Robby Albarado

Robby J. Albarado (born September 11, 1973) is an American Thoroughbred horse racing jockey. He began riding at the age of 10 and progressed to riding at bush tracks in his native Louisiana by the age of 12. After turning professional, he earned his first official win at Evangeline Downs in 1990. Since then, he has won more than 5,000 races, but his career has endured setbacks as a result of serious injuries. During 1998 and 1999, he suffered two skull fractures, one of which required doctors to replace a damaged portion of his skull with titanium mesh and polymer plate. Another serious accident in the fall of 2000 kept him out of racing for the better part of 2001.

Albarado's father was a jockey at the bush tracks in Louisiana and Albarado grew up wanting to race horses. "It's my earliest memory, maybe when I was four, five, six years old," he said in 2007. "I started with basics: cleaning stalls, walking horses and doing whatever it took to be close to it. Eventually I graduated to galloping horses when I was 9, 10 years old. From that point on it's all I wanted to do."

Albarado first began to ride at the age of 10, schooled by Shelton LeBlanc, a trainer in South Louisiana. Albarado began to ride at the Louisiana bush tracks at the age of 12 and turned professional at age 16.

Albarado is currently married to Paige Albarado, who works for Myracehorse.com as Midwest racing manager. They have a son. He was previously married to Kimber Albarado, with whom he had three children, two sons, and a daughter. He has twice been accused of minor domestic violence offenses, though the charges involving Kimber were subsequently dismissed.

Albarado scored his first career win on June 29, 1990 aboard One Little Point at Evangeline Downs. His first stakes win came in 1993 with Tuck's Honey Bear at Louisiana Downs in the Grady Madden Memorial. In 1995, he earned his first graded stakes win aboard Snake Eyes in the Stars and Stripes at Arlington Park. His first Grade I victory came in the 1998 Turf Classic at Churchill Downs on Joyeux Danseur.

Albarado's career experienced a major setback when he suffered skull fractures in both 1998 and 1999, requiring surgery where a portion of his skull was replaced with a titanium mesh and polymer plate. He was sidelined for most of 2001 after a fall in late 2000.

In 2003, he received his big break when he got the mount aboard Mineshaft, who scored four grade I wins including the Jockey Club Gold Cup on his way to winning the Eclipse Award for Horse of the Year. In 2005, the pair were inducted into the Fair Grounds Racing Hall of Fame. At the time of his induction, Albarado had won a record seven riding titles at the race course.

Albarado was voted the winner of the 2004 George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award. That year, on December 8, he picked up his 3,000th career win aboard Isle of Silver in the Fair Grounds Race Course in New Orleans.