For the first time in his career, jockey Flavien Prat ranked atop the national standings, with earnings of more than $37.27 million for 2024. He finished his season Sunday with a record 82 stakes wins, including 56 graded stakes, also a record.
Starting Wednesday, with the turn of the calendar, Prat’s task is to repeat all of those accomplishments, if possible.
“It’s scary, right?” he said after winning Sunday’s first race at Santa Anita. “Everything goes back to zero.
“I’ve got to do it again. It’s challenging.”
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Prat, widely considered the strong favorite to win the Eclipse Award as the nation’s outstanding jockey of 2024, had 230 wins in 2024. He won more races in 2021 and 2022, but did not surpass the $30 million mark until this year.
Prat, 32, had a sharp start in 2024, highlighted by four stakes wins last January, including the $3 million Pegasus World Cup at Gulfstream Park aboard National Treasure.
“It’s started well and I never had a period where it slowed down,” Prat said. “That was the key, I think.
“We won the Pegasus and that was a fresh start. It sent me in the right direction after that.”
The success of 2024 was years in the making. Prat was the standout rider in Southern California in the late 2010s and earlier this decade, earning leading rider accolades at the Santa Anita winter-spring meeting annually from 2016-17 through 2020-2021. He led the standings at the Santa Anita autumn meeting from 2018 to 2021 and won the riding title at the Del Mar summer meeting five times in a six-year span from 2016 to 2021.
In the spring of 2022, Prat, working with his agent, Brad Pegram, changed his itinerary. He left California to ride at Keeneland and Churchill Downs in the spring, and rode New York in the spring, summer, and early fall before returning to California in November.
“When I moved East, I hoped to get more business on the East Coast as well,” he said. “In the back of my mind, I gave it five years.
“I said, ‘I’ll give it five years’ and I thought after three years I’d know if I’m going in the right direction. As of right now, I’m very grateful it’s going in the right direction.”
Last summer, Prat finished second by victories in the jockey standings at the prestigious Saratoga meeting, winning 45 races, seven fewer than Irad Ortiz Jr. Prat’s mounts earned more than $6.6 million, leading all riders.
Prat won 18 stakes at the Saratoga summer meeting in 2024, including 14 graded stakes, compared to five stakes, all graded, in 2023. In November at Del Mar, Prat won the $7 million Breeders’ Cup Classic for the first time, aboard Sierra Leone.
“The Pegasus was important,” he said, reflecting on the entirety of 2024. “Saratoga was very good as well. To finish with the Classic, the year was good throughout.”
Prat surpassed retired Hall of Fame jockey Jerry Bailey’s record for most graded stakes win in a year when he won the Grade 2 Mathis Mile on Dec. 26 at Santa Anita. Earlier in December, Prat broke Ortiz’s 2022 record of 79 stakes win in a year. Prat’s 82nd stakes win was aboard Artislas in Sunday’s Eddie Logan Stakes at Santa Anita.
In 2025, Prat is expected to reach 2,000 wins in North America. Through Sunday, he had 1,867 victories in this country. A native of France, Prat rode in the winters in California from 2009 to 2014, and in France for the rest of the year, before moving to California on a full-time basis for the 2015 season.
From an earnings perspective, the last three years have been the best of his career, a reflection of not only his success but also more racing days and far better prize money in Kentucky and New York than California.
In 2022, Prat’s mounts earned a then career-best $29.7 million. The figure reached $26.7 million in 2023 before this year’s milestone season.
On Sunday, Prat said he thinks he can accomplish more.
“I do feel like there is a lot more to improve in my riding skill and my judgment,” he said. “I’ve never felt it’s good enough.”
The key, he said, is better split-second decisions during a given race.
“I try, basically, for less mistakes,” he said.
On Wednesday’s modest New Year’s Day program at Santa Anita, Prat has five mounts in the nine-race card. His first chances for a stakes win will be over the weekend at Santa Anita.
Prat will be well into the late summer before he will know if the 2025 season can reasonably be compared to 2024.
“I’ll have to do it all over,” he said. “I’ll focus on what I’ve been doing and hopefully keep some momentum.”
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