Rajiv Maragh didn’t hide his emotion when he returned to the Gulfstream Park winner’s circle last season. There was a quiet, heartfelt moment as he pressed a hand to his chest, eyes lifted briefly toward the grandstand — a gesture that said more than any celebration could. For a man who insists this is not a comeback, the warmth of the crowd told another story. This Rajiv Maragh comeback chapter feels deeply personal.
Maragh, now 40, had walked away from riding a few years ago with a lingering ache: he was still short of his 2000th career victory. That unfinished business sat quietly in the background as he built a successful food-delivery enterprise, Road Jockey, back home in Jamaica. Only once that project stood firmly on its own did the veteran rider circle back to the saddle.
“I didn’t technically retire,” Maragh said, explaining the decision that pulled him away from the only lifestyle he’d ever known. “I wanted to diversify myself. I’d given everything to horseracing since I was a youth.” Now just four wins from that landmark 2000th score, he wheels back into the rhythm of competition with grateful clarity.
His two years away were devoted entirely to business. “I had to disconnect,” he said. “It was bittersweet because I was winning a lot of races. But that was the right moment.”
The recent devastation of Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica has temporarily halted Road Jockey’s operations, a sobering reminder that home responsibilities continue to shape his life as much as racing does. “Right now, the priority is the people affected,” he said. “The business is secondary.”
Racing wasn’t on his radar when he took his family on a long-overdue holiday to Saratoga. But a single on-air appearance on the NYRA television broadcast shifted everything. “It started tickling my brain,” he said. “Watching riders on TV gave me a new perspective — the holes I could fix, the awareness I didn’t have when I was in the heat of it.”
He eventually chose Florida over New York to reboot his riding career. “I might not be in the limelight like before, but this is the best version of me,” Maragh said, crediting maturity and sharper self-assessment for his renewed form.
The results back him up. After returning last year, he collected nine wins during the Championship Meet, followed by 38 during the Royal Palm Meet, and has added 10 more at the ongoing Sunshine Meet. His first victory back — aboard Dundie for his father, trainer Collin — opened the emotional floodgates. “It was a collage of everything,” he said. “The ups, the downs… everything you sacrifice.”
He still recalls the beginning: his first victory in 2004 at Tampa Bay Downs aboard Pricedale Kid. “I wasn’t even the listed rider,” he laughed. A twist of morning-luck put him in the saddle, and he won his first two career races on the same horse.
Maragh’s résumé reads like a roll call of elite runners. Main Sequence remains the standout. “One of the most phenomenal horses I’ve ever ridden,” he said. Their 2014 Grade 1 streak — United Nations, Sword Dancer, Joe Hirsch Turf Classic — remains career-defining. A broken arm kept him out of the Breeders’ Cup, but he remembers how the Motion stable embraced him even from the sidelines.
He later reunited with Main Sequence in winning the 2015 Mac Diarmida.
But no winner sits closer to his heart than Lilah — his first graded-stakes heroine and namesake for his daughter. “My wife and I always knew,” he said. “If we ever had a daughter, she’d be Lilah.”
He also guided Groupie Doll to back-to-back Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint victories, helping elevate an underdog story into an Eclipse Award chapter. “It was a true underdog tale — a homebred, a smaller stable, and me, a kid from Jamaica trying to make it.”
Caleb’s Posse added another major highlight with a relief-filled Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile win in 2011.
Though he dreams of returning to racing’s biggest stages, family comes first. “I want to ride the biggest races in the world, all of them. But right now, that’s not realistic.”
For now, Gulfstream Park is home — and the march toward 2000 continues, fueled not by a comeback narrative but by rediscovered joy.
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