Javier Castellano

Castellano grew up in a racing family in Venezuela. His father and uncle were jockeys and his brother, Abel Jr., is based in South Florida. He began riding in 1996, moved to the U.S. in 1997 to pursue his career, and relocated to the higher-profile New York circuit in 2001.

Castellano won the Breeders' Cup Classic on Ghostzapper in 2004 and has won one Breeders' Cup race a year from 2012-2015. Castellano posted his seventh career Breeers' Cup win in 2016 with New Money Honey in the Juvenile Fillies Turf.  He picked up his first victory in a Triple Crown race on Bernardini in the 2006 Preakness. In 2010 at Saratoga, he won five consecutive races on the third day of the season and captured the meet's biggest prize with a victory in the Travers on Afleet Express. He led the Saratoga jockeys in purse money earned in 2011 with victories in five Grade 1 stakes: the Ruffian, the Personal Ensign, the Ballerina, the Travers and the Diana. He also won the Grade 1 Just a Game, Maker's Mark, Ashland and Prioress and finished the season with a career-best $15,677,027 in purse earnings.

After setting a new record for purse earnings in 2013 with $26,213,507 and leading all riders by victories with 362 and by stakes wins with 63, Castellano earned his first career Eclipse Award. He earned a repeat victory as the Eclipse Award winner as outstanding jockey in 2014, when he led all jockeys by purse earnings with $25,056,464 and recorded 315 wins. Castellano made it a three-peat in 2015 when he exceeded his own previous single-season earnings record as his mounts in 2015 earned $28,120,767. He was also leading rider by number of wins in 2015 with 344, with a 23% win rate from his 1,507 mounts. 

After the 2016 season, Javier Castellano was named the Eclipse Award winner as outstanding jockey, his fourth straight year receiving the award. In 2017 he was named to the Hall of Fame, and he captured his second Preakness Stakes aboard Cloud Computing.

In 2018, Castellano continued to make milestones. He won his record sixth edition of the Runhappy Travers Stakes Presented by NYRA Bets aboard Catholic Boy and also was aboard Audible for his Xpressbet Florida Derby win and his Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve third-place finish. Castellano added an eighth Breeders' Cup win to his tally in 2017, winning the Juvenile Fillies Turf aboard Rushing Fall.

Castellano added a seventh win in the Travers in 2018 when he guided Catholic Boy to victory and was the regular rider of multiple Grade 1 winner Imperial Hint. He posted his ninth career win in the Breeders' Cup when he guided Bulletin to a front-running win in the Juvenile Turf Sprint and added to that total the following day when he guided City of Light to a dominant victory in the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile.

In 2019, he scored in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies aboard Darley Alcibiades Stakes winner British Idiom. The next day he picked up a second win at the 2019 Breeders' Cup when he guided Belvoir Bay to a front-running win in the Turf Sprint.

Castellano needed 16 tries in the Kentucky Derby before his breakthrough win in 2023 aboard Mage, the Florida Derby runner-up who outfinished Two Phil's and Angel of Empire to win the 1 1/4-mile classic May 6, 2023, at Churchill Downs. Castellano's best previous finish in the race came when third on Audible in 2018.