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Sofia Barandela: currently Del Mar’s only female jockey
“I’m strong enough to do my job”
Sophia Barandela on number 5
It was just before the fifth race of the day on August 15. The number five horse bucked the jockey off her back and ran free on the track in the wrong direction. This, at exactly five o’clock on a race that was 5 ½ furlongs. Gamblers hurried back to the betting windows in a frenzy to change their bets. The horse was a young filly named Aguilar Azul. She had run just three races in her young career. That day, she ran her own race, and even though it cost her a veterinarian scratch, we loved her for that.
As for the jockey who was dumped from the filly, it turned out to be the only female rider at Del Mar this season, Sofia Barandela. “Horses are very nervous creatures,” Barandela tells me. “She was just wanting to go run. Some horses manage stress and pressure differently. Older horses know what they’re doing, and you can feel their heartbeat on your legs. They control themselves more. But young horses don’t have much experience.”
Riding in from Mexico City, Barandela has been jockeying for four years. Before that, she was an exercise rider for five summers in Del Mar. Exercise riders are the unheralded heroes who work on the backside of the racetrack. The role includes training racehorses in the mornings to help prepare them physically and mentally for races. “Every jockey has been an exercise rider before. To learn, to train, to get to know the horses and the people.”
Barandela eventually left Del Mar to go to places where there were more opportunities for her to be a jockey, which was always the goal. Places like Wyoming, Minnesota, Chicago, and North Dakota. There, she found the experience she was seeking; once she had it, she came back to Southern California.
But working in a male-dominated sport has come with challenges. “It’s the same thing for every woman jockey you ask — the thinking that you’re not strong enough. Not everything you need to ride a horse is strength. I’m strong enough to do my job. People forget that the athlete here is the mainly the horse, and we are on top. If the horse is good enough, the jockey will win. If you put me on a slow horse against a fast horse with the worst jockey in the world, most likely the better horse will win.”
Female jockeys aren’t always at a disadvantage, Barandela says. “Some horses don’t run for men. We women usually let the horse do its race, whereas men want the horse to run their way. Sometimes it doesn’t work like that.” Given that, and the hazards that comes with the sport, there is a certain camaraderie between the riders. “Part of the magic with this is, it’s so dangerous, but it makes you feel so alive. Nobody wants to hurt each other, and we take care of each other out there.”
Sophia Barandela (right) racing against her fiancé Serafin Carmona (left)
In the world horse jockeying, injuries come with the terrain. Barandela has suffered three concussions and multiple broken bones — including her back — in her four years of competition. Despite all that, she knows that riding with fear isn’t an option. “If you’re scared, you don’t come back,” she says. “When I’m in a race, I don’t remember I had accidents before. I stay in the moment. When you’re in a race, you’re in the present. There’s no past and no future, there’s just that moment with that horse. You breathe with it and you can almost feel what it’s thinking. It’s the closest I feel with telepathy with another being that’s not a human. You fuse [with the horse], like Avatar.”
Right now, the horse Barandela says she has the closest bond with is Lady of Sky. In March of this year, “I started getting her ready for her first race, and we won. That was my first winner at Santa Anita. Then we had a win in Los Alamitos. Now she’s training here [in Del Mar], and I’m hoping to ride and get a win with her here.”
With just two weekends left in the season, Barandela is hoping to secure a win after coming in third in her last race on August 22. It’s never certain which horse a jockey will be assigned. Her next race she could potentially ride Lady of Sky and bag that Del Mar W. Or maybe she’ll get to hop back on Aguilar Azul for some unfinished business. Or she could have a completely different horse altogether. All bets are on.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Sofia Barandela: currently Del Mar’s only female jockey
“I’m strong enough to do my job”
Sofia Barandela: currently Del Mar’s only female jockey
“I’m strong enough to do my job”
Sophia Barandela on number 5
It was just before the fifth race of the day on August 15. The number five horse bucked the jockey off her back and ran free on the track in the wrong direction. This, at exactly five o’clock on a race that was 5 ½ furlongs. Gamblers hurried back to the betting windows in a frenzy to change their bets. The horse was a young filly named Aguilar Azul. She had run just three races in her young career. That day, she ran her own race, and even though it cost her a veterinarian scratch, we loved her for that.
As for the jockey who was dumped from the filly, it turned out to be the only female rider at Del Mar this season, Sofia Barandela. “Horses are very nervous creatures,” Barandela tells me. “She was just wanting to go run. Some horses manage stress and pressure differently. Older horses know what they’re doing, and you can feel their heartbeat on your legs. They control themselves more. But young horses don’t have much experience.”
Riding in from Mexico City, Barandela has been jockeying for four years. Before that, she was an exercise rider for five summers in Del Mar. Exercise riders are the unheralded heroes who work on the backside of the racetrack. The role includes training racehorses in the mornings to help prepare them physically and mentally for races. “Every jockey has been an exercise rider before. To learn, to train, to get to know the horses and the people.”
Barandela eventually left Del Mar to go to places where there were more opportunities for her to be a jockey, which was always the goal. Places like Wyoming, Minnesota, Chicago, and North Dakota. There, she found the experience she was seeking; once she had it, she came back to Southern California.
But working in a male-dominated sport has come with challenges. “It’s the same thing for every woman jockey you ask — the thinking that you’re not strong enough. Not everything you need to ride a horse is strength. I’m strong enough to do my job. People forget that the athlete here is the mainly the horse, and we are on top. If the horse is good enough, the jockey will win. If you put me on a slow horse against a fast horse with the worst jockey in the world, most likely the better horse will win.”
Female jockeys aren’t always at a disadvantage, Barandela says. “Some horses don’t run for men. We women usually let the horse do its race, whereas men want the horse to run their way. Sometimes it doesn’t work like that.” Given that, and the hazards that comes with the sport, there is a certain camaraderie between the riders. “Part of the magic with this is, it’s so dangerous, but it makes you feel so alive. Nobody wants to hurt each other, and we take care of each other out there.”
Sophia Barandela (right) racing against her fiancé Serafin Carmona (left)
In the world horse jockeying, injuries come with the terrain. Barandela has suffered three concussions and multiple broken bones — including her back — in her four years of competition. Despite all that, she knows that riding with fear isn’t an option. “If you’re scared, you don’t come back,” she says. “When I’m in a race, I don’t remember I had accidents before. I stay in the moment. When you’re in a race, you’re in the present. There’s no past and no future, there’s just that moment with that horse. You breathe with it and you can almost feel what it’s thinking. It’s the closest I feel with telepathy with another being that’s not a human. You fuse [with the horse], like Avatar.”
Right now, the horse Barandela says she has the closest bond with is Lady of Sky. In March of this year, “I started getting her ready for her first race, and we won. That was my first winner at Santa Anita. Then we had a win in Los Alamitos. Now she’s training here [in Del Mar], and I’m hoping to ride and get a win with her here.”
With just two weekends left in the season, Barandela is hoping to secure a win after coming in third in her last race on August 22. It’s never certain which horse a jockey will be assigned. Her next race she could potentially ride Lady of Sky and bag that Del Mar W. Or maybe she’ll get to hop back on Aguilar Azul for some unfinished business. Or she could have a completely different horse altogether. All bets are on.
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