Jockey Julian Pimentel set to return to riding
Hasn’t ridden a race since 2021
Linda Dougherty
April 24, 2026
After a five-year absence from the saddle, jockey Julian Pimentel is ready to resume a fruitful career that saw him win more than 1,800 races and ride many talented horses in the Mid-Atlantic region.
Pimentel, 45, stepped away from the racetrack primarily because he was having trouble making weight.
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When the country was in the teeth of the coronavirus pandemic and the jockeys’ room was shuttered at both Laurel and Pimlico. That meant Pimentel, who stands almost 5’ 9”, couldn’t use a hot box to reduce weight.
“My weight became an issue,” said Pimentel. “I needed a break, and I wasn’t sure I’d ride again.”
“He was burned out,” said his longtime agent Roniel “Ronnie” Gerardo. “He was thinking more about his weight and less about riding.”
Pimentel soldiered through most of 2021, winning 42 races, his fewest in over 20 years. Then he hung up his tack.
When Pimentel retired, he spent winters at his home in Cali, Columbia, where he owns a small farm and several show horses. But he never completely left the racetrack, coming back to Maryland during the warmer months to gallop horses at the Fair Hill Training Center.
The hiatus ignited the fire in Pimentel to return to competition. With encouragement from the racetrack community he was able to drop enough weight to be able to accept mounts again.
“I missed the competition,” he said. “I missed coming out of the gate, the adrenaline rush.”
Pimentel is named on three horses this weekend at Laurel Park. His initial plan is to ride for six months and then return home in the winter.
“He feels good, he’s fit, and he’s going to give it a try,” said Gerardo. “Everyone was telling him, ‘Why did you retire? Come back, come back.’”
Pimentel will be resurrecting a career that began in 2000 in New York, where he worked as an exercise rider for Bill Mott. With Mott’s help and encouragement, he secured his apprentice license and then was given his first career mount by the Hall of Fame trainer at Belmont Park in May 2000. Pimentel’s first career winner, Bella Rouge, also came courtesy of Mott, on September 13, 2000 at Belmont.
A native of Colombia, he then shifted to the New Jersey circuit in 2001, capturing leading rider honors at Meadowlands and winning 145 races that year, which made him a finalist for outstanding apprentice.
Pimentel moved his tack permanently to Maryland in 2006 where his career highlights include riding four-time Maryland Horse of the Year Ben’s Cat, who won 26 stakes races and earned more than $2.6 million for trainer King Leatherbury; attaining leading rider honors at the 2008 Laurel summer meet; and riding multiple Maryland Million winners, as well as booting home five winners on the Laurel card of October 11, 2011.
He’s also gotten a taste of competing on the sport’s biggest stages through the years. Pimentel has ridden in the Preakness three times, piloting the Chris Grove-trained Norman Asbjornson in the 2014 Preakness Stakes (Gr. 1) and Kid Cruz in the 2014 Middle Jewel, as well as the Mike Trombetta-trained Win Win Win in the 2019 Kentucky Derby (Gr. 1) and Preakness.
Pimentel’s lifetime record stands at 1,806 winners from 11,299 starts, with earnings of $58,968,228.
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