Juan Arias

Juan D. Arias (born May 6, 1938 in Marin, Yaracuy, Venezuela) is a retired Thoroughbred horse trainer best known for race conditioning Canonero II to win the 1971 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes in the United States. Canonero II would be voted the Eclipse Award as the 1971 American Champion Three-Year-Old Male Horse.

Arias grew up in poverty on a farm in central Venezuela. As a child, Arias had hoped to become a pilot in the Venezuelan air force, but he suffered a hernia which prevented him from going into the training program. Instead, aged fifteen, he became apprentice to a local horse trainer, and two years later was accepted into the trainers school at La Rin conada, a race track in Caracas, and received his training licence on 4 July 1959.