By Gene Kershner 

TORONTO – Sofia Vives is a jockey on a mission.

The 22-year-old Ocala native and current Sovereign Award winner in Canada for Outstanding Apprentice Jockey is amongst the leading jockeys at two thoroughbred tracks located north of the border in Ontario.

Due to the cold weather in Canada, jockeys are not limited to 365 calendar days, as in the U.S. They only have to count race days toward their year-long apprentice. Vives’ apprentice status ended on Aug. 25 upon reaching the days limit, finishing with 65 apprentice wins on the year.

In 2023, she won 100 races (88 at Woodbine) in Canada, finishing fourth in the jockey standings amidst a very competitive Woodbine riding colony, which opened a lot of eyes in the Great White North.

As of late August, she was in third in the 2024 Woodbine jockey standings behind Sahin Civaci and Rafael Hernandez and fourth at Fort Erie Racetrack.

Born in South Carolina, her parents moved to Ocala when she was six weeks old and she has been an animal lover since she was a little girl.

Leaning up against a ledge on a rainy Friday morning in the Woodbine Racing Office, the West Port High School graduate lights up when she talks about her days showing livestock around the country.

“Growing up I showed sheep, cows and goats through 4H,” Vives said. “I was always traveling all over the States showing livestock.”

One of her livestock shows was in Louisville at the Exposition Center just a mile away from Churchill Downs, a place where she hopes to ride someday in a certain race on the First Saturday of May.

She got on her first horse when she was 10 years old.

“We had some horses that we pinhooked, we bought them as babies and would sell them as 2-year-olds at the sales and try to run some of them,” she said. “I would try to get on those and shortly after that, we bought a pony. I would get on the pony and try to learn how to pony racehorses.”

Her father Lazaro, a former jockey who worked for 20 years for dual Hall of Fame trainer Mark Casse on his farm in Ocala, taught her how to ride horses and is still her go-to for advice.

“Eventually when I graduated high school, Mark gave me the opportunity to learn and my dad was still working at the farm. There are so many riders there and there is so many things you can learn from, but any questions I had, even to this day I’d go right to my dad.”

On Travers Day, The Florida Horse Magazine caught up with Mark and Tina Casse in the winner’s circle in Saratoga after Mark’s horse won an undercard race on the big card.

Their faces beamed when asked about Vives and her journey to become a top rider. They bragged how she won the opening race on King’s Plate day at Woodbine the day before for them on an 11-1 shot.

“When we met her, she was a baby. Her mom and dad worked for us before she was born,” Mark Casse said.

The bond they made with her was well before she ever mounted a race horse.

“We used to go to birthday parties, because our farm manager’s daughter was born on the same day as our son, so they all had birthday parties together,” Tina Casse chimed in. “We bought her a sheep one time, that was one of the sheep that she showed in competitions.”

The road to becoming an award-winning jockey wasn’t always a smooth one. Casse had to embark on some tough love with the girl who is like family to them.

“She really struggled in the beginning. I wasn’t sure she was going to make it,” Mark said. “If the horse sneezed she would jump off. And that’s not her, she is tough.”

He convinced her to spend time at Tina’s performance training center back in Ocala.

“One day, I said you know either you got to do this or you’re not going to do it and from that point on she’s been strong. We challenged her. We sent her places, and I’d say you’re not ready. She came to Saratoga twice and South Florida.”

“Even after she won her first four races I said, ‘Okay, come home to Ocala and my wife has a performance center where she came back to train. I wanted her to be stronger. I told her ‘you have to get stronger.’ And so she would go and work before she came to work. She’s a determined young lady,” Casse said.

She returned to Woodbine and started to get mounts not only from the Casse barn, but also from Josie Carroll, a no-nonsense trainer who is the first woman conditioner to win the Queen’s Plate—which she has won three times. Carroll noticed the difference in Vives after returning from the Casse training center.

“Sofia did not ride a lot for me last year, she rode a few and rode them well,” Carroll said. “Just watching her this year, she seemed to have matured and improved and got stronger on the horses.”

Carroll gave her the mount that gave Vives her first stakes win on April 27 on Sabatini, a Florida-bred filly, on Woodbine’s season opening day. Carroll proceeded to give her the mount on her first graded stakes victory aboard the same filly, when Vives piloted Sabatini to a win in the Grade 3 Serene on June 29.

“She’s a class act,” Vives said of the filly. “She comes in the paddock, she knows exactly when it’s game time. She’s quiet, calm, collected she does everything right.

“In the morning she’s very quiet, she doesn’t do anything wrong. She’s just a very classy horse. In the races, she can settle really good. You ask her to run and she gives you everything she has. She knows where the wire is. She knows how to win. I’m very fortunate to be able to have her as a mount to pick up the win in the beginning of the year with her. I can get many more win pictures with her.”

On Woodbine Oaks day on July 20, Vives won the Grade 2 Connaught Cup for trainer Donald MacRae aboard the 4-1 Cruden Bay, making a well-timed surge to get up for the victory in the shadow of the wire.

One race later, she doubled up to win the Oaks, one of the most prestigious races on the Woodbine racing calendar aboard Kin’s Concerto for Carroll.

Sitting in her office within Barn 39 on the Woodbine backstretch, Carroll complimented how Vives handled the daughter of Mendelssohn in the Oaks.

“It was a really big race. And with Kin’s Concerto’s race prior to the Oaks, [Vives] did a really good job of getting that filly to relax and make a run,” Carroll said. “That filly can be a little bit aggressive and she was able to get her off the bridle without fighting with her. She used really soft hands on her and the filly really responded, so she certainly deserved the mount in the Oaks.”

Vives knew her mount was sitting on a big race that day.

“I rode in the Connaught Cup right before, so I was already on top of the moon,” Vives said. “We came to the Oaks and I was very confident going into that race. Even weeks before setting up for it, we worked her a couple times and she did everything right. In the paddock, she was very professional.”

Vives’ racing calendar takes her up and down the Queen Elizabeth [high] Way every week. To supplement her riding at Woodbine, she travels down to Fort Erie Race Track to garner as many wins as she can.

Her typical weekly schedule is to ride Thursday through Sunday in Toronto and Monday and Tuesday at the border oval across the bridge from Buffalo, N.Y. Her Canadian-based agent, Jordan Miller, has provided her ample opportunities to ride for a wide array of trainers.

As of late August, she was fourth in ‘The Fort’s’ jockey standing with a healthy 28% win-rate. The three jockeys in front of her at Fort Erie have ridden in more than 40 more races than her during the current meeting.

Fort Erie Racetrack analyst Ashley Mailloux is one who has taken notice of Vives.

“This year she’s made Ontario her focus and it’s certainly been noticed by everyone—the owners, trainers, and those wagering, as she’s winning at a high percentage,” Mailloux said.

“I think my original impression of Sofia since I first saw her ride at Fort Erie was that she’s extremely focused and mature,” Mailloux continued. “I noticed it right away. Whether it’s heading to the track for a post parade or walking back to the jock’s room after a race, you can see that she’s ‘in the zone.’”

Mailloux, who did a stint as on-air handicapper for Gulfstream Park, is impressed with how Vives tries to learn from every mount.

“After a race, regardless of the result, you can find her watching the replay on the nearest TV. That says a lot about her as a rider—she’s concentrated on her job and wants to learn from each race. That goes for every single race, regardless of the level,” Mailloux said.

This trait corroborates how much a student of the game that Vives is. She credits Casse for instilling focus and discipline into her routine.

“The amount of lessons I’ve learned from him are numerous,” Vives said. “I’ve read a lot of his interviews about the track here, specifically the synthetic surface. I think being able to study that and see his perspective on it and then go out there and ride a race knowing that knowledge in the back of your mind is very useful.”

Riding on the synthetic surface at Woodbine is different from the dirt tracks in the U.S. and watching races and listening to Casse’s interviews has given her a leg up on her competitors.

“You know you get a day like today that is very rainy, you go out there and know exactly how the track is going to play before you step foot on it. Some people don’t look at it that way, but it is a big key in racing,” Vives said.

Breaking into any jockey colony and having instant success can be difficult. But veteran rider Emma-Jane Wilson has provided Vives with support in the jock’s room.

“She’s very helpful, anytime you ever have a question you can ask her and she’s going to lay out what you should’ve done different, what you did right, what you could have changed,” Vives said. “She’s rode for many years so being able to get her feedback is pretty rewarding because you get to see the mentality of an experienced rider whose rode all over.”

While Vives has enjoyed success with the five-pound weight break granted apprentices after they’ve won their first five races, she knows that now that her bug days are over, she’ll need to channel some of the qualities she’s gained from her mother, Maria.

“Hard work and just always trying to have a positive attitude,” Vives said of the values her mother provided her. “Not selling real estate in your mind to people’s ideas that don’t matter. Everybody here has an opinion, but none if it matters because none of them write your checks at the end of the day. None of them give you the horses to ride.”

That hard work has her poised to take on the world in the future. When asked where she thinks she’ll be in five years there was no hesitation.

“Saratoga. Churchill Downs. All the big races,” she said. “There’s a lot of jockeys you want to be like. Johnny Velazquez or Mike Smith, you hear the name and you know exactly who it is, whether you’re involved in horse racing or you’re not. I aspire to be somebody that when they say my name, someone outside of the sport knows exactly who it is.”

The 63-year-old dual Hall of Famer Casse, a 14-time Sovereign winner for Outstanding Trainer, wasn’t surprised by Vives’ aspirations in the least.

“Well, if she thinks it that’s good,” Casse said. “Right now, I want her to be the leading jockey at Woodbine after she loses her bug and then we’ll talk about Saratoga. It doesn’t surprise me at all. We’re her biggest fans. Well her mom and dad are her biggest fans, but we’re second,” he quipped.

She may not be a household name today, but mark it down, Vives is on her way.

Gene Kershner is the turf writer for The Buffalo News and a handicapper/columnist for the Daily Gazette in Schenectady, N.Y. He is a member of the National Turf Writers and Broadcasters Association and tweets on X @EquiSpace.