John Velazquez has used a saddle on a track more than 35,000 times. He remembers winning races when he had neither.

“You ride in the street and you wind up learning everything from scratch,” Velazquez said. “We would ride on any surface. I lived pretty close to a big field and we would race there, too. We’d ride whatever horse we could find, for maybe 100 or 200 yards. Not for any money, just bragging rights.”

Later, Velazquez attended Escuela Vocacional Hipica, the jockey school run by the state at Camarero Race Track in Puerto Rico. He was way behind technically. He was way ahead in his understanding of how man and animal connect, the ways to guide a flying beast with no joystick. Educated in a street and then a classroom, Velazquez has become the top money-winning jock in horse racing history.

On Sunday, Velazquez tries life on the West Coast. He’ll join Mike Smith, Victor Espinoza, Flavien Prat and the rest of Santa Anita’s formidable jockey club.

One wonders how many ripples will radiate, but this is a pretty big rock.

“It’s so hard to define who the best jockey is,” said Jerry Bailey, who was the money leader before Velazquez. “It’s whoever is riding with the most confidence at the time. But he’s one of the best position riders ever. He makes very few mistakes, and he always puts the horse where he can win if he has the chance.

“I look at what he did with Malathaat in the Kentucky Oaks last year. They didn’t get off to a very handy start. But then he seized the moment and got her into position.”

Velazquez pulled that off and caught Search Results, ridden by Irad Ortiz, Johnny V’s protege and the winner of the past three Eclipse Awards.

The next day Velazquez steered Medina Spirit to a Kentucky Derby victory and became the eighth jockey to win both in the same weekend. That was Velazquez’s fourth Derby win. One more, and he ties all-time leaders Eddie Arcaro and Bill Hartack.

If you’re scoring, that’s 6,362 wins and $447.3 million in purses.

Velazquez says he’s coming west because it’s new and different. At 50, it’s time to reduce the wish list.

“Mentally, it’s easier for me now,” Velazquez said. “I’m certain that I’m better than I was in my 30s. I can see what’s going on much faster now. I’m very proud of my style and I don’t want to change it.

“Physically, I have to work harder, and I don’t like working out. I don’t like running and I won’t lift weights. Maybe swimming, jumping rope, a little bit of yoga, stretching, riding bikes. That keeps me fit enough.”

Velazquez says his journey got launched by Bernardo Mongil, a trainer and horse owner at Camarero. He did not start from the head of the class. Some of the fellow students were galloping their horses already. It took some wins in practice races to catch Mongil’s eye.

Velazquez sent tapes of his victories to trainers and owners in New York. He met Angel Cordero, the pioneer Puerto Rican rider, as Cordero was  buying horses for Rick Dutrow.

Cordero brought Velazquez to his own house in New York, where the young jockey learned English by watching “The Little Mermaid” with Cordero’s kids. That was in 1990.

Velazquez’s first agent was Dick Allen, the famed slugger and racetrack regular who once summed up artificial turf by saying, “If a horse can’t eat it, I don’t want to play on it.”

“I wasn’t familiar with him,” Velazquez said. “Then I watched tapes of his career. He was one of the kindest people I ever met. He was so quiet, you had to ask him to repeat what he said, like he was telling you a secret. He always would call and say, ‘Look at you, you’re doing great.’”

It took Velazquez only eight years to win a riding title at a Saratoga meet, and he was in the Hall of Fame by 2012. That takes in a lot of prime-time equines, but ask him his favorite and he still says Wise Dan, who won the same two Eclipse Awards three years running and was winning turf races at 7 years old.

“He was a real difficult horse,” Velazquez said. “But I got along well with him. Jose Vizcaino raced him a couple of times and beat him up pretty good. I said, ‘Why do you beat up my horse?’ I trusted him. I let him do what he wanted to do.”

Santa Anita customers will soon have their suspicions confirmed. If a horse doesn’t like John Velazquez, you don’t want to play him.