LRL: Jockey Madeline Rowland scores 100th win * The Racing Biz

It wasn’t that long ago that jockey Madeline Rowland was on the verge of cleaning up the house. Today she is glad she didn’t.

Rowland, 22, was all smiles after giving three-year-old Winning Trip just that at Laurel Park’s second race on Saturday. The resulting win was the 100^e of Rowland’s career.

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“I’m happy [about the milestone]but I didn’t really worry about it because it will happen,” Rowland said after winning for the first time in almost a month.

“She’s a good rider. She does everything well,” said winning trainer Michael Gorham. “She knows where to position them, and she’s a pretty smart rider, and obviously the horses run for her.”

Today, Rowland put Winning Trip in the hunt early, picking up the pace on the generally weak-hearted Bernie the Star. That wasn’t exactly the plan, she said.

“He broke so sharply, I think, with the outside post, no dirt hitting him, he felt free,” Rowland said. “But he did get enthusiastic and I didn’t want to keep a high pace with that horse [Bernie the Star] That [Tais Lyapustina] was on, is fast. So I thought, ‘Oh, I hope we’re not going too fast.’ But it all worked out.”

The winning Trip took command of the top half and looked clear for a moment, but Preacha Meyers’ preference soon loomed as a threat, sparking a roaring rally. The winning Trip had just enough in 1:25.29 to hold on for seven furlongs on a fast main track in 1:25.29.

“Perfect trip,” Gorham said. “He broke a little sharper than we actually wanted and tried to calm him down. That was the plan, but he had enough to finish it.”

Rowland’s first career start, in 2021, came aboard the Gorham-trained Joyce G, who finished seventh that day. But the pair were only occasionally connected until this year, when Rowland began riding more regularly at Gorham’s home base at Delaware Park.

Over the past five months, the duo has combined to win eight of the 24 starters (33%), with an ROI of over $4.20.

Between that first start and this recent run, things haven’t been so rosy for Rowland. Despite her youth, her career has already had its ups and downs, from a 56-win year at Tampa Bay Downs in 2022 to just a dozen wins, from 190 starts, in 2024. It was hard to get mountains, and she said she sometimes struggled with her weight.

“The further I got I found myself getting depressed,” Rowland told Monmouth Park’s publicity department. “I think it’s important for people to know that about jockeys. It can happen to anyone.”

But longtime local trainer Lizzie Merryman, who she described as her “horse mom,” intervened and encouraged her to persevere. She did, but with an important difference.

“A lot of jockeys go through ups and downs, even trainers, and it’s kind of your identity,” Rowland said. “At least I looked at being a jockey as my only identity. I took it so seriously, which it is serious, but it’s almost not that serious. I guess what I had to learn was just enjoy every journey, every journey, instead of worrying about how it’s going to go.”

It was important to re-establish her identity as more than a jockey. So did finding someone to put her on horses; she gallops to the Gorham barn in the morning and takes the occasional mountain run in the afternoon.

Her partnership with Gorham has given Rowland the lion’s share of her afternoon rides, wins and earnings in recent months. It is also, in a sense, a lifeline.

“When you’re going through the motions of this sport, you really want people like Mike to come to you, give you a chance, just believe in you,” Rowland explained. “You can be low, but if there’s someone to put you on those horses, you’ll get right back up.”