Mike Jimenez gets some love from 4-year-old Bella Volpe, a Williamson Racing runner at San Luis Rey Downs
When Arroyo Vista Farm’s horse manager, Miguel (Mike) Jimenez, looks at his career arc, what he sees is a circle.
The ranch where the veteran horseman of more than 35 years got his start as an assistant—Valley Creek Farm in Valley Center, Calif.—is located on the same northeast San Diego County property as Arroyo Vista Farm, Henry Williamson’s 45-acre Thoroughbred breeding operation. In many ways, Jimenez grew up there. And as far as he is concerned, it’s a place he plans on never leaving.
“I’m hoping to continue to do the same thing I’m doing,” said Jimenez, 54, reflecting on the future. “I would want to still manage a farm. Heaven forbid, if anything were to happen and this place was forced to close down, I don’t know what else I’d do.”
At Arroyo Vista, Jimenez and his staff , including chief assistant Pablo Martinez, oversee 40 mares, 30 weanlings, and roughly an equal number of yearlings. The numbers fluctuate, Jimenez noted, as mares are sent out for breeding elsewhere and yearlings leave for breaking. There are two resident stallions, Texas Ryano and the recently arrived Visitant, both former runners for the Williamson family.
Mike and his wife, Cristina, have this Texas Ryano flly out of Family Girl
Jimenez and his wife, Cristina, live on the farm in the main house, which is also the farm office. The rest of the crew also lives in housing on the property.
“The foaling barn is just down the hill,” he said. “I can just roll out of bed in the morning and head over there.”
Opened in late 2021, Arroyo Vista “is still a work in progress,” Jimenez said.
“We’ve purchased a Eurosizer, the perfect tool for readying the horses for sale. We have two really nice green pastures, and we’re working on a third.”
To say that horses are in his blood would be an understatement. Ever since he could walk, it seems, Jimenez has been around them.
He was born in Tijuana in 1969. At the time, his father, Luis, was a jockey competing at Agua Caliente. After that facility was destroyed by a fire in 1971, Luis Jimenez moved his family, including Mike and his older brother, Luis Jr., to New Mexico, where their father raced successfully on the Quarter Horse circuit. Eventually, they found their way to Bonsall, Calif., where their father worked as an exercise rider at San Luis Rey Downs for Hall of Fame trainer Charlie Whittingham.
That was where Mike started his horse education at 13, walking hots for Whittingham. He had his first brush with greatness there, occasionally getting to groom turf superstars such as Sunday Silence and Ferdinand. It was there, too, that he and his brother worked for Leigh Ann Howard, the late trainer who built and managed Valley Creek Farm.
Jimenez, under Howard’s direction, later joined the staff at Valley Creek. He worked nearly 20 years there, developing the horsemanship skills Howard instilled in him, before the farm closed in 2007. His brother went on to train horses for Valley Creek and a few other clients in Northern California, Jimenez said, before eventually leaving the training business.
“She taught me pretty much everything,” Jimenez said of Howard, adding, “She was almost like a second mother to me.”
Jimenez with Arroyo Vista stallion Texas Ryano, a graded stakes-winning son of Curlin
With Howard’s help, his next stop was Ballena Vista Farm in Ramona, about 35 miles away from Valley Creek. At that farm, Jimenez spent 13 years in a couple of management positions under the direction of Manuel Ochoa, Ballena Vista’s long time farm manager. Jimenez’s time at Ballena Vista included vital experience as broodmare manager, working closely with Dr. Gary Cranney in the care of broodmares, newly born foals, and weanlings.
In 2021, as Ballena Vista was nearing closure, Jimenez received a call from Williamson, the son of the late, great California breeder and owner Warren Williamson, asking him to visit Arroyo Vista. A Ballena Vista client, Williamson knew Jimenez. He told Jimenez that he had recently purchased the Arroyo Vista property, but wasn’t quite sure what he wanted to do with it.
“Henry knew I worked there for Leigh Ann,” Jimenez said. “So while I was visiting him there, he asked me if I’d be interested in making the move back here, and I told him yes I would.”
Williamson said at the time that getting Jimenez as his farm manager provided the impetus for creating a commercial breeding farm at Arroyo Vista.
Working with four other former members of the Ballena Vista team who are still with him, Jimenez noted that the farm renovation and transfer of horses to the new property was a major undertaking.
“We had about five months to get the job done to make sure the farm was a safe place for the horses,” he said. “By the time it was done, we had about 75 horses. It was a good transition for our clients.
“The horses are happy here. It’s a very quiet farm, even though we have residential housing all around us.”
Jimenez has taken an interest in breeding his own mares in recent years. He has a couple of broodmares at the ranch and raises the foals for auction rather than race them.
“I can’t afford the training bills on a farm manager’s salary,” he explained.
Next season, he plans to breed his 8-year-old California-bred mare Family Girl, a multiple stakes-placed daughter of Tribal Rule, to the new stallion Visitant. The only son of Ghostzapper standing in California and out of the Distorted Humor mare Peppermint Lodge, Visitant was a five-time stakes winner and twice graded stakes-placed while earning $676,927 for Williamson Racing.
“She hasn’t produced anything yet,” Jimenez said of Family Girl, “but we have a 3-year-old of hers by I’ll Have Another named I’ll Have Another Kiss that we’re high on.”
Tribal Rule, a stallion by Storm Cat who stood at Ballena Vista until his death in 2014, ranks among Jimenez’s all-time favorite horses.
“He made me look good,” Jimenez said. “He got his job done and he did his job well.”