s Twist won the Grade 3 Federico Tesio en route to their near-miss in the Preakness.
In the Tesio Oliver’s Twist prevailed by a neck after a lengthy battle with 8-5 favorite Western Echo.
“I can just remember right now, it was basically who wanted it the most, like a championship fight,” Delgado told the MJC press office in 2022. “Everybody was just throwing punches at each other and whoever could knock the other person out [would win].”
In 1999 and 2000, Delgado earned the mount aboard the Paul Fout-trained Colstar. The duo went on to post wins in three Grade 3 events, the Martha Washington Stakes and the Gallorette and Locust Grove Handicaps.
They were the final graded wins of his career.
In 1982 Delgado told the Washington Post that he didn’t ride for the money, but rather, “I do it because I enjoy it.”
Today he said, “I still love it. But at some point, you’ve got to step down, stop this madness.”
As for advice to young riders, Delgado, who said he plans to train a few horses going forward, offered this:
“Ride hard every race, like it’s your last one, because we really don’t know. Ride every race like your last one.”
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