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Writer's pictureDerek Headley

Jockey Rocco Bowen impressively shaves the rail at Thistledown Racetrack.

Updated: Jun 14

Over the past several months I have been reviewing the movement of jockey Rocco Bowen and witnessing the determination of him to complete his riding goals. There is no argument surrounding his work ethic in horse racing and as you saw in the past, he has traveled to several different tracks in his search for greatness as a jockey.


Some of the tracks which Rocco Bowen rode this year have included Oaklawn Park, Belterra park, Prairie Meadows, Thistledown, Churchill Downs and the Garrison Savannah in Barbados.







It was on that quiet Sunday afternoon in Barbados when Rocco Bowen call me up while I was in Barbados and invited me on a fishing trip with him. This wasn't the fishing trip for the weak hearts who may have thought that it was going to be a photo up. This trip was raw and authentic and gave the jock some time to think quietly while we caught tuna of the west coast in Barbados. As we looked upon the bright sandy beaches from deep into the ocean, Bowen said to me that he was going to Churchill Downs with the filly. When jocks tell you the "filly" without a name attached, I was supposed to know the name. My brain chased every memory cell very quickly like an AI command in a google data and I found out exactly who he spoke of.


All things Go was the name of the filly.


Three times ridden and on every trip All Things go was piloted by Rocco Bowen. All things go won with her first time in the gates at Oaklawn park. She had some tough company afterwards in her next race, the grade 2 Fantasy at Oaklawn park and finished 4th. After some flirtation with the idea of the Kentucky Oaks, the connections to this horse landed her in the grade 2 Eight Belles stakes at Churchill Downs and with the heavy rains and the slop she didn't finished too well and finished10th from a 11 horse field.




Last year we saw Bowen ride at Emerald Downs on weekends which was always a delight for me. This year in 2024 Bowen we haven't seen him make that west coast trip across the country, as yet.




Recently Bowen teamed up with trainer Timothy Hamm in the best of Ohio Green Carpet stakes for horses three years and old foaled in Ohio at Belterra Park. In that race Bowen rode Spellcast, and won. Spellcast has now won three races from six of them and finished out of the money only one time and that was at Mahoning Valley in the Howard Noonan stakes ran at six furlongs.




So far at half the year, Bowen has won only one stake race but he remains hopeful ,for the coming months ahead.



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