There are several sure-fire ways to stand out at Aqueduct Racetrack, one being to bring home a $104.50 winner on opening day.

Another is simply being Maylan Studart.

The 19-year-old apprentice from Rio de Janeiro, who arrived in New York late last month with a seven-pound weight allowance and a ton of ambition, got everyone’s attention when she sent 51-1 Decorated Court up the rail to win the seventh race on opening day at the Big A. At 5-foot-1, 108 pounds, the vivacious teen plans on riding here through the winter as she pursues a career that has attracted only few women from her native country.

“Right now, I am the only woman from Brazil riding professionally in the United States,” said Studart, who rode 10 winners at Calder Race Course before heading north. “But it is something I have wanted to do ever since I was 14 years old and watched the Brazilian Stakes, which would be like the Kentucky Derby here. I had to wait two years until I was old enough to attend apprentice jockey school at Jockey Club de Brasilia, but as soon as I was 16, I did.”

With limited opportunities to ride in Brazil, Studart, who also worked as a stuntwoman and a model and is married to a martial arts instructor, decided this summer to make the move to the United States. Her first destination was Calder, where veteran jockey and fellow Brazilian Manoel Cruz – who was 11th aboard Smooth Air this year in his first Kentucky Derby -- became a mentor.

“Without him, well, I owe everything to him,” said Studart. “He taught me a lot about the business.”

On August 14, Studart rode her first two winners in Florida and two weeks later, without benefit of the bug, scored her first stakes win aboard Got Clearance in the $60,000 Lindsay Frolic Stakes for two-year-old fillies.

“My first win was like getting a refrigerator off my back,” said Studart, who as a youngster lived in California for several years with her mother, brother and step-father, also a martial arts instructor. “And winning the stakes, wow, that was an amazing feeling. I had gotten up every morning to work her, so nobody else got on her, to make sure I would get the mount in the race. And she set a stakes record!”

Soon afterward, Joe Ceraulo, who also holds Rudy Rodriguez’s book, agreed to act as her agent in New York. She arrived in October and began the rigorous routine of working horses in the mornings both at Aqueduct and Belmont, rising at 4 a.m. and traveling from Suffolk County, where she lives with Ceraulo and his wife and family.

The payoff: last Wednesday, she was named on five mounts, finishing second by a neck in the opener in addition to her victory, and tomorrow she is scheduled to ride five races.

“I think she’s a spunky kind of girl,” said trainer Jeff Odintz, for whom Studart finished fifth with Karakorum Pirate in the sixth race on October 30. “She’s got a good head on her shoulders, and she has a lot of guts. She’s not afraid of anything. I think she’ll do well.”

Apprentice jockeys of both genders have traditionally done well at Aqueduct, especially as the days grow shorter, the temperature drops and the bigger name riders head south. But before that happens, Studart is taking advantage of the opportunity to be around some of the best jockeys in the country.

“Edgar Prado, John Velazquez, Rajiv Maragh … this is like a dream come true,” she said. “There’s so much you can learn just from watching them every day, and I want to keep improving. My goal is to be the best I can be, and this is the place to do it.”