Journalism Gives Rispoli Leading Role On The Kentucky Derby Stage
Netflix broadened Umberto Rispoli’s exposure but a Derby triumph at Churchill Downs would give the former Hong Kong-based Italian the major win he craves.
IT’S A BRIEF FRAME, barely a second in duration: a striking dark-haired woman in black dress, adorned with silver necklaces, her two young sons beside her dressed sharply in blue suits, the younger pre-schooler looking away distractedly, the older shouting earnestly, “Come on Papa!” The scene comes 23 seconds into Netflix’s latest sports docuseries Race for the Crown.
‘Papa’ is Umberto Rispoli, the man who on Saturday will ride Journalism, the morning line favourite for the G1 Kentucky Derby, the ‘Run For The Roses’, America’s greatest race.
Such an opportunity has been a while coming for Rispoli. Not that he doesn’t know all about elite competition, he’s been around the best jockeys – including his father-in-law, Gerald Mosse – and some of the world’s big races throughout his career. But, as he says later in that same Netflix production, “My goal is to be one of the best in the world.” He means it.
At age 36, in the prime of his career, riding successfully out of his family’s five-year home base in southern California, Journalism’s Kentucky Derby run could bring the big break and the broader recognition Rispoli has so long desired; that step out of the shadows of the riders he admires so much and wants to beat even more; all-time greats from that generation before his, the 50-something legends John Velazquez and his boyhood hero and friend Frankie Dettori; and peers like Irad Ortiz, Jose Ortiz, and Flavien Prat.
Last year’s Kentucky Derby-winning rider Brian Hernandez Jr. hinted at the magnitude of a Kentucky Derby win when filmed by the Netflix cameras in candid conversation with the 2023 Derby hero Luis Saez: “You know that it never sinks in: you’re here and you’re like, yeah, that didn’t really happen,” Hernandez said.
Rispoli, like every other jockey on the outside, wants in on that. He wants to know what it feels like to not have it ever sink in.
The Italian rider’s hunger to be at the top has already taken him from Europe to Hong Kong, via an early-career Group 1 win in Japan, then to France, back to Hong Kong, and then into the unknown. It was a dark night after racing at Sha Tin – around midnight on June 26, 2019 – when Rispoli, sobbing while sitting on the edge of his bed at what he felt was an absolute career low point, took the phone call from a friend, the bloodstock agent Marco Bozzi, that would take him and his family to California and a new life.
“I was in the graveyard,” he tells Idol Horse.
But the move to America’s Pacific coast later that year was his resurrection. His time in Hong Kong had been marred by frustration and unhappiness at waning opportunities: there he was, a young rider, hungry, ambitious; sharp suits to match his haircuts, paired with Maverick-cool aviators, a broad smile, and a cocksure, chirpy persona; a leading man personality cast in back-up roles behind icons like Joao Moreira, Zac Purton and Douglas Whyte.
California is different. He is in the top bracket there, riding with confidence, enjoying the experience: now in his sixth season, he has notched 607 wins Stateside and accrued more than US$46 million in prizemoney; he has won eight Grade 1 races, including this year’s Santa Anita Derby on Journalism, after raising his profile through his associations with top-class runners Johannes, Anisette, and Formidable Man, aided by his agent of the past two years, Matt Nakatani.
Rispoli and his family are a prominent part of the raceday experience at Santa Anita and Del Mar: those little boys of his, Hayden and Aramis, are like junior style icons around the tracks, with their outfits coordinated carefully by their mother, Kimberley.
“It’s not me doing this,” Rispoli laughs. “Last year for Breeders’ Cup she dressed them up on the Saturday with the colours of the Breeders’ Cup, with the purple, the white shirt, and because I rode Johannes and he had some of that purple colour in his silks.
“With Journalism at Santa Anita, the orange suits happened because the horse was wearing the Don Alberto Stable colours and (one of the co-owners) Aron Wellman (of Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners), he wants that, he likes that, he said ‘I love when your kids dress for a big day,’ so I’m happy because they receive so many compliments. You know, when you see those little kids go around dressed up together, I think it’s just something nice, and Kimberley, she’s happy. She’s going everywhere to look for stuff for them to wear and she’s very good at that. For the Kentucky Derby, they’ll be dressed up.”
It brings some family pressure, though: “My little one said, ‘Daddy, you need to win because I put my suit on, so you need to win!’
“Horse racing is the engine of our family. If my engine turns, all the family turns well.”
But, while Rispoli is a prominent rider on the California circuit, he is still not the standout star. And he still yearns for a world major. Tracking third or second again behind Juan Hernandez, as he is currently in the Santa Anita standings, and his three second placings at the Breeders’ Cup, including Johannes’ heartbreaking defeat in the Mile last November at Del Mar, that all fuels Rispoli’s intense desire.
“The Kentucky Derby is a major: you’re playing ‘The Masters’ there,” he says. “I’ve been dreaming of this all my life, and when you have this opportunity, you have to take it the right way.”
What he means is you must embrace the pressure of the occasion. And there’ll be plenty of pressure going out at Churchill Downs on what could turn out to be the best shot he ever gets at winning the Derby.
“You don’t have to go there and say that this is the only one opportunity I have, so I better not mess it up. No, you have to go there and also enjoy the moment,” he says.
“I would lie to you if I said you don’t get any pressure on raceday: you need to feel the pressure, need to feel the atmosphere, you need to feel the adrenaline, you have to, you know, otherwise we are robots, but we are not, we are humans.
“It’s like asking a soccer player to shoot the last penalty kick to win the World Cup or the Champions League final. I think that would be the longest walk of his life, you know, going from the middle of the pitch to the spot to go and shoot the penalty.”
It’s a natural analogy for an avid soccer fan to make, but it sells him short: the pressure on a rider navigating a route fraught with danger along with 20 other horses at speed is levels beyond jogging up to a ball and kicking it.
“But you go to a major race and you do what you do every day,” Rispoli continues. “You don’t have to change anything. You don’t have to overthink. You go there and you go there to do your job, but you make sure you do it as best as you do on your very best days.
“I think you just need to manage the emotions. You need to arrive there with a clean mind. You need to arrive there with no scares, no fear, just the passion, just to remember where you come from.”
Rispoli comes from the tough side of the tracks. He was raised in Scampia, within the white-walled Vele di Scampia, the urban housing project on the north side of Naples notorious for the Camorra, the Neapolitan Mafia-style gang made famous in the TV drama Gomorrah.
His father Gaetano was a track rider and Rispoli was riding by age seven: by age 10 he was riding trackwork. He became a prolific apprentice and a precocious outright champion two years running; in 2009, at age 21, he rode 245 winners, breaking Gianfranco Dettori’s – Frankie’s father – longstanding 229-win Italian record for the most wins in a season.
A little more than a year later he bagged the G1 Takamatsunomiya Kinen in Japan, and after basing himself in France, he made the move to Hong Kong in 2012 where after a tough start he secured a vital Group 1 win in the April 2012 QEII Cup on the Japanese raider Rulership.
For a long time, Rulership stood as the pinnacle win in Rispoli’s career. Journalism could take that to an altogether higher plane.
The Michael McCarthy-trained colt was a US$825,000 purchase out of the 2023 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Sale and Rispoli knew last summer that he was a horse he wanted to make his own.
He was up top for Journalism’s debut third in the fall, but then missed out when the son of Curlin broke his maiden next start: instead, he had to watch his dream colt surge away under Ricardo Gonzalez from the back of his third-placed mount Brother Tony.
It was a case of a late entry by Journalism’s connections after Rispoli was already booked for the rival horse. He asked if he could get off to ride Journalism, but Brother Tony’s owners wanted him aboard and it was their right to stick to their guns.
Rispoli says he understands their position, but that he tried to explain this was a potential Grade 1 horse he wanted to ride, and was “furious” when told no. Furious that what could be his greatest opportunity might slip away.
“We already knew it, working him in the morning, we saw something different, you know?” he says. “Sometimes you can see a big occasion in your life pass by, just like that, losing the horse and you will never see the horse back again.
“But I was lucky to get back on him. I mean, I did all the job in the summer preparing him, then rode him the first time out, I helped him get used to the kickback, there was a lot of work behind the scenes with him before the first start. And then, what happened happened. But it’s past, we’re in a good position today.”
Rispoli was back in the plate for wins in the G2 Los Alamitos Futurity, G2 San Felipe Stakes, and then the Santa Anita Derby. The last of those was a small field affair and it turned into a trappy contest.
“A five-horse field is always a jockey’s race, it’s a mess,” he says. “Everybody, they’re looking to trap you on the fence and not let you out. In a dirt race, one thing you don’t want is to stop once your horse starts to get in its rhythm and running. So, once you check … I had to check really badly around the three-eighth pole and most of the horses, they’re never coming back. It’s always difficult for them to accelerate again. But he did an amazing job.
“I took him off that rail and it was like bumper cars around the turn, but I was able to come out and the horse made it easy. Good horses, that’s what they do, they’re running, they go to chase the leader and run him down.”
Rispoli is hoping that bumping at Santa Anita will have prepared Journalism for the roughness of a 20-runner Kentucky Derby field on an unfamiliar surface in an alien arena. Like he says, none of the others have been in a 20-runner field in front of such a big crowd either.
“He’s a really intelligent, smart horse, and one thing that he’s going to discover for the first time is about 150,000 people at the track and during the post parade, those sounds and the singing. I think because he’s an intelligent horse he might handle it well, but at the same time, he’s a horse that can get upset if he sees something that he doesn’t like. But he’s a big horse, now: strong, powerful,” he says.
“I think we’re going there with all our cards,” he adds, “In the end we’ll try to play the best game we can play.”
Almost six years on from his midnight tears, Rispoli knows Saturday will bring either his greatest moment or his biggest disappointment. Victory would put him centre stage if there is to be a follow-up season of Race for the Crown charting the 2025 Triple Crown class: defeat would place him back in the supporting cast … for now ∎
