HALLANDALE BEACH - Don’t call it a comeback.

    Rajiv Maragh stepped away from racing a few years ago knowing he was leaving some unfinished business – such as riding his 2000th winner.

    After making a successful foray into the world of business, the highly accomplished 40-year-old jockey picked up where he left off a year ago at Gulfstream Park.

    “I didn’t technically retire. I stepped away from horseracing to pursue other ventures – to diversify myself outside of horseracing,” said Maragh, who is just four wins away from No. 2000. “My career surpassed my wildest imagination – a career that I’m very grateful for. Since I was a youth, I was devoted only to horseracing, nothing outside of horseracing. It came to a point when I was getting close to my 40s. I wanted to go outside of horseracing.”

    Maragh built Road Jockey, a food delivery service, from the ground up in his native Jamaica, and only returned to riding when his business venture was fully established.

      “I committed two years to building Road Jockey and learning business. I had to completely knock off horseracing. I had to really disconnect. That way I could be fully focused,” he said. “It was bittersweet because I was winning a lot of races. It was a tough decision to make to step away from something that was going so well. But I always felt that that was the time to do it. I can’t wait too late. I can always come back to it.”

    Unfortunately, Road Jockey, which had signed on 5000 customers and 30,000 partner merchants, is not currently operating due to the devastation Hurricane Melissa left behind after ravaging Jamaica late last month.

    “My family is on the east coast (of Jamaica), most of my family and friends, so they were fortunate not to get the blunt force of it,” said Maragh, noting some partners and friends in Montego Bay, where Road Jockey was operating before a direct hit from the hurricane, were not as fortunate. “Right now, the focus is on the people there that were affected by the hurricane. The business is secondary at this point. It would be selfish to even think about that. “

TV Analysis Work ‘Started Tickling My Brain’

    Maragh had no immediate plans to return to race-riding when he vacationed in Saratoga with his family a few years ago.

    “I love Saratoga. I always want to be there. I hadn’t been there in a couple of years. I decided to go and visit with my family. During that time, I went on for one segment of the NYRA show on Fox. The producers liked how I performed,” Maragh said. “They said, ‘Hey, look, there’s an opportunity to do some stuff.’ At that time, riding wasn’t on my radar at all. I didn’t have the riding juices going. Horseracing was still an obsession of mine. That’s why I went there, but it wasn’t for riding."

    “Doing the show for a year, it started tickling my brain. When I was riding, I wasn’t able to assess my riding. I think there were some holes I could have filled if I was able to step away and see it from a third person. That’s what the TV gave me,” he added. “I was able to watch the jockeys, the greatest jockeys in the world. It really hit me: I had a stellar career. I had a lot of opportunities. I felt like if I came back to riding, I would be the best version of myself. I wanted to explore that.”

    When he decided the time was right to continue his riding career, Maragh opted to stay close to home, his wife Angelina, son Luka, 5, and daughter Lilah, 1, instead of returning to the New York circuit on which he experienced so many career highlights.

    “I feel like I’m the best version of myself as a jockey. I might not be in the limelight like when I was winning a lot of races at the top circuit. But this version of me is the optimal version,” he said. “I continue to work and try to plug in any holes. I’m so much better at assessing my mistakes, so it’s easier to correct them. My self-assessment is way better now than it was when I was winning the most races of my life.”

    After riding nine winners during the 2024-2025 Championship Meet, Maragh rode 38 winners during the Royal Palm Meet and has added 10 more winners during the current Sunshine Meet after notching a double last Saturday. Maragh reacquainted himself with the Gulfstream Park winner’s circle Dec. 5 on his eighth mount back, Dundie, a horse trained by his father Collin.

    “When I won my first race after this break, it was a collage of emotions that hit me after the race. The journey – the ups and downs…,” Maragh said.

    “We don’t have a career. We have a lifestyle,” he added. “That lifestyle is challenging. You make sacrifices to live that lifestyle. It’s rewarding and validating when you get the win.”

    Maragh recorded his first career win at Tampa Bay Downs Feb. 1, 2004 aboard Pricedale Kid, who captured a seven-furlong $7500 claiming race by 6 ¾ lengths.

    “I remember my first win like it was yesterday. It was on my ninth mount. I was in Tampa and I wasn’t the jockey listed to ride. In the morning, the rider who was supposed to ride didn’t show up. He was an apprentice, so I asked, ‘Please, let me ride this horse.’ He was a ripe candidate,” Maragh recalled. “Sure enough, I got the opportunity to ride him for Jesus Chavez, the trainer, and won my first race on him. Two weeks later, I won my second race on him. So, my first two wins were on Pricedale Kid.”

    Maragh would go on to ride many bigger names in many bigger races during his career.

Main Sequence ‘The Most Phenomenal Horse’

    Maragh has won 25 Grade 1 stakes, including Main Sequence’s 2014 triumphs in the United Nations, Sword Dancer and Joe Hirsch Turf Classic during the Graham Motion trainee’s Eclipse Award-winning season.

    “Main Sequence was one of the most phenomenal horses I’ve ever ridden or seen run,” Maragh said. “He had an amazing turn of foot. The first time riding him he won a Grade 1. It was surreal. It was his first time in America. Graham Motion was always high on the horse’s ability.

    “I won three big races in a row leading up to the Breeders’ Cup and I broke my arm and ended up missing out on the Breeders’ Cup. That was a tough moment for me,” Maragh added. “But they somehow made me feel like a part of it – Graham Motion, the owner, Flaxman, and even Johnny V [Velazquez], who picked up the mount.”

    Maragh reunited with Main Sequence directly following his victory in the Breeders’ Cup Turf (G1) at Santa Anita with Hall of Famer John Velazquez aboard, winning the 2015 Mac Diarmida (G2) at Gulfstream Park.

    No graded stakes-winner is closer to his heart, however, than Lilah, after whom he and his wife named their daughter.

    “She’s named after my first graded stakes-winner when I was an apprentice,” Maragh said. “My wife and I have been together for 20 years. We had just met when I was an apprentice and was riding Lilah. We said that if we had a daughter, we’d call her ‘Lilah.’”

    Hobeau Farm’s Lilah, who was trained by the late Hall of Famer Allen Jerkens, won the 2005 Hurricane Bertie by three lengths. Nine years later, Maragh would return to the Gulfstream winner’s circle following the Hurricane Bertie aboard Groupie Doll, who closed out her brilliant career with a seven-length victory. Maragh also rode the modestly bred daughter of Bowman’s Band for back-to-back victories in the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint (G1) at Santa Anita in 2012 and 2013 that earned the Buff Bradley-trained mare back-to-back Eclipse Awards as Champion Female Sprinter. She sold at auction for $3 million following her second Breeders’ Cup win.

    “The story with her was amazing. It was a true underdog story – a homebred from unsuccessful lineage; Buff Bradley, not the biggest mainstream trainer at the time; and myself, a kid from Jamaica trying to make it in the big game,” Maragh said.

    Before riding Groupie Doll to back-to-back Filly & Mare Sprint wins, Maragh broke through at the 2011 Breeders’ Cup at Churchill Downs aboard Caleb’s Posse in the Dirt Mile (G1).

    “My first Breeders’ Cup win on Caleb’s Posse was actually a relief because I had put so much pressure on myself to win a Breeders’ Cup. I had some great opportunities before that and it never materialized. I had seconds and thirds,” Maragh said. “He just ran an unbelievable race. When I crossed the wire, it was relief.”

    Maragh would like to return to Thoroughbred Racing’s biggest stage, but he is currently content to staying close to home and family while renewing his love for riding at Gulfstream Park.

    “I know what I want. I want to be the jockey riding the biggest races in the world, all of them. That’s my ultimate goal, but the challenge is what it takes to be there,” Maragh said. “Today, I’m not able to commit to that. That goal right now I can’t focus on. It’s not realistic.”