Trainer Duarte stricken with coronavirus

by Frank Vespe | Mar 27, 2020 | Breaking, Business, New Jersey, NJ Business, Top Stories

Jorge Duarte in a picture posted on his Twitter account.

Midlantic trainer Jorge Duarte is among the more than 85,000 Americans suffering from COVID-19, the novel coronavirus, he revealed on Twitter Thursday, March 26.

“Day 8 with #COVID19 hasn’t been easy and not out of the woods yet,” he wrote, captioning a picture of him giving a thumbs-up in what the tweet location indicates is the Monmouth Medical Center, in Long Branch, NJ. “Keep praying I can get over this strong virus.”

Duarte is not the only person involved in racing to be stricken with the virus. A half-dozen or more backstretch workers at Belmont Park have tested positive for the coronavirus, as has Hall of Fame jockey Javier Castellano, though at the time of his test he was reportedly asymptomatic.

Day 8 with the #COVID19 hasn’t been easy and not out of the woods yet keep praying I can get over this strong virus !#GodBlessYouAll pic.twitter.com/RGKN2la4WM
— Jorge Ivan Duarte (@JorgeDuarteCNS) March 26, 2020

Duarte’s first full year as the trainer for Colts Neck Stables, based in New Jersey, was 2019. He won 35 of 195 starts last year (18%) while generating over $1.7 million in purse earnings. He replaced the retired Alan Goldberg.

Among the top horses he sent out last year were the mare Goldwood, who won five stakes from seven starts; and Big City Bob, the then-two-year-old colt who won Monmouth’s Sapling Stakes before finishing third in the Grade 1 Champagne, which went to leading three-year-old Tiz the Law.

Duarte, who is in his mid-30s, began his racing career as a jockey, winning 424 races while generating purse earnings just shy of $8 million between 2000 and 2010. He began with Colts Neck, owned by Richard Santulli, as an assistant trainer four years prior to his elevation to the head job.

While New York has been the state hardest hit by the coronavirus, with nearly 40,000 cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control, Duarte’s home of New Jersey is second in the nation with nearly 7,000 cases. More than 1,200 Americans have died from the coronavirus.