Joe,

JJ is certainly on that path but I'm not quite ready to annoint him yet. He needs to establish his dominance for several years and win a fair number of triple crown and BC races.

I wish Ramon was not forced to hang up his tack so early as they would have made great rivals down the road in the big races. JJ's a bit cursed to be riding in by far the weakest jockey colony nation wide in my 40 years in the game. Bejarano has his moments and the Ortiz brothers are on the right path but he has very little competion from any real top level riders. Johnny V. had his day and is riding wider than ever since his last injury;IMHO he is the most overrated jockey ever.
He made his name on juiced up Pletcher babies bolting out of the gate or million dollar Cadillacs that he could swoop the group from the 4 and 5 path whenever he wanted to.

Those of us who played from the mid 70's to late 90's were spoiled by an abundance of great riders in the east, west and midwest. Cordero, Jorge Velasquez, Santos, Smith, Chavez, Bailey, Antley, Shoe, Pincay, McCarron,Stevens, Delahoussaye, Desormeaux, P Val, Day, Romero & Perret. The Cali jock colony during that time would routinely field races with hall of fame jocks on every horse.

Good luck,

Frank D.