Jockey Christian Santiago Reyes will appeal a 10-day suspension for causing interference in a race that led to another rider being unseated at Del Mar on Aug. 29, Reyes’s attorney, Bing Bush, said on Thursday.
The appeal means that Reyes, the champion apprentice jockey of 2009, has 28 days of suspensions accrued since mid-May that are in various stages of appeal.
The 10-day suspension was issued on Wednesday by Del Mar stewards Scott Chaney, Kim Sawyer, and Tom Ward for Reyes’s role in the third race on Aug. 29. Reyes was cited for crossing over without sufficient clearance on the backstretch of a six-furlong maiden race, causing Rafael Bejarano to be unseated from Wallstreeter.
Reyes, who turned 21 on Wednesday, finished fourth on Free Range, but his mount was disqualified and placed last.
Bush said on Thursday that he has requested a stay of Reyes’s recent suspension from the California Horse Racing Board, so the jockey can have an appeal heard.
The suspension is Reyes’s most recent of four time penalties since May.
On May 13, Reyes was given a 10-day suspension for appearing to grab the reins of a rival jockey as a field neared the finish line of a race at Hollywood Park on May 12. On May 20, Reyes was given a three-day suspension for failing to keep a straight course in the fourth race at Hollywood Park on May 19.
Those appeals have been heard by an administrative law judge, who is expected to present his findings to the racing board on Sept. 22, Bush said.
Bush said that Reyes has received a stay of a five-day suspension issued by Del Mar stewards on Aug. 28 for causing interference in the eighth race on Aug. 27.
Through Wednesday, Reyes was tied for seventh in the jockey’s standings of the Del Mar meeting with 12 wins.
