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Thumb_hersh Marcus Hersh , Indiana Grand , 10/02/2018 - DRF Live Posted : Oct 2, 2018, 6:19 PM

Indiana Grand: Contreras, Esquivel, sweep Tuesday stakes with Expect Indy, Operation Stevie

When Manny Esquivel was a teenager growing up in Cicero, Illinois after his family emigrated from Estepec, Mexico it was his uncle, Cipriano Contreras, who took him under his wing at the track. Esquivel’s father found work as a groom at Hawthorne Racecourse, where Contreras was the assistant to the successful trainer Mike Reavis. Contreras was a tough master, but he helped Esquivel become a jockey.

“He’s been a really big part of my career. He taught me everything I know,” Esquivel said late Tuesday afternoon from the winner’s circle at Indiana Grand.

It was a family reunion -a lucrative one, too - -at Indiana.

Contreras left Reavis’s employ in 2016 and went out on his own, setting up shop principally in Indiana. Esquivel the same year moved his tack from Chicago to Parx Racing, where he has ridden steadily the last three calendar years. Tuesday, Contreras brought Esquivel in to ride his horses in a pair of six-figure stakes restricted to Indiana-bred and -sired horses: Both won.

Expect Indy led nearly all the way capturing the $105,100 Richmond Stakes, and Operation Steve came back a race later to win the $106,000 Gus Grissom Stakes.

The Richmond was uneventful. Expect Indy broke sharply from the rail, raced alongside Bar Rag through a quarter-mile in 23.84 and a half in 47.14, put her pace rival away into the far turn, opened a clear lead and won easily, coasting home 3 ¾ lengths in front of runner-up Hay Little Bit. Express Run, the 4-5 favorite, finished three-quarters of a length farther back in third. Expect Indy, a 5-year-old mare by Mr. Mabee out of Jet n’Expectations, by Valid Expectations, ran 1 1/16 miles in 1:43.93 and paid $6.60. Expect Indy, who races for the Gumpster Stable, won for the eighth time in 28 starts.

Operation Stevie is a one-run closer who needs a fair pace for his best chance – and boy did he get one in the Gus Grissom. The leaders tore through a quarter-mile in 22.96 and a half in 45.88, at which point Operation Stevie already had begun moving up from the back of the field. But Esquivel was forced to make an inside run and for 50 yards or so had to sit helplessly as the tiring speed blocked his path.

“I got into trouble at the three-eighths – they backed up in my face,” he said.

But Operation Stevie was the 3-5 favorite here for a reason. Esquivel extricated his mount from trouble before the quarter-pole, steered outside, and Operation Stevie cut and ran for the wire, getting home by a neck. He was timed in 1:44.85 for the 1 1/16 miles and paid a pittance, $3.20. Uphold finished second, Here Comes Doc third.

Contreras owns Operation Stevie along with a veteran client from Chicago, Earl Trostrud, and Operation Stevie, a 6-year-old gelding by Lantana Mob out of Muktaddims Revenge, by Mutakkdim, has been a gold mine since being claimed for just $10,000 in May 2016. Operation Stevie has earned more than $230,000 this year alone to go with about $90,000 in 2017, and on Tuesday, Contreras invited his nephew out from Pennsylvania to keep some of it in the family.

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