For­mer cham­pi­on jock­ey Ricky Jadoo be­came the old­est jock­ey, in the 26 years of rac­ing of the sport at the cen­tralised fa­cil­i­ty at San­ta Rosa Park in Ari­ma, to win the Trinidad Der­by when he land­ed the Mer­lin Sam­lals­ingh-owned/Glenn Mendez-trained Cape Canaver­al in 2019.

At 52 years, the ever-green rid­er not on­ly won the Der­by he was al­so suc­cess­ful in the jock­ey's cham­pi­onship where he beat Bri­an Boodram­s­ing in­to sec­ond place in a nail-bit­ing fin­ish to the 2018 sea­son.

How­ev­er, he re-wrote the record book last year, when he won the Der­by for the sixth time in front of a mam­moth Re­pub­lic Day crowd.

Jadoo was aboard favourite Juice Man who land­ed the fi­nal leg of lo­cal rac­ing’s ‘Triple Crown’ with a gut­sy per­for­mance when win­ning the fea­ture Carib Brew­ery Lim­it­ed Trinidad Der­by Stakes. Jadoo had to be at his ab­solute best to re­pel the late charge of the John O'Brien-trained Apoc­a­lypse which was part­nered by cham­pi­on jock­ey Boodram­s­ing.

The rac­ing fra­ter­ni­ty then cel­e­brat­ed with Jadoo last year at the Jet­sam Awards when he was in­duct­ed in­to the Rac­ing "Hall of Fame" at the Queen's Park Oval in Port-of-Spain.

Dur­ing his long and il­lus­tri­ous ca­reer, Jadoo has al­ways been sought by own­ers and train­ers alike. From his ear­ly days with Mal Lewis down south to Jack De­bideen in the Cap­i­tal city, now to Mendez, Jadoo's cool, qui­et and col­lec­tive, yet con­fi­dent man­ner was in­fec­tious.

To­day, Jadoo com­mands the re­spect of all train­ers and own­ers and yet has the ad­mi­ra­tion of his col­leagues of the pigskin. He is the jock­ey I con­sid­er to be the best rid­er at San­ta Rosa Park. He has won the cham­pi­on­ship four times. Last year, he again proved his worth by part­ner­ing the Justyn Kan­ta-Per­sad-owned and Mendez-trained Juice Man to vic­to­ry.

Juice Man was named as last sea­son's "Horse of The Year" at the Jet­sam Awards, ear­li­er this year.

One can on­ly look back and re­mem­ber his bril­liant per­for­mances aboard the Mendez-trained/Mer­lin Sam­lals­in­gh-owned Top Of The Class and Cape Canaver­al.

Jadoo got in­ter­est­ed in hors­es when his fa­ther took him to the pad­dock at Union Park in Mara­bel­la.

"I fell in love with hors­es that day and I knew that was my fu­ture," said Jadoo, who in his ear­ly days was spent with Lewis be­fore he went to the jock­ey school for 18 months.

"When I grad­u­at­ed, I rode my first win­ner Am­ber Light for Lewis. For 37 years I worked re­al­ly hard and it has paid off. For that I am thank­ful. I am proud of what I have achieved."

Jadoo lives with his wife and daugh­ters in San Fer­nan­do and gets up at 4 am to be at the track by 5 am.

"Reg­u­lar­ly, I work 10-12 hors­es a day. I am very hap­py and proud to have been in­duct­ed in­to the Hall of Fame and I hope this will spur on oth­ers to con­tin­ue. I looked at Venice Richards as a young rid­er and want­ed to have a seat like him and I try my best to have his cool­ness and com­po­sure. Hope­ful­ly, I will be rid­ing for an­oth­er two years."

Com­men­da­tions are for Jadoo, fol­low­ing his 1/2 length suc­cess in the Der­by aboard Juice Man. He joined for­mer leg­end Chal­lenor Jones as hav­ing won six Der­bys, be­came the old­est jock­ey to ever win a der­by and is now al­so the win­ningest jock­ey in the his­to­ry of the sport in T&T.