Peter Wolsley has never done emotion at the races, but he almost made an exception after race 3 of the short 6-race program at Busan on Sunday December 29th. Samakui Kkot was the trainer’s 693rd winner in Korea and he knew it would be his last.
“I didn’t give (jockey Lee) Sung-jae any specific instructions” said Wolsley, “but he knew the horse likes to be on pace and he got him there. A few times I thought he was beat, but he kept lifting and Sung-jae got him home.”
It was an energetic ride by the journeyman jockey, a rider who had ridden so many times for Wolsley over the years, and who knew the significance. Lee Sung-jae did not want to lose that race. “It was Sung-jae’s last ride of the day, and he came straight up to us afterwards. I don’t get expressive, I don’t get emotional, but it was good to share that moment with him.”
And it was done. After seventeen years, Peter Wolsley’s career in Korean racing was over. Not by choice, but by remorseless numbers. Those numbers said that he hadn’t shaped up in the past couple of years. Foreign trainers – rightly – get held to a higher standard than the locals, and according to those numbers – debatable – the previous fifteen years were irrelevant.
“I got the official notification by text message just before Christmas that I would be done a week later. Nice after seventeen years, isn’t it?”
Peter Wolsley was the first foreign trainer in Korea. Goodness knows what advert he answered, but he arrived in 2007 and was assigned to Busan Racecourse, then only two years into existence. The KRA’s wish to bring in foreign trainers was not universally shared in the wider Korean racing industry – and probably not even within the entire KRA – and with little plan what to do with him, he was assigned what was known as “the breakdown barn”, essentially the horses nobody else wanted to train.
One of the tractor drivers who harrowed the track spoke some English, so he was seconded to be Wolsley’s interpreter. It wasn’t a promising start. But through patience, horsemanship and not a little stubbornness, Wolsley got some of those unfortunate horses up to standard. And even winning.
An early turning point (and I have written these sentences before) came in late 2008. Wolsley had requested that pacifiers (mesh eye-protectors used to prevent sand getting in the eyes of the horse) be allowed to be fitted during races – a cause also taken up by the first foreign steward Brett Wright – and in October of that year, they were finally approved for use.
The next month, Wolsley’s mare Gyeongcheonsa became the first racehorse in Korea to run in pacifiers and she duly flew home to win at odds of 19/1. One race later, his colt Khaosan, also sporting the same equipment and starting at similarly attractive odds, came from last to second in the home straight.
Wolsley never looked back – he even got the 90/1 2008 Korean Derby winner Ebony Storm to finally win another race – and a couple of years later, Khaosan would provide the trainer with his first Korean Group race winner. Almost every horse wears pacifiers in races in Korea now.
Peter Wolsley reached one hundred Korean winners in May of 2011 and later the same year the aforementioned Khaosan won the G3 Owners’ Cup – albeit in the Stewards’ room – under a first Korean ride for jockey Nathan Stanley. It took only two more years for the double century to arrive when My Winner won the Gold Circle Trophy, an International Trophy exchange race in September 2013, under Darryll Holland.
The numbers continued to pile up – the winning milestones were so regular I stopped bothering to report them – and in 2014 Wolsley earned a Classic win when Never Seen Before scored at odds of 25/1 in the Minister’s Cup, the final leg of that year’s Triple Crown.
“I really believed he was going to win. All week he had been so good – I walked him around that hill behind the stables at Seoul Racecourse – and he felt amazing. I remember telling you that he would win. You didn’t believe me, I might add.” I didn’t.
“He had to fight, it was a good race, Gumpo Sky was a proper horse, so was Success Story, but Charlie (jockey Lee Hee-cheon) rode him well and he beat them.”
Others behind Never Seen Before included a couple of fillies, Korean Derby winner Queen’s Blade, as well as Winner’s Marine, who went on to foal the great Winner’s Man.
Then in 2015, came Bold Kings. Only debuting as a three-year-old at class 4 level that March, he promptly went unbeaten in six, including at class 1 over 2200M in November which earned him his shot in that year’s Grand Prix Stakes, then the biggest Group 1 of the year and still the season finale.
Bold Kings looked beaten on the turn in the Grand Prix, but he and jockey Jo Sung-gon found a way, shifting inside at the top of the straight, and launching a run. He beat Gumpo Sky by a neck with Clean Up Joy in 3rd and the great Triple Nine in 4th in what is still regarded as the most exciting Grand Prix ever run. It was seven from seven.
“You don’t really think about it at the time but looking back on it, to do that was some achievement. For a three-year-old that never ran at two to debut at the start of the year, run seven times and finish the year unbeaten by winning the 2300M Grand Prix is astonishing, really.”
Bold Kings had some injury setbacks in 2016 and was eventually moved to a different trainer. He was retired at the end of the 2017 season and while registered as a stallion, was reported to have died in 2019.
I ask Wolsley about the jockeys who rode for him, and he mentions Park Geum-man, one of the first to be attached to his barn in the early days, and how proud he was when he won the Korean Derby in 2010, albeit on another trainer’s horse (Cheonnyeon Daero, who by a curious twist of fate, would be the horse demoted in favour of Khaosan in the Owners’ Cup a year later). But he also goes on to talk about feedback and the important relationship between trainer and jockey.
“When you can’t ride them all yourself (Wolsley, in company with most of his fellow foreign trainers here, had to do exactly that for a long time), feedback is so vital to a trainer. Daryll Holland was so good at it. He could ride a horse in the morning and tell you instantly if there is an issue and what we need to do to fix it – it hasn’t surprised me at all that he is making a good go of his training career.”
“Jo Sung-gon was an excellent jockey. In my opinion he was the best of the locals that I worked with in terms of race riding, but what really made him stand out was his feedback. Obviously, he spoke good English, which helped with me, but it wasn’t just that. He had a sense with the horses that made him so valuable to a trainer.”
Jo Sung-gon took his own life in 2019 at the age of 37.
Wolsley’s cellphone wallpaper is of Jo Sung-gon winning the Grand Prix on Bold Kings. “It has been ever since the day we won. I won’t change it.”
As for his owners, Wolsley, like any diplomatic trainer, was hesitant to name names, but when pressed admitted that two stood out: “Park Hee-sang was with me the whole time. While he does love winning – and we had some very good horses together over the years – he loves his horses more. Korea needs more owners like him.”
“And of course, Peter Hill (Pegasus Farm) has been a great supporter.” Like any owner and trainer, they had their ups and downs “but he backed me from the start and to the very end, and I will always be thankful to him.” Samakui Kkot, Wolsley’s final winner, fittingly saluted in the Pegasus green.
Wolsley’s big rival in the training ranks over the years was Kim Young-kwan. “I loved to beat him” he admits “I knew I couldn’t do it over an entire season because he always has so much fire power and so much influence that eventually, he would come out on top. But I used to like saving a few up at the end of the year and then go all out in the first few months of the new year. Build up a big lead. It would drive him mad! Can you imagine the panic?”
He may laugh but the rivalry was real, and there was absolutely no love lost between the pair. With Wolsley spurring him on, Kim Young-kwan transitioned from a tracksuit wearing old style Korean trainer to a suited and booted modern businessman trainer. Both men would probably be horrified by the idea but there is a fair case to be made that without Wolsley, Kim Young-kwan would not have reached the heights that he did, winning races in Dubai and saddling Blue Chipper to 3rd place in the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile at Santa Anita.
Wolsley too took several of his horses to the Dubai Carnival over the years and won what would prove to be his final Group race in 2021 when Mr. Afleet won the G2 KRA Cup Classic at Seoul.
In terms of how these seventeen years ended, while I was skeptical, I had heard rumours that Wolsley was in danger of not being renewed – under the stated (and, it has to be said, ever evolving) criteria for overseas trainers to retain their licenses, he was at risk – and the trainer himself had certainly believed himself to be. He was given the equivalent of a “strike” last year and had reached the age at which Korean trainers are expected to retire. But it was still fast.
“I would have respected it if they had said “look your results the last two seasons haven’t been as good as they were and we think it’s time, how about going up to next June when your visa will be up and retiring with the others? (Kim Young-kwan and Yang Kui-sun are among those other first-generation Busan trainers reaching retirement age in 2025). I might not have liked it but I could have and would have accepted that.”
“After it was done, they invited me into the office, and to be honest I didn’t want to go, but I did, and they gave me a plaque and said they hope I only have good memories. I do have a lot of good memories, but I don’t have any respect for the way it ended. It’s been such a big part of my life that I don’t want to feel any hate – and I don’t to individuals – but it is hard not to.”
“I would have liked to have got to 700 (winners). In the back of my mind, I wondered if I would make it and I was thinking about it last year, I knew it would be tough, and I knew the owners were thinking I might not be here come January, so it was hard to get the two-year-olds in. It wasn’t to be.”
As for the future, Wolsley is still young, trainer-wise, and open to other challenges but for the next few months, he is going to take some time out.
“I am ok with my Korean visa to stay here for six-months so I am going to relax, do a bit of skiing in Japan and go to Sri Lanka for the Australian Test (cricket) matches. And then I will think about what I want to do.”
In assessing Peter Wolsley’s contribution to Korean racing, I think back to a talk given a few years ago by an overseas consultant who was brought over for a few months to examine the training and racing and make recommendations. In the Q&A after her final presentation, she was asked why Busan horses tended to perform better than Seoul horses. Her answer was given without hesitation: “Peter Wolsley. He’s raised the standard there.”
“We’ve seen some things over the years, haven’t we?” Wolsley laughs as we part on a freezing January evening in downtown Seoul. “And stop bowing, I’m not Korean.”
Wolsley has seen far more than I have, and while he might not be Korean, the story of the development of Korean racing over the past two decades is inextricably linked with Peter Wolsley. While all things must end, it will be poorer for his absence.
In numbers
4285 Starts, 693 wins, 521 2nds, 434 3rds for a win rate of 16.2% and a Place Rate of 38.5%
Principal Race Wins:
2011: Owners’ Cup (G3) – Khaosan
2013: Gyeongnam Governor’s Cup (G3) – Secret Whisper
2014: Minister’s Cup (G2) – Never Seen Before
2015: Grand Prix (G1) – Bold Kings
2018: Kookje Shinmun Trophy (Listed) – Ace Korea
2021: KRA Cup Classic (G2) – Mr. Afleet
Horse Racing in Korea 