Jonathan Thomas’ splashy arrival at Santa Anita and Del Mar in the past year marks the latest stop on a career path that hasn’t always gone the way he planned.
Thomas planned a long career as a steeplechase jockey and was off to a good start when it all crashed to a halt. In a 2¼-mile race at Colonial Downs in Virginia in October 2000, Thomas’ mount, Darn Tipalarm, fell after the last hurdle. The horse was OK; the rider was not.
“It was a very run-of-the-mill fall, (the kind) I’d jumped up and walked away from multiple times,” Thomas, 44, said this week. “But on that particular day, I didn’t. I just landed wrong.”
A compression fracture, affecting his spinal cord, rendered Thomas effectively paraplegic for a year. He regained the ability to walk, just not the strength to compete in races as well as he wanted.
The injury left Thomas with a hitch in his stride that some people tell him is a limp and others say is a “strut.” That, and it turned a very good jockey into a potentially outstanding trainer.
While many fans were still figuring out who this newcomer was, Thomas saddled three graded stakes winners in one week at Del Mar last fall with the 4-year-old filly Mrs. Astor and jockey Vincent Cheminaud scoring an upset in the Grade III Red Carpet Stakes on Nov. 24 (paying $11.60); Truly Quality rallying with Cheminaud in the Grade II Hollywood Turf Cup on Nov. 29 ($5.20); and the 2-year-old filly Will Then and Cheminaud shocking the field in the Grade III Jimmy Durante Stakes on Nov. 30 ($23).
At Santa Anita this winter, Thomas has added Mrs. Astor’s photo-finish win with Frankie Dettori in the Grade III Robert J. Frankel Stakes on Dec. 27 ($13) and the 4-year-old filly Rashmi’s win with Dettori in the Grade III Megahertz Stakes at Santa Anita on Feb. 1 ($5.80).
All of those horses were bred and owned by George Strawbridge Jr.’s Augustin Stables, and all ran on turf.
You’d think going through a serious injury prepared him for the ups and downs of a sport where even great jockeys and trainers lose three-quarters of the time, where a trainer can experience what Thomas did at Santa Anita last weekend: On Saturday, the disappointment of Truly Quality and Cheminaud finishing sixth as an 11-10 favorite in the Grade III San Marcos Stakes. On Sunday, the joy of the 3-year-old filly As Catch Can and Umberto Rispli running second at 12-1 to Casalu in the Sweet Life Stakes.
But Thomas says what prepared him for ups and downs was being raised with a view of racing’s extremes.
Thomas grew up on Rokeby Farm in Virginia, where his grandparents had worked for Paul Mellon, the Mellon Bank heir and renowned thoroughbred breeder and owner (Sea Hero’s victory in the 1993 Kentucky Derby, when Mellon was 85, made him the only owner to win the biggest races in Britain, France and the United States).
Thomas’ parents, J.D. and Melissa Thomas, trained horses that ran in the often cheap races at Charlestown.
“I got to see both things,” Thomas said.
After working as an assistant to trainers Christophe Clement and Todd Pletcher, Thomas opened his own barn and quickly got attention with Catholic Boy, the 2018 Travers Stakes winner at Saratoga.
He considers his strength to be “hands-on” training, developing horses and keeping them sound.
He also shows an unsurpassed knack for choosing the best places to ship horses.
“We’re just a cut below the top trainers as far as horse talent, so we’ve got to try to be opportunistic and travel for races that make sense for our particular group of horses,” Thomas said.
People assume Thomas has a larger stable than he does because his horses show up in so many places. In 2024, while his horse count peaked at 32, he won races at 15 tracks in 10 states plus Canada. It was his eighth year in a row winning 20% or more of his starts, and he’s at 20% (four wins from 20 starts) at the current Santa Anita meet.
Fewer top trainers have been sending horses to California as the state has fallen behind states whose purses are supplemented by other gambling revenue. But Thomas saw an opening for his turf-oriented barn to race on grass year-round.
“It’s not growing. You could say it’s going backward. But there’s still quite a bit of prestige to winning some of these races in California,” said Thomas, mindful that graded stakes victories enhance the value of Strawbridge’s mares.
“I think it’s the best place in America to winter a horse. I like it better than Florida. There’s a reason so many good horses were developed here over the decades. There’s a reason so many Hall of Fame trainers and riders are (here).”
After beginning to send horses to California in the winter of 2023-24, Thomas now has all 23 of his horses and a staff of 11 at Santa Anita. Thomas’ wife, Emily, and 2½-year-old son, Jack, live in Lexington, Ky., while he rents in Arcadia. This week, Thomas escaped the Southern California rain to have a short family vacation in Florida.
Continued success, he said, will depend on trying to “restock 2-year-olds” at 2025 auctions and staying alert to opportunities elsewhere.
“We’re going to go where it best suits our horses (and) serves our clients,” Thomas said.
If anyone can find the right path, he can.
Follow horse racing correspondent Kevin Modesti at X.com/KevinModesti.