How Big Are Preakness Stakes Jockeys? (Height & Weight of 2025 Participants)

Key Takeaways:

• Often, Preakness Stakes are small in stature, usually falling somewhere around 5'4½" in height and 113 lbs in weight.
• In this year’s Preakness, Flavien Prat is the heaviest listed jockey at 116 lbs, and Luis Saez is the shortest and lightest at 5'2" and 111 lbs.
• Out of the 9 jockeys in the Preakness, three (Nik Juarez, Raul Mena, and Saffie Osborne) are making their Preakness debuts in 2025, with Osborne also making her U.S. riding debut.
• As of May 2025, 5 of the 10 highest-earning Jockeys are riding in this year’s Preakness.

The Preakness Stakes happens Saturday, May 18, at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Maryland. The race, run at a distance of 1 3/16 miles on the dirt, is the second jewel of the Triple Crown. The jockeys in the Preakness Stakes are some of the best in the sport, and most of them are familiar from the Kentucky Derby. Umberto Rispoli comes back after riding Journalism to a second-place finish as the favorite in the first jewel of the Triple Crown.

Though Rispoli is the only jockey in the Preakness who rides his Kentucky Derby mount two weeks later, Flavien Prat, Irad Ortiz, Jr., Jose Ortiz, and Luis Saez all come from the Kentucky Derby to the third Saturday in May. John Velazquez was named on Grande, but lost the chance to ride in the Derby when Grande was scratched.

There are also three jockeys making their first-ever starts in the Preakness Stakes. Those include Nik Juarez, Raul Mena, and Saffie Osborne. In fact, the Preakness will be Great Britain-based jockey Saffie Osborne’s first start in the United States.

One thing they all have in common, however, is that they are smaller than most professional athletes in other sports.

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Why Are Horse Racing Jockeys Smaller Than Most Athletes?

For a jockey, it is an advantage to have a smaller frame because a jockey has to be strong enough to control a racehorse running at full speed while still being light enough to make weight in a race and let the horse run at a competitive speed.

In the conditions of each horse race, jockeys are assigned a weight. If they weigh less than the assigned weight, then they have to add weight to their saddle or vest. However, if they weigh more than the assigned weight, the horse they are riding is at a disadvantage because they are carrying more than the other horses they are running against. Thus, to make a stable living as a professional jockey, a rider has to be light enough to ride at the range of weights commonly assigned to horses: in horse racing terms, to “make weight.”

The weight assignments in the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes, and Belmont Stakes are straightforward: 126 pounds for colts and geldings, 121 pounds for fillies. All of the horses in the 2025 Preakness Stakes will be carrying 126, as they are all colts. However, between the fact that the assigned weights include some of the riding equipment, as well as the fact that 126 is on the high side compared to other day-in, day-out races, the Preakness Stakes jockeys will all weigh considerably less than 126 pounds.

2025 Preakness Jockeys

These are the jockeys assigned to ride horses entered in the 2025 Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course. Five of the nine jockeys rode in the Kentucky Derby two weeks ago, while a sixth (John Velazquez) was entered to ride in the first jewel of the Triple Crown but did not after Grande was scratched.

Jockeys are listed in order of their horses’ post positions. We include heights and weights if they are publicly recorded through a reliable source, though not all jockeys make that information public.

2025 Preakness Jockey FAQ

These are answers to common questions that people have about jockeys in the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course and in horse racing all year long.

Who is the tallest jockey in the 2025 Preakness Stakes?

Not all of the jockeys in the Preakness have their heights publicly listed. Among the riders who have that information listed, Jose Ortiz is the tallest rider. He rides Clever Again, last-out winner of the Hot Springs Stakes, for trainer Steve Asmussen.

Who is the heaviest jockey in the 2025 Preakness Stakes?

Among the riders who have their weights publicly listed, Flavien Prat is the heaviest, at 116 pounds. He takes the call on rail-drawn Goal Oriented, who comes off of an allowance win on the Kentucky Derby undercard for trainer Bob Baffert. Prat rode him to that victory.

Who is the shortest jockey in the 2025 Preakness Stakes?

Among jockeys with officially-listed heights, Luis Saez is shortest at 5’2”. He takes the call on Gosger, who captured the Lexington Stakes (G3) at Keeneland in his most recent start. It will be Saez’s first time riding the Brendan Walsh trainee.

Who is the lightest jockey in the 2025 Preakness Stakes?

Among the riders in the middle jewel of the Triple Crown with officially listed information, Saez is not only the shortest but also the lightest, at 111 pounds.

How tall are jockeys?

The heights of jockeys vary significantly. Some jockeys can be slightly shorter or taller than this range, but you commonly see jockeys between 4 foot 10 and 5 foot 6. The average height of the riders with published heights in the 2025 Preakness Stakes is 5 foot 4 ½ inches.

How much do jockeys weigh?

Just as with heights, the weights of jockeys vary as well, though all regular jockeys are light enough to make weights not only for the Preakness, but in day-to-day maiden, allowance, and claiming races. Among the jockeys in the Preakness Stakes with published weights, the average is 113 pounds.

How much money do jockeys make?

What jockeys earn varies significantly based on how often they ride and what kinds of races they are riding. A jockey who rides regularly on a big-money circuit like Kentucky or New York will make significantly more prize money than a jockey who rides at a small track or on a fair circuit.

Typically, the jockeys in the Preakness Stakes will be among the top jockeys in the country, and, therefore, among the top-earning jockeys in the country. Most jockeys in the race are fixtures at the top of the sport: they ride regularly at the best tracks with the highest purses, and frequently have mounts in lucrative stakes races.

As of May 12, 2025, these are the top 10 North American jockeys by earnings. Typically, many of the top jockeys ride in Triple Crown races, and five of these top ten have mounts in the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course.

Another one of these top ten riders is Junior Alvarado, who rode Kentucky Derby winner Sovereignty. He does not ride in the second leg; he is expected to return to the Triple Crown series on June 7 at Saratoga for the Belmont Stakes, and he will be riding in other major races on Black-Eyed Susan Day and Preakness Day.

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