At 12:50 p.m. on September 10, Martin Pedroza, wearing red silks with a black sash and rings around the arms, white pants and cap, along with high spit-shined riding boots, strode out of the dingy, chipped-stucco jockeys' room at Fairplex Park for the first race - not through a door but clear hanging strips of shower-curtain-like plastic. After all, this was Fairplex Park in Pomona, not art deco Santa Anita in Arcadia or classy Del Mar where the turf meets the surf.

He and the other nine jocks only had to walk 50 feet or so to the nondescript pill box-sized paddock that looked like somebody's back yard with an oval island of grass surrounded by dirt. After a couple minutes and the call "riders up," the trainer of L'Aziza boosted the 5'4,'' 113-pound native of Panama City, Panama, onto the back of the four-year-old bay filly.

Less than 11 minutes later, Pedroza had his first win on opening day of the 15-day L.A. County Fair race meet, which is sandwiched between major Southern California meets at Del Mar and Santa Anita. Some of the leading riders take time off during the break, but the 44-year-old resident of nearby Duarte has found a home at the 5/8th-mile Pomona track.

The father of three has won 11 Fairplex riding titles since 1989, including the last 10 championships outright. Starting the 2009 meet, he has ridden a record 561 winners, compared to second-place rider David Flores with 327, and on September 27 will be inducted into the Fairplex Park Hall of Fame.

Last year at Pomona, Pedroza won seven races in a day twice and earned his 3,000th victory of a career spanning 28 years in the saddle. Nearly 20 percent of those winners came at Fairplex, which was dubbed the "bullring" when it was a half-mile track with tight turns that many speedy thoroughbreds couldn't negotiate, drifting far out especially on the clubhouse turn. And it's kept that nom de guerre even after another furlong was added to the Southland's only remaining dirt racetrack. (All major tracks in the state are at least a mile in circumference.)

So you won't hear any arguments from either seasoned horsemen or diehard bettors that the popular Pedroza is truly "king of the bullring."

Bullring champ
Why does Pedroza do so well at Fairplex? "Why?" he repeated. "Because I get better horses. It's the bottom line. I mean, if you ride better horses anywhere, you would probably do just as good. But over at Santa Anita, Hollywood Park and Del Mar, I ride like the fifth best, sixth best. Sometimes I do get the best horse at the big tracks, you know, but only on occasion. Not all the time like here."

The journeyman rider, however, acknowledges that he's good at handling the tricky turns. It also helps to know what other jocks are also adept at riding the turns and keeping control of their horses, so he can follow them through tight holes. But the first time he ever laid eyes on Fairplex, he had some serious second thoughts.

"When I first looked at this track in '82, it was a half-mile track," he said. "A real bullring. And everybody told me you can ride in a bullring, and I say, yeah. But I didn't really know what the word meant -'bullring' - until I looked over the fence and I saw it. And I said, 'Oh, this is for race cars.'

"But I adapted very well, even the first year I rode here," he added. "And I've done well since. So being named to the Hall of Fame is an honor. It's very special. I'm looking forward to that day."

Close call
There was another day and race earlier this year, which nearly ended Pedroza's riding career as well as his life. In the post parade at Santa Anita, his horse reared up throwing him to the ground, then fell hard right on top of him.

Because he broke his pelvis in seven places, doctors said it would take him at least a year before he could ride again. But the jockey was back on the track in only five months.

"January 11, a day that I will never forget," he said with focused eyes, like he was watching a movie screen. "It was a freak thing in the post parade. And even now and then, when I have a horse acting weird like that, I don't get nervous but I think about what happened that day and it can happen any time. I mean, you never know when a horse rears up if they're gonna go all the way back with you. So I'm very aware now and more concerned. Just in case they go down, I'm ready for it.

"It don't bother me," he explained with a half-hearted shrug. "This is what I do. If, God forbid, something happened to me, it's gonna be riding horses. Because this is what I do; this is how I support my family. I don't know how to do anything else. So, this is my life."

Prayer --- and 99-to-1
Martin and his wife Evelyn are raising two sons, Tyler, 14, and Brian, 17, and one daughter, Jasmine, 17, who attends Alverno High School in Sierra Madre. The family lives in Duarte.

The jockey says prayer has been the one constant in his life. After graduating from the famed Panama Jockey School with alums the likes of Laffit Pincay, Manuel Ycaza and Alex Solis, he still did not have a winner in four months. When he went to his mother, Luz, and said he wanted to return to high school, she said to pray to his recently deceased father, Aureleo, and also to God.

"The next day I won a race," he recalled, grinning. "It was a miracle: 99-to-1. The name of the horse was Laclave. If he was 6-to-5, I wouldn't have thought it was a miracle. But 99-to-1!"

In 1982, he came to the United States with the encouragement of his older brother, Marcelino, who had established himself as a jockey here. Veteran riders Eddie Delahoussey and Bill Shoemaker helped calm the younger hothead Pedroza down and got him to stop pressing when he went into a temporary slump. And the following year, the 17-year-old was the leading apprentice at the Oak Tree meet at Santa Anita and also at Los Alamitos.

But he really gained notice on the local racing circuit in 1989, when he won the Santa Anita Handicap (the "Big Cap") aboard 50-to-1 shot Martial Law. And at age 40, he won his first major title at Hollywood Park's 2005 fall meet by riding 31 winners.

"I pray all the time, just like my mama told me," he said. "All the time I pray in the jock's room. I pray before I get on the horse. I pray at home. I pray in church. All the time."

One thing he prayed for this year were the relatives of two horse owners he rode for - James and Charles Ortega. They were members of the extended Covina family who were allegedly shot and killed by a recently divorced husband dressed in a Santa outfit at a Christmas Eve party. A week after the horrific tragedy sent shock waves through the San Gabriel Valley, Pedroza rode their horse for the last time under the Ortegas' name.

"I really got chills going into the [starting] gate," Pedroza recalled. "It almost felt like an angel was on my back, you know, riding with me. And when we won, I was all emotional, just very, very happy. Nothing was going to make it better for that family, I knew that, but at least it was a moment of relief and happiness for them.

"And the horse's name was 'Return of the King,'" he said, shaking his head in disbelief even after eight months. "So just everything was going together. It was wonderful."

As of September 22, Martin Pedroza is the leading jockey at Fairplex Park, closing in on his 11th straight riding championship at the 2009 L.A. County Fair 15-day meet in Pomona.