Racing
PJC - Racing into The Year of the Horse
With 2025 already done and dusted, and as we embrace the start of a New Year, let’s look back on the year that was for the Philippine Jockey Club, and what lies ahead for 2026.
How fitting is it that the newly born PJC will commence its first full year of operations in The Year of the Horse, that could not be a more positive omen for the fledgling race club.
After the many unforeseen delays in early 2025, the long wait for our Bayang Karerista was finally over when the jockey club opened its doors for trading on Wednesday November 12. Mendel Bell (Mendelssohn USA) and Ramon Raquel Jr, raced their way into the history books when they became the first winners on the new Padre Garcia circuit, with an easy win in a 3YO and Above Maiden over 1200 meters for trainer Donato Sordan and Bell Racing Farm.
The first week's racing was capped off with the Pearl Anniversary Celebrations of the Metropolitan Association of Racehorse Owners- Marho Championships, that seen Varatti (Into Mischief USA) destroy his opposition in the Eduardo Cojuangco Cup over 2000 meters for jockey Jeff Zarate, prominent owner Anthony James Rabano, and trainer Ramon Nartea.
Another betting record tumbled on December 28, when total sales for a seven-event program topped the P34,000,000 mark. That was indeed a thrilling days racing with California Chrome's half-brother Buzz Rocket (Curlin USA), producing the run of a lifetime to win the Philracom 3rd leg of the Imported-Local 3YO Challenge over 2000 meters, for jockey Oneal P Cortez, trainer Donato Sordan and racing partners Bell Racing and Eric Dela Rosa.
On the same day the former Singapore Guineas winner Ace Of Diamonds (Swiss Ace Aus) and Jonathan Hernandez won a hard-fought battle with Birchton (Maclean's Music USA) and A P Asuncion, in the Group 2 Cool Summer Farm Open Imported Stakes over 2000 meters, for owner Sandy Javier and resident trainer Edgardo Lumpay. And let's not forget Magellan, the impressive big chestnut son of Dance City (City Zip USA) who raced away with the Cool Summer Farm Juvenile Stakes Championships over 1400 meters, for owner Enrico San Andres and trainer Dante Salazar. These were just some of the highlights for the PJC in a small six weeks window of operations.
During the period from November 12 to December 28, the PJC conducted 16 Raceday's with a total of 906 horses starting in 126 individual races, with a total prizemoney of P72,500.000 paid out to industry participants, that included some very generous sponsorship.
Unfortunately, there has been a line of thinking that Padre Garcia and the PJC are there for the elite only, and, that it's hard to win a race at the track. However, that could not be further from the truth; of those 126 races, 58 individual owners won races at the Padre Garcia track. Yes, as expected the bigger stables with the superior numbers topped the list, that will always be the case, with Leyte Vice Governor Leonardo "Sandy" Javier Jr winning 14 races from his 95 runners, over Bell Racing who won 12 races from 44 runners; in short, they won around 20 % percent of the races. However, the other 80 % of the races run were won by 56 individual owners. James Anthony Rabano finished in third spot with 10 winners from 27 starters, and, with a remarkable strike rate of 37%.
It was encouraging to see that such a large group of owners were able to share in the spoils, and proved that the Padre Garcia track is there with fairness to all, with horses winning from on-speed running positions as well as back in the run. The back-markers especially seemed to relish the sweeping cambered turns, that launched them into the home stretch and onto victory.
Pabz Cabalejo and Jonathan Hernandez, shared the riding honors at Padre Garcia winning twelve races each, with Mark Alvarez and Jomer Estorque next best on seven wins a piece. Trainer Donato Sordan had a real feast for the last two months of the year, leading in sixteen winners to take training honors over Ramon Nartea on ten wins, with Raymundo Mongaya in third spot on eight.
From the 126 races held over the 16 race days to the end of December, the gross betting turnover totaled P419,346,361 pesos; that's an extraordinary number of sales, given that the PJC had only been operating for such a short while, and had numerous teething problems and countless setbacks in the first month. And yet, still achieved all this, with a very small population of racing horses.
Government DST and Tax on Winnings on a rule of thumb on gross turnover, is on average around 10%; that's a healthy return of around P41,000,000 in revenue paid to the government, for the benefit of the community on a whole. Not bad at all for a new kid on the block. Add to that, the great boost in employment to the local Padre Garcia-Lipa City community and the surrounding districts; with initially hundreds of construction jobs filled in the building of the racetrack, stables and amenities. Then followed the large number of stable staff employed as the horse population moved in and began to grow, along with support industries like the feed and grain suppliers, plus veterinary care and farriers, and the list goes on. And now that the club is up and running, the hundreds of OTB operators, the raceday administration officials and staff and raceday suppliers, many sourced from the local community, that are benefitting from the rise of the new racetrack.
In another first for Philippine racing, the PJC introduced the mandatory wearing of international standard safety helmets and body protectors for starting gate attendants, along with the trial placement of false rails in use on raceday for the added safety of horse and rider.
With over 150 young horses already stabled at Padre Garcia set to grace the racetrack in the coming months, and many more owners already committed to buying more horses this year, the future potential growth for the PJC racing certainly looks bountiful.
In the coming year, more OTB centers will be put into place, and with the easy withdrawal facilities that our Fastbet payment gateway offers, online betting sales are expected to grow significantly.
Our raceday production team have done an amazing job in such a short space of time, bringing our Bayang Karerista world class racing presentations of all the action from the track, with even bigger and bolder plans to expand in the future, to treat racegoers to a racing experience like none other seen before in the Philippines.
For the first time ever, Philippines horse racing is receiving regular international exposure in the Asian section of Racing and Sports Australia, the most widely read racing and form data publication in the Southern Hemisphere, that offers form data on all the major racetracks in the world, with the Philippine Jockey Club set to join their form data base in the first quarter of this year.
It's been a fabulous start for Asia's newest race club, that with its world class facilities at Padre Garcia, along with the classic bloodlines of the nation's racing and breeding stock, can fill the void left in Asian racing left by the closure of both the Singapore and Macau race clubs
As we gallop headlong into 2026 and The Year Of Horse, its full steam ahead for the PJC, so hop on board and come with us for the ride.
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