Calle Jesús Méndez

The street is named after Jesús Méndez, a Madrid jockey active at the La Zarzuela racecourse from the 1940s and later a leading trainer in Spanish racing. As a trainer he collected twelve Spanish championship titles and nine wins in the Gran Premio de Madrid, both records in Spanish racing. The attribution appears in no municipal document; it rests on the coincidence of name, area and period.

In La Guindalera, a stone’s throw from the Avenida de los Toreros and the Las Ventas bullring, there is a tiny street, barely fifty-five metres long, that the city register recorded in 1947 and that rarely appears on maps. It bears the name of a man who spent his life on horses and, later, watching over them dawn after dawn: Jesús Méndez. He started as a rider, without glory. He is remembered for what came afterwards. He stopped competing and became a trainer. From the other side of the rail came the highest figures in Spanish racing: twelve Spanish championship titles, nine wins in the Gran Premio de Madrid and 871 winning horses. He kept training until 1987 and died in 1994. No directory of street names explains why Madrid named it for him. The clue is in the geography: the street begins beside the racecourse of the city’s old north, and the dates fit his career. The hypothesis is solid, but no municipal paper confirms it.

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