I won my first race at Churchill Downs on the first day of the meet Saturday, so hopefully that's a sign of good things to come. It was also nice to have Aikenite run second in the Derby Trial. I took hold of him coming away from the gate and in all actuality I thought maybe I'd taken too much hold. But then he settled in and started picking them up and at the end he got to running. It was his first time on the off-track, and he ran well.

Saturday night I will fly to Chicago and then to California where I will ride Compari, a horse I've won five straight races with, in the Inglewood Handicap at Hollywood Park on Sunday. So I'll do that and it'll be good to see my family for a few days before I come back to Kentucky.

Riding in Kentucky has been great so far and our decision to head east has definitely paid off thus far. The riding title at Keeneland was a nice feather in my cap because that's something I've never done before, and Keeneland is one of the top meets in the country. I always enjoy riding there and the thing that's good about the track surface is even though it's artificial, they have the original Polytrack for the most part. Last year they had a little bit of kickback going on and I thought to myself, 'Oh boy, here we go,' because the racetrack at Santa Anita was so bad at one point I started wearing a visor, and that's not something you want to have to deal with if you can avoid it. But the track officials there took some notes and paid attention and figured out what they had to do to fix it, and everything was great this season.

One of the main reasons we decided to go to Keeneland, then to Churchill, and eventually further east to Monmouth and New York, is because there was a shortage of quality horses in California. Thankfully, I was lucky enough to get on several really nice horses at Keeneland, and hopefully that continues on through Churchill and on to Monmouth and Saratoga. I always have to thank the horsemen for their support and they showed up this spring with some excellent runners, which always makes my job more fun.

Speaking of an excellent runner, Lookin at Lucky is one week away from his start in the Kentucky Derby. He turned in a great work last Wednesday and I think Bob Baffert is really pleased with him. The decision to take the blinkers off after we added them for the past couple of races really doesn't worry me. I felt like he was getting a little anxious going to the gate, kind of wound up and excited. That's not like him at all -- he's such a laid-back, easy-going horse. I think the blinkers were a great tool to get him to where he needed to be mentally at this stage of the game, and he'll have matured enough to progress without them.

Last year I was as close as I've ever come to winning the Kentucky Derby when Pioneerof the Nile ran second to Mine That Bird. As the old cliché goes, winning the Derby is every jockey's dream. It's hard to believe an entire year has passed since then, but hopefully this year we get a little bit closer. Closer than second -- yeah, that'd be good enough for me!