Rispoli Breaks Silence On Journalism Split: “It Feels Like A Body Shot”
Umberto Rispoli was left reeling when he lost the Breeders’ Cup Classic ride on his Preakness winner Journalism, but the Italian rider tells Idol Horse he has had a hard decision of his own to make.
Rispoli Breaks Silence On Journalism Split: “It Feels Like A Body Shot”
Umberto Rispoli was left reeling when he lost the Breeders’ Cup Classic ride on his Preakness winner Journalism, but the Italian rider tells Idol Horse he has had a hard decision of his own to make.
23 October, 2025UMBERTO RISPOLI has taken knocks before. He paid his dues and earned his keep in the cutthroat arena of Hong Kong, the horse racing equivalent of crossing the unforgiving last-man-standing competition of Rome’s gladiatorial games with the political manoeuvring of the Medici court – he knows well enough what it means to lose rides, the feelings that come when you’re jocked off.
His kids don’t. At ages three and eight, they have been living the Journalism story: trackside at Triple Crown races, suited and booted in the colours of the horse’s silks for each race, their outfits chosen carefully by their mother, Kimberley. The horse and the journey was a core part of their young lives.
“That was the hardest part, to have to tell my wife and kids that I won’t be riding the horse,” Rispoli tells Idol Horse. “My kids cried for two hours. They just kept asking me ‘Why dad, why are you not riding the horse?’ We have to look forward now and move on, not focus on bad things.
“Some jockeys reached out and that was very kind of them, lifting my morale from Australia to America and everywhere saying keep your head up, move forward, go forward, and that’s what I’m going to do.”
But to be removed from Journalism – as he was last weekend, two weeks before the G1 Breeders’ Cup Classic – the horse that has raised his profile more than any other, that’s a tough hit, a hard blow to take: an ‘Ides of March’ moment in his career.
And from a man raised in Naples – that hot-blooded city pressed between sea and volcanic arc, with Mount Vesuvius to the east and the sulphurous Phlegraean Fields to the west – a fiery response might be expected.
Rispoli, though, has seen enough in his life and career to know that sometimes the fire needs to be dampened, even when the blow stings the private emotions.
“There is not much I can do, I have to accept it,” he says. “I don’t like the decision but I have to accept it, that’s their decision to make. I have a strong mentality, I’ve come a long way and I’ve learned over time how to react to this moment, it’s not the first time I’ve lost a ride and it’s probably not going to be the last time.
“I’m 37 years old, so when I was younger this would have felt like a head shot, but now, at my age, with the experiences I have had, it feels like a body shot and I can take that. I have to look forward, move on and be focussed on the people that have given me 100 percent confidence to ride their horses: I can’t be focused on a horse I’ve been taken off. I’m going to watch Journalism’s race, of course I am; I’ll be there; I care that I’m not riding him, but what happens in that race is not my concern.”
Rispoli’s partnership with Journalism spanned nine of the colt’s 10 races, stretching back to his third place on debut at Santa Anita on October 27 last year. Horse and rider enjoyed high-profile wins in the G2 Los Alamitos Futurity, the G1 Santa Anita Derby that ignited the Triple Crown dream, his G1 Preakness Stakes that gave the Italian his first Triple Crown race yet drew criticism, and the G1 Haskell Stakes in July.
“I do this job because I love it,” Rispoli says. “I want to wake up every day to be part of horses like Journalism and I’m still thankful to (the connections) that they enabled me and my family to live this: travelling all around for the Triple Crown campaign; living the week of the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, the Belmont; having the family with me. For that I say thank you, I have to say thank you: I’ve been part of it, part of all those beautiful things. I wish this wasn’t the end but it’s out of my hands.”
For all the good times, there were defeats behind Sovereignty in the G1 Kentucky Derby and G1 Belmont Stakes; there was the much-debated Preakness win in which Rispoli rode Journalism through a tight gap to seal success – a brave, effective run to some, foolhardy to others – and last time when second to Fierceness in the G1 Pacific Classic at Del Mar.
Somewhere along the line, the ownership group of Eclipse Thoroughbreds, Bridlewood Farm, Don Alberto Stable, Robert LaPenta, Elayne Stables Five, the Coolmore Partners and trainer Michael McCarthy started to think about changing their rider and ultimately opted for Jose Ortiz instead.
“I move on, I don’t have time to cry for myself, I have to be focused on all the Breeders’ Cup mounts I have and all the other races I have. I can’t have it working through my brain,” Rispoli says.
“They told me two weeks from the race. If it had been the week of the race, you’d have to work harder on yourself to forget about it, but I wish they’d announced it right away (after the last race) to be honest, I wish I would have known earlier. But two weeks is enough to regroup, to work on yourself.”
Racing is riddled with such decisions. But that doesn’t make them easy to make or to take.
Rispoli knows for himself the agonising difficulty that comes with decision-making and the effects those choices might have. He has had to make a big one of his own going into this Breeders’ Cup: whether to stay true to his old ally Johannes or cement his partnership with another talented comrade, the rising force that is Formidable Man.
Both horses are entered in the G1 Breeders’ Cup Mile a week Saturday; both are his rides. He has chosen Johannes and while he speaks of the importance of his own loyalty to the horse he rode to second place in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Mile, the loyalty of the horse’s trainer Tim Yakteen to him, and most of all the loyalty of the supportive owners, Joe and Debby McCloskey, he is also grappling with the emotions that come from knowing the loyalty Formidable Man’s owner William Warren has given him has been true, too.
“It was a tough choice for me to choose between Johannes and Formidable Man,” Rispoli admits. “When you’ve had such a good connection with a horse like Johannes, you can’t run him down. Of course, Formidable Man is a rising star, he’s six for six at Del Mar, he never got beat there, he’s a horse that is improving race by race, but when you ride a horse that has proven himself already on the biggest stage against international horses… plus when you have come a long way with his owners, Joe McCloskey and his wife Debby, you know, and Tim Yakteen, you’ve been part of the journey for a long time and you just have to follow it.”
Formidable Man has won three of his last four starts, including his last two, the G2 Eddie Read Stakes and G2 Del Mar Mile at the Breeders’ Cup venue. Johannes has come back off a seven-month injury lay-off to run ninth in the G1 Fourstardave Stakes at Saratoga on August 2, but bounced back to win his second G2 City Of Hope Mile at Santa Anita 25 days later.
Rispoli says Saratoga was a run to forget “a horrendous trip” with a bump out of the gate, squeezed at the first turn, shuffled to last … “race over”.
“He had to start somewhere and it was a Grade 1 across the country,” he says. “You come back after six or seven months in a Grade 1, well, you can be a really great horse but still everything has to be perfect to come back from injury and win a race like that. It didn’t happen for us.
“We came back home, we regrouped, the horse worked back and the other day he won again in an impressive way. The pace was slow at Santa Anita, the race was a little bit against him when it became tactical with not many horses in the race, but it was a run full of energy. On the backside, I was running on top of Cabo Spirit and when I turned for home, I think it was his fastest stretch, so that means there is something left in that tank.”
Last year Johannes went into the Breeders’ Cup Mile off four consecutive wins. He entered the home straight ahead of the big European challenger Notable Speech and kicked. But at the very moment he had the Godolphin runner’s measure, with the winning post less than 10 strides away, More Than Looks swept over the top to steal the win.
“You’re looking for redemption,” he says and admits that this is “absolutely” a big factor in his decision.
“It would be exactly the same if it was the other way around, if Johannes was the rising star coming up and I’d finished second on Formidable Man last year with that campaign, I don’t think you really want to change. At the end of the day, I have to make the decision so I can’t listen to everyone saying he wins this race faster than the other one, or he runs this number faster than the other one.
“As a jockey, I have to make the decision. My agent (Matt Nakatani) will ask which one do you want to ride, because in these big races I have to make the decision; if I get beat, well I’m the one who chose and I have to blame myself if I get it wrong, I don’t want to blame anybody else. If I make a mistake it’s going to be my mistake but it will have come from the bottom of my heart.
“Mr Warren, Formidable Man’s owner, he has been loyal to me. But Johannes was in the picture before. I wish I hadn’t had the decision to make but it’s better to have that decision to make than not.
“It probably will be one of Johannes’ last races, who knows? But I want to close that circle and if it’s possible to close it with a Breeders’ Cup win, well that will be an amazing story to tell one day.”
The story is important to Rispoli, who as the son of a track work rider, Gaetano Rispoli, was raised in Naples’ notorious Vele di Scampia harbouring a boyhood ambition to become a jockey and ride in the world’s great races.
“It’s already a privilege to be part of the Breeders’ Cup weekend,” he says. I’ve been dreaming of it since I was a kid and since I’ve been in the United States I’ve been part of the Breeders’ Cup five years in a row. It’s a win to be there and have horses to ride and have people who have 100 percent confidence in me to put me on their horses.”
But the McCarthy-trained Meaning, a juvenile filly Rispoli won on at Los Alamitos for Eclipse Thoroughbreds, will not be among his rides after he was told Tuesday his services were not required for her either.
“There should be more loyalty and respect for jockeys, that’s the only message I have,” he says.
Still, he is looking forward to a solid Breeders’ Cup book that includes Dr Venkman in the Sprint or the Dirt Mile, Gold Phoenix in the Turf, Mission Of Joy in the Filly And Mare Turf, Majestic Oops in the Distaff, Later Than Planned in the Juvenile Turf Sprint, and AMO Racing’s Irish raider Buccanero Fuerte in the Turf Sprint.
“Most horses will be a long shot but to win races you have to run them first, and to me, this is a passion,” he says.
“You know, the disappointment of losing the ride on Journalism, it’s not the fact that I think the value of the Breeders’ Cup Classic is seven million so if (Journalism) wins I will lose 10 percent, no, no, because money doesn’t last. When I wake up in the morning, in all the 20 years of my career, I wake up and I go to work because I want my name to be engraved in the story of this sport.
“This is what I’m looking for. Imagine what it feels like if the horse is going out to win that race without your name on it. It’s not the money: when you think about money, you forget the value of life, the value of the person, you forget the respect, you forget the loyalty.
“It’s about the story,” he adds. “It’s about your name in the story.” ∎
