![\"Kyle](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Frey,-Kyle.jpg\")
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Kyle Frey \u00a9 Benoit Photo<\/p>\n
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Jockey Kyle Frey is coming up on the one year anniversary of the biggest day in his life\u2026professionally. Frey is happily married with two beautiful children so one would assume there have been bigger days for the 33-year-old. But this particular day last year at Del Mar was one for the books.<\/p>\n
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Frey rode Gold Phoenix to the horse\u2019s third straight G2 Del Mar Handicap victory, something that\u2019s never been done. Then before Frey could come down from winning a prestigious graded stakes race, he won his first Pacific Classic with 23-1 longshot Mixto.<\/p>\n
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\u201cOh, by far,\u201d Frey says when asked if it was his best day racing. \u201cI won on Gold Phoenix and I was ecstatic. Then I realized we had one more left, one more big race. Then to get that. On the gallop-out I remember thinking \u2018Wow, that\u2019s amazing that just happened.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
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Most of those watching the race thought the same thing. What just happened here? Where did this horse come from?<\/p>\n
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\u201cHe trains really good here,\u201d Frey says of Mixto. \u201cLoves this track. Doug (O\u2019Neill) and Leandro (Mora) when they got him here worked him out of the gate in company. Edwin (Maldonado) was on Mixto and I was on the other horse. Mixto worked like a rocket, just pulled away from me like I was tied to a fence post.\u201d<\/p>\n
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But Maldonado had a prior commitment to go out of town on Classic Day and couldn\u2019t ride Mixto in the marquee race. He told Frey who remembered the workout and jumped at the chance to replace Maldonado.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cI was confident and happy with him (Mixto),\u201d Frey says. \u201cThen, unfortunately for Baffert, the mare (Adare Manor) had to be scratched. She was a really nice one and when that happened it had me thinking: \u2018This is anybody\u2019s race at this point.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cMe and Sadler\u2019s (Full Serrano) were the only two speed horses,\u201d Frey continues. \u201cThe others were really good runners but the speed had been holding up at that point and I knew I just had to stay on top of him.\u201d<\/p>\n
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And that\u2019s what Frey did. He followed Full Serrano until they got in the lane.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThat horse ran huge,\u201d Frey remembers. \u201cHe kicked away from me but my horse was just steady in there and ran him down. Those fractions got to that horse (Full Serrano) the last sixteenth. You could see him soften up bit. That\u2019s when I thought \u2018It\u2019s over. This horse is not re-breaking and I\u2019m getting into my best stride right now.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
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Frey was the toast of Del Mar but he didn\u2019t see much of change in his business both immediately after the race and in the long term.<\/p>\n
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\u201cA little bit,\u201d Frey concedes. \u201cBut I didn\u2019t notice a huge difference in business if I\u2019m being honest. I was already riding for the guys I continued to ride for. It\u2019s not bad but I\u2019m not getting first call on the best horses in the race.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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One of Frey\u2019s goals moving forward is to get in with more outfits on the backside.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cKind of spread the net a little bit,\u201d Frey states. \u201cWhile also staying true to those who have taken care of me. Jack\u2019s great about that, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Jack Carava is Frey\u2019s agent and guiding light for the past few years. Carava is a former trainer who knows his way around the horse racing industry. He\u2019s taken Frey under his wing and helped him avoid the pitfalls of the business while also helping him find the highlights. Frey is currently 11th in the jockey standings at Del Mar with five wins.<\/p>\n
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\u201cLuck and a little bit of chance,\u201d is how Frey assesses his meet at Del Mar so far. \u201cThe right horse but the wrong post. Those little tiny things that make all the difference when you\u2019re not on simply the best horse in the race.\u201d<\/p>\n
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On one sunny afternoon in 2024 Frey was on two of the best horses.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI had a good day,\u201d Frey understates with a laugh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kyle Frey \u00a9 Benoit Photo Jockey Kyle Frey is coming up on the one year anniversary…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368099,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4107],"tags":[42254,12,4041,1071,79,114117,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-368098","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-racing","8":"tag-del-mar","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-press-releases","11":"tag-racing","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-stable-notes","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115080058730829959","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}