Month: October 2009

Hitomi Goes Full-Time

Miyashita to make history at Busan
She won the International Lady Jockey Invitation race at Busan Race Park in August and clearly Japanese jockey Hitomi Miyashita took a liking to the southern track. On Friday, Miyashita will make her debut as a licensed freelance jockey at Busan and in doing so, becomes the first foreign female jockey to ride full-time in Korea.

Hitomi shared the Japanese National Association of Racing (NAR) Grand Prix award for best female jockey of 2008 and has been based recently at the Aichi racecourse.

Miyashita has secured a competitive set of rides for the upcoming weekend. She will debut in race 6 on Friday when she partners Chowolgeum – likely to be an outsider in a seven furlong contest. She’ll follow that up with three more rides, including taking the mount on Yongdu Baram in the feature race. On Sunday, she will partner Viva Galileo in Busan’s big race of the weekend, the Gyeongnam Shinmun Cup.

Hitomi Miyashita (centre) with Laura Cheshire and Chiaki Iwanaga at Busan

Hitomi Miyashita (centre) with Laura Cheshire and Chiaki Iwanaga at Busan

Enjoy racing has has more on Hitomi – including pictures of her putting her time in eating something re-assuringly Korean looking back in August.

Here she is winning the International Lady Jockey Invitational on Ima Firecracker:

Five Days To Go…

Posting has been light recently but Gyongmaman is back in the saddle after a scarcely earned break over the Thanksgiving weekend. And it’s almost time for the Minister’s Cup.

Four of the eight Busan contenders, including Oaks Winner Pangpang have already arrived in the capital with the rest, including KRA Cup Mile and Derby winner – and therefore Triple Crown hopeful – Sangseung Ilro will be up shortly.

The big race is off at 5pm on Sunday afternoon and it will crown a big weekend of racing on the peninsula which includes the Gyeongnam Shinmum Cup at Busan as well as a likely appearance at Seoul on Saturday by the track’s number one horse, Dongbanui Gangja. Final declarations will be made on Thursday and we’ll be back with a full preview of all the action.

In the meantime, here’s the great J.S. Hold taking the inaugural Triple Crown by winning the Minister’s Cup in 2007:

In the race, he just got up to beat Ganghomyeongjang in the final few strides with the luckless Namchonuijijon in third. Namchonuijijon would go on to finally have his day in the Ttukseom Cup the following year but for J.S. Hold, there would be no more races. After the race he was discovered to have re-aggravated a previous injury and ultimately was retired.