Even as he inches closer to perennial Monmouth Park riding champion Paco Lopez in the track’s jockey standings, Luis Rivera, Jr., is maintaining a realistic attitude about making one last run at him as the meet starts to draw to a close.

With his win aboard Exclusive Champion in Friday’s featured $51,875 allowance optional claimer for state-breds, the 22-year-old from Loiza, Puerto Rico, notched his 39^th win this summer, leaving him in second place, 12 winners behind Lopez with seven live racing days remaining.

Lopez is seeking a record-tying 13^th Monmouth Park riding title and eighth straight. He would tie Joe Bravo’s record for most titles by winning again this year.

Lopez has been splitting time this summer between Monmouth Park, Colonial Downs and Delaware Park, where he is the leading rider at all three tracks.

“To be honest, I don’t know what his schedule is coming up, but if he is at other tracks I have a shot at making it close,” said Rivera Jr., the son of long-time Ohio-based jockey Luis Rivera, Sr. “If my business keeps going the way it is I can make it a hard time for him. I’m not saying I can beat him, but I think I can make it even closer.

“I think he wants to tie Joe Bravo’s record so I feel like if I get even closer than I am now he will be back at Monmouth Park.”

Lopez, who spent Friday riding at Colonial during the day and was then at Charles Town at night, will be at Saratoga on Saturday. Rivera is listed to ride in all eight races on Monmouth Park’s card that day.

Lopez is due back at Monmouth on Sunday.

“Right now I’m just so happy with the meet I’ve had,” said Rivera, who started riding in 2023. “I’ve never even been second in the standings. Coming back here and having the success I’ve had has been more than I could have hoped for.”

Among Rivera’s highlights at Monmouth Park this summer: His first career four-win day (on May 16), his first graded stakes win (aboard the Brad Cox-trained Bishops Bay in the Grade 3 Philip H. Iselin Stakes on Aug. 15) and consecutive three-win days on Aug. 15 and 16.

He won the off-the-turf mile and a sixteenth feature on Friday a 6-year-old mare who had been 0-for-9 in her career on the dirt.

Owned by Joseph Irace and Alfred Noll, Exclusive Champion shook off the half-mile pressure from Starview Twinkle to score by two lengths. She returned $14.20 to win.

“I knew she had never won on the dirt before but I worked her five-eighths the other day and she worked really good,” said Rivera. “(Trainer) Wayne Potts asked me this morning if he should scratch after the race came off the turf but I told him to keep her on the dirt. I knew she would run well after the way she worked for me.”

Following the conclusion of the Monmouth Park meet on Sept. 13, Rivera said his plans are to ride at Belmont during the day and The Meadowlands at night. He is keeping open the option of going to Tampa Bay Downs when that track re-opens on Nov. 18.