HORSE RACING: IT'S PEDROZA, ON THE SURFACE JOCKEY READY TO TEST CUSHION TRACK.

Byline: ART WILSON 

Staff Writer

Since migrating to the U.S. from Panama in 1982, jockey Martin Pedroza has been confronted by challenges at every quarter pole. Now, fresh off his ninth consecutive riding title at Pomona's Fairplex Park, the 42-year-old journeyman is confronted by another.

As Santa Anita opens its gates today for the beginning of the 39th Oak Tree meeting, Pedroza and the other riders will compete for the first time over the track's new $10 million-plus Cushion Track. There have been nothing but kudos after three weeks of morning workouts, but now it's time for the real racing to begin and for adjustments to be made.

Will the new synthetic surface at Santa Anita play like Hollywood Park's Cushion Track in the afternoons? How will it differ from the Polytrack surface at Del Mar? Will speed be king, or will horses from off the pace rule the day?

"It's been an adjustment for every jockey," Pedroza said Tuesday morning between working horses at Santa Anita. "You got to get to know the race track. First it was too deep, then it was too slow and heavy and sometimes it got faster and people moved too late, too slow. So everybody has got to adapt, I guess."

Talking to Pedroza, it sounds like bettors might want to take it easy the first week or so. He says it could be a while before even the jockeys can figure out this new surface.

"Gotta take it day by day," Pedroza said. "It can take up to a day, two, three, four days or a week. It depends how the track is playing. If the track gets to a point where everybody knows how it is, then that's about it. If you see the track one day, the speed is dying, then you ride according to that. If you see the speed is holding, you ride according to that."

The one constant is that Pedroza likes all three of the Southland's artificial surfaces.

There has been much to like about Pedroza's career since he decided to accept that first challenge at age 17 and try to crack what was arguably the toughest jockey colony in the world. Shoemaker? Pincay? McCarron? Delahoussaye?

Pedroza wasn't fazed. He's won only one major jockey title, the 2005 Hollywood Park autumn meet, but he's consistently among the top 10 in the standings.

The man some fans affectionately call "Martini" then took it upon himself to perfect the art of riding Fairplex's bullring when his good friend and fellow jockey J.C. Gonzalez was killed in a riding accident at the Fair in 1999.

The result? The only name on the J.C. Gonzalez Memorial Award, which annually goes to the meet's leading rider, is Pedroza's.

Now, along with adjusting to another new synthetic surface, Pedroza has to jump down off Cloud Nine. He won a Fair-record 51 races in 2004 and rode his 500th career winner at the track this meeting, but that's because agent Richie Silverstein has his pick of the top horses at Pomona. That's not the case at Santa Anita, Hollywood and Del Mar.

"The year Martin won 51, it was pointed out to me that I didn't have a mount on opening day of Oak Tree," Silverstein said.

Pedroza and Silverstein have been together off and on for more than 20 years. Silverstein says Pedroza has fired him seven times and he's quit on four occasions. But the bottom line, Silverstein says, is that they are both at their best when they work together.

Despite all the hard work, all the success at Fairplex and the fact he's got a reputation for being a hustling rider, Pedroza's business slows dramatically after the Fair. Silverstein knows the problem, but he can't come up with a solution.

"What really frustrates you is when you win on a horse (at Pomona), you pick up a horse that you normally wouldn't be on, you pick him up and you win on him, and then you go over to the next town and you're not even considered for the horse," he said. "That's just wrong."

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