I wrote a profile of jockey Anthony Stephen for ESPN last December, and it was a pleasant surprise to see him win the Prince of Wales Stakes on Golden Moka a few months ago. It was even nicer to see the connections -- including former jockey Rene Douglas and trainer Brian Lynch -- decide to keep him on the horse for Saturday's running of the $500,000 Super Derby at Louisiana Downs.

Wednesday afternoon, I popped into a Panera in the middle of my errands and hooked up the trusty old laptop, then took a few moments to catch up with Stephen and Lynch before they left for Louisiana Downs. Here's what they had to say.

Claire Novak: Anthony, how did you get involved with Brian? This is a nice mount to land from that connection!

Anthony Stevens: I'm used to being a stable jockey, where you get on the horses in the morning and get to know them and get to ride them in the afternoons. I know a guy who works as Brian's assistant and he said, 'Come get on some horses!' I had decided that I didn't want to drive to Fort Erie, I wanted to stay at Woodbine where I could secure a morning job where I could pay my bills and ride the afternoon races. So I told him, 'I'll get on a couple here and there.'

Novak: How'd that work out for you? Obviously not too bad!

AS: I really like his operation. He's a very classy person and very easy to work with, so I decided I'd just come back and work every day with him.

Novak: So how did you wind up riding Golden Moka?

AS: Well, they weren't sure if they were going to run him in the Prince of Wales. Brian told me, 'We'll work him on Fort Erie's surface and decide what we want to do, but until then, let's just keep getting him to relax.' They took him down there the Sunday before the race and Brian had told me if the horse worked in a certain time, he'd be happy, and he worked better than the time he wanted. So they pretty much said it was a done deal and they were going to run in the race and let me ride him, and I was very excited about it.

Novak: Brian, how important has Anthony been in this equation?

Brian Lynch: He's recently become a part of our stable and he definitely has been the key in getting the horse to relax. He came in at the right time and had a great feel for the horse. I felt that because Anthony rides a lot there at Fort Erie, it would be an asset because he knows that track very well and knows that horse very well. Rene said, 'if you feel like he can do it, then give him the go-ahead.' And fortunately enough he handled it very well and I've gotta respect Rene as we decided where we were going to go with the horse, because, as you can imagine, we got calls from a lot of different agents when we said we were going to the Super Derby, but Rene said, 'as far as we're concerned, Stephen has done nothing wrong, he deserves another chance with this horse.'

Novak: Is Rene very involved with the management of Golden Moka?

BL: Rene and I go back a long, long way and the biggest therapy in the world for him is this horse. He never gets overly-involved in the training, he lets me do that, but we talk about the works all the time. He's got great faith in me and I've got the utmost faith in him.

Novak: Is this horse the real deal?

BL: It's all pipe dreams at the start, but now it's starting to look like he's as good as we thought he was. I didn't know how tough the competition was that he faced in Panama, but I did know of some other good horses that had come out of Panama and held their own here in North America, and once I saw him, well, he's a lovely specimen of a horse. He's not that tall but he's well-balanced with a lot of body to him, a lovely hip and shoulder and a big barrel. He's very put together.

Novak: Anthony, I want to go back to you for a moment. Readers will remember your kids from the piece that ran last December -- they were both born profoundly deaf. Give us an update on how things are going with both of them.

AS: Well, my daughter just turned 11 and my son turned 7 and at the moment they're in Holland. Toronto was good for me riding-wise but the schools were not helping my son at all. My wife also felt pretty stuck here because there was nothing for her, and since the school for my son wasn't going the way we thought it would go, we did more research and found a good school in Holland, which is where she's from and her family and friends are from, and that's where we decided to have them go.

Novak: So how long has it been since you've seen your family?

AS: Three months. It's pretty much the life of a jockey. You might find a track you do well at, but a lot of the time your family is following you all over.

Novak: So what's the plan from here?

AS: Before I got involved with this horse I was going to ride the winter in Macau and Dubai, but after I got involved with Brian Lynch and, obviously, this horse, I told the guy I was going to ride for there, 'I'd love to come but please give me an opportunity to see where this horse takes me.' So right now everything is up in the air, but horses like this don't come along every day.

For more comprehensive information on horse racing, visit Helloracefans.com and Horseracingnation.com. You can follow Claire Novak on Facebook and Twitter at @ClaireNovak.