Boulanger, Hernandez score first career wins

Chance Boulanger was all smiles following his first career victory (John Engelhardt/Pat Lang Photography)

Apprentice jockey Brandon Chance Boulanger, 20, scored his
first career victory when he rocketed to the lead on Swaylon Braylon in the

4TH race at Turfway Park and hit the wire nine lengths the best. The win came with his 30th mount,
and he also has four seconds
and three thirds.

“It feels amazing to win,” Boulanger said. “I thought I had it once before,
when I got my first second. I came up on (jockey Tommy) Pompell and my horse was
really gunning for me, but we got beat in a photo finish, by the hair of a
nostril.”

Born in San Ramon, California, Boulanger is the son of jockey
Gary Boulanger and former jockey Julie Griffith and the sister of former jockey
Alexa Boulanger. He grew up in Florida, first in Hollywood and then, after his
parents divorced, in the West Palm Beach area. He and his sister received ponies
on his third Christmas and he has been on horseback ever since. His sister, two
years older, also taught him early lessons about racing competition.

“My mom taught me how to ride. My sister and I used to
gallop around the tomato fields. I was four years old and I had this little
palomino pony. She would try to push me off of it,” Boulanger laughed.

Boulanger began riding racehorses at 18, preparing
youngsters for the Ocala Breeders’ Sales at both his dad’s farm in Ocala and at
the OBS facility. After the sales he worked at Keith Asmussen’s farm in Laredo,
Texas, again breaking babies. He returned to Florida in the fall of last year,
worked as an exercise rider at Calder, and took out his jockey’s license on November
11. He moved his tack to Turfway in mid-December.

“I never thought of doing anything else,” Boulanger said. “I had the size, I was a small kid. I played sports
— hockey, football, a little bit of polo. I learned to have fun with horses.”

Friday’s 4TH race was his first official win as a
Thoroughbred jockey but it was not the first race he ever won. That came in
Alpine, Texas, riding a polo pony on the farm of Al Micallef

Courtney Hernandez was congratulated by her fellow riders after capturing her first career win (Delta Downs/Coady Photography)

Boulanger plans to leave Turfway on Tuesday for Emerald
Downs in Washington state, building on relationships his dad established there
in his three years as leading rider.

On Delta Downs’ Friday night program, jockey Courtney Hernandez
scored her first career win in the saddle as her mount Mission
to Collect finished in a dead-heat with Xstream Heart in the
4TH race, a
$5,000 claimer for older fillies and mares.

The 20-year-old Hernandez hails from a family of jockeys as
her father, Brian Hernandez, has been a mainstay on the Louisiana circuit for
years; her brother Brian Hernandez Jr. won the Eclipse Award for top apprentice
jockey in 2004 and captured the Breeders’ Cup Classic with Fort Larned in 2012;
and her brother Colby Hernandez rides at Delta Downs and even reached the
1,000-win plateau for his career last Saturday.