TAMPA, Fla. — Charlie Marquez is the third-generation jockey in his family.
“It has been in my family forever,” he said. “My grandfather was a jockey, my dad was a jockey, my mom worked at the race track as well.”
The 23-year-old Maryland native was born into the sport.
“I’ve dedicated myself to riding. I left high school in 11th grade to pursue it. It’s all I know. I couldn’t see myself doing anything else,” Marquez said.
Tampa Bay Downs, which is celebrating 100 years of racing this season, is operating at Marquez’s home base. He is a rising star in the sport, scoring his first win in 2020.
His ‘Win, Place, Show' percentage is a very strong 36 percent, and his career purse earnings exceed $12 million.
“I was doing super-well at the time,” he said. “Things were clicking for me. I had a down.”
There’s an old expression: "If you fall off the horse, you get right back on." It’s one that Marquez knows well after he took a violent spill in 2024 during a race in New Jersey.
“It was more of a freak accident,” he said. “You don’t see horses jump the inside rail too often. The horse might have seen something and made the jump.”
Marquez had four broken vertebrae, L1 through L4, and dislocated his L2 and L3. He was out for recovery for 15 months.
Now, he’s looking to reconstruct his career at Tampa Bay Downs.
“Things are looking up. I’m riding good horses again,” he said. “I’m trying to get back to where I was. My father always says, ‘Ride the way I do, and opportunities will come right back.’”
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