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JUAN DIAZ, Panama — Wilmar Alarcon grew up where the highway dead-ends into impassable jungle.

Where young boys ride farm horses to town and race each other bareback.

Where sons of plantain farmers sit in wood-plank shacks, listening to horse racing on the radio, and dream of thundering across a finish line at 40 miles per hour.

But it is here, far from the Darién rainforest in a maze of threadbare barns tucked into a gritty neighborhood east of Panama City’s glitzy skyscrapers, where Alarcon is taking his shot at that dream.

Since the first Panamanian riders exploded on the U.S.

racing scene in the 1960s, turning humble backgrounds into riches, waves of aspiring jockeys like Alarcon have beaten a path to one of the world’s storied jockey schools to seek similar fame.

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