Just three new apprentices make up the class of 2009 set to join the jockey ranks at Seoul Race Park this month. Park Sang Woo, Lee Ki Woong and Kim Hye Sun graduated from the Jockey’s Academy in Wondang last month (should anybody be interested, the ceremony can be viewed here). Park joins top trainer Park Dae Heung while Lee will be attached to Son Young Pyo. Kim, who will take the number of female jockeys currently in action at Seoul to four, will join trainer Jung Ho Ik.

The standard of riding in Korea has been on the up recently. While the bringing to Korea of foreign jockeys has, by and large been botched, another aspect of the KRA Internationalization program has brought success. The addition of a South African riding instructor would seem to have had a postive effect on the training of young jockeys. Almost all of last year’s apprentices have been able to establish themselves with all seemingly respected by punters. Seven apprentices debuted last June, here’s how they’ve been getting on in order of winners:

Name – Rides/1st/2nd/3rd

Lee Sang Hyuk – 198/18/12/15
Kim Cheol Ho – 211/16/16/18
Jo In Kwen – 151/14/8/12
Park Si Cheon – 193/13/10/18
Park Byoung Yun – 194/11/16/18
Kim Dong Min – 179/9/12/14
Yoo Mi Ra – 95/0/4/3

Of course the quality of rides that they have had has varied but Lee Sang Hyuk did enough to get a ride in the Grand Prix race last December and som of the others have also found themselves trusted with big mounts. Yoo Mi Ra remains winless although on the sole occasion she has found herself riding a favourite, she was edged out by a neck by none other than Park Tae Jong.

Meanwhile, another Japanese jockey looks set to join at Seoul shortly.

Top jockeys flourish but Foreign riders are still struggling
Not only did he score his 400th career winner in the process of landing a treble at Seoul Race Park on Sunday, Moon Se Young also managed to put some distance between himself and his main rivals in what has been so far a tight race for the 2009 Jockey’s Championship.

After a slow May, which yielded only 9 winners, last year’s Champion scored five winners across the weekend to take his year’s total to fifty and open up a gap of six over his closest challenger, the veteran Park Tae Jong. Cho Kyoung Ho, who reached the 400 winner milestone a week before Moon, is one behind Park on 43, while Choi Beom Hyun is the only other rider in touch, on 39.

Park Tae Jong meanwhile, remains on the verge of becoming the first Korean rider to land 1500 career victories. Park was also the first to reach 1000 wins back in 2004. While such figures may not sound impressive to those accustomed to US or European racing, where the top jockeys can amass huge numbers of winners over their careers, with racing confined to two days a week in Korea, it is not possible. Aside with limited races, another diffculty to overcome is the lack of rides.

Park is a freelance jockey, which means he may accept as many rides as he is able to secure. However, the freelance system has only been in operation in Korea since 2005. Prior to this, all jockeys were attached to a trainer and they were limited to a maximum of five race rides per week. This is still the case for all but the 21 jockeys (and a further 10 at Busan) who hold freelance status which is why all of those filling out the top places in the Jockey’s championship are freelance.

Being freelance is all very well (and all very lucrative – the KRA estimates that freelance jockeys can make four times as much money as their retained counterparts) for established riders, but for for those less known it is anything but easy. And here is the problem for overseas riders granted licenses under the KRA’s Internationalization program. In reporting the departure of Santos Chavez, an American jockey who joined in February this year and opted not to renew his four month license, the Korean Racing Journal noted that an overseas jockey at Seoul generally gets far less opportunities for rides than a brand new apprentice. With the limit on rides stable jockeys can have, apprentices are quite rightly guaranteed some rides and, while life is far from easy, they have a steady stream of horses to ride out in the mornings.

For the overseas jockeys, there are no such guarantees. South African Stephan Swanepoel debuted in March and has since ridden just 48 times. He has no winners so far but that is hardly surprising given the calibre of those 48. Swanepoel has managed to guide 17 of them to minor money finishes and gives every impression of being a talented rider. However, few would blame him if he was follow Chavez in calling it a day at the earliest opportunity. The Journal reported that there is a possiblity of him transferring to Busan where overseas riders are starting to fare a little better.

At Busan, while opportunities are not significantly greater, there has been one interesting development. Martin Wepner has just become the first foreign jockey to be retained by a trainer. Despite Wepner walking away from his Derby mount on Namdo Jeap for Kim Young Kwan after a breakdown in communication, the trainer decided that Wepner was worth keeping in Korea and offered him the opportunity to be his main rider until his contract finishes in July. Whether this will be successful or whether there is any possibility for this to be repeated in the future remains to be seen.

What is once more clear though is that in its current form the “Internalization” program benefits no-one and as more jockeys return home with nothing but bad things to say, its prospects for future success – indeed its prospects of attracting quality jockeys – diminish. Which no doubt is a source of great satisfaction for certain elements on the backstretch.

Seoul Jockeys’ Championship 2009 – Current Standings

1. Moon Se Young 50
2. Park Tae Jong 44
3. Cho Kyoung Ho 43
4. Choi Beom Hyun 39
5. Kim Ok Sung 17

Continuing the jockeys theme, later this week we’ll have a look at the newly qualified apprentices who will make their racing debuts shortly and grade the performance of those coming up to their one year anniversary in the saddle. We’ll also take a look back over the career so far of the only man in Korean racing whose name is known outside racing circles, Park Tae Jong.

A week later than planned, Indian jockey Rahul Shinde is scheduled to make his Korean debut at Busan Race Park on Friday. After missing his one riding engagement last Sunday, with illness the reason given to punters, Shinde is booked to partner last year’s Busan Metropolitan winner Hardride in Friday’s feature race.

Shinde joins the jockey ranks at Busan on an initial contract until the end of August. Like all overseas jockeys, he’ll be a free agent. In India, Shinde has been Champion Jockey at the Hyderabad meet five times and earlier in his career also won three titles in Sri Lanka.

His greatest successes came before 2005 when the previously closed Hyderabad relaxed its rules over none-local jockeys competing. Shinde’s most recent figures for the recently concluded 2008/2009 winter meet were just one win from over ninety rides with nine second and ten third placed finishes.

Meanwhile, Stephan Swanepoel has been telling the KRA’s blog about his time in Korea so far – it’s not been easy but he’s giving it a go, seems to be the gist. The South African jockey mentions being impressed by the infrastructure, if less so by the racing. Click here for the link (in Korean) with photos.

Thanks to Shyam from the “Horses and Races” Indian racing site

Bang, Moon, Jung go freelance / Park Soo Hong warned off
Three more jockeys have taken on freelance status at Seoul Race Park bringing the total number of unattached riders to twenty out of the sixty-one currently holding a license. Bang Choon Sik, Moon Jung Kyun and Jung Ki Young are the latest to go it alone.

The main benefit to being freelance is that the jockey can ride in as many races per week as he can find a mount for. Jockeys who are attached to a stable are limited to a maximum of five race rides per week. Figures released by the KRA last year showed that freelance jockeys had an average of 9.6 mounts per week whereas stable jockeys had 3.4. Average earnings for freelancers was over KRW 12 Million per month compared with KRW 5 Million per month for retained riders.

The figures do hide a disparity between the freelancers, however. The top freelance jockeys, such as Moon Se Young or Park Tae Jong, who will pick up a ride in nearly every race over a weekend – a large proportion of them well-fancied – will earn much more whereas most will earn far less.

This has particularly been true for the overseas riders who have often struggled to get mounts in their early days in Korea. All overseas riders are given freelance status and while it can work out very well, as for Toshio Uchida and now Ikuyasu Kurakane at Busan, it can take a long time to get established. With the race fee less than KRW 60,000 per ride, freelance jockeys need to consistently be getting quality rides to make ends meet.

In other jockey news, Park Soo Hong, who rode Subsidy to victory in the 2005 Owner’s Trophy and Grand Prix races, has been permanently warned off by the KRA for passing on inside information. Local media reported at the weekend that thirty four year old Park confessed to police that he accepted money for information. A groom and a trainer also found to have been involved, were handed lesser penalties.

The KRA has announced the arrival of a new overseas jockey to be based at Busan Race Park. South African Deryl Daniels will make his debut this coming Friday. Daniels is 31 years old and has been riding for 16 years first in South Africa, where he was top apprentice in 1997, and then stints in Singapore, Macau, Dubai, Kuwait and Mauritius. He has 560 career wins and his record over the last three years is 826 rides with 54 winners.

Daniels replaces Australian Danny Craven who completed his contract early this month after spending 10 months riding first at Seoul before making a short extension to his contract in Busan. Craven finished up with figures of 151 rides with 10 wins.

Daniels becomes the second South African jockey to debut this year although Chris Taylor’s Korean career has come to a premature end with his decision to end his contract after less than two months. Taylor debuted at Seoul Race Park on July 5 with a win, but that was to be his only success in 17 rides.

Daniels arrives on a six month contract which will take him up to February 2009 and will line up for the first time on unraced two year old Magic Play in race 1 on Friday.

South African Chris Taylor was among eight new jockeys officially added to the roster at Seoul Race Park last week. The twenty nine year old made his debut in South Africa in 1995 but has spent much of his career racing in the middle east in Qatar and Dubai. Taylor, who has signed an initial six month contract with the KRA, will ride freelance and will take the tally of foreign jockeys currently riding in Korea to five along with Ikuyasu Kurakane and Nozomu Tomizawa at Seoul and Danny Craven and Toshio Uchida at Busan. To find out a little more about Taylor, here is an interview he gave to SAHorseracing.com back in 2006.

The seven other newcomers are all graduates of the KRA’s jockey academy. They are:

Kim Dong Min (b. 1986)
Kim Cheol Ho (b. 1987)
Park Byung Yun (b. 1987)
Park, Si Chon (b. 1983)
Yu Mi Ra (b. 1984) – Yu becomes the fourth female jockey to gain a license at Seoul
Cho In Kwon (b. 1987)

Both Ikuyasu Kurakane and Nozomu Tomizawa have signed six month extensions to their contracts at Seoul Race Park. The new deals will see Ikuyasu continue until the end of December and Nozomu until the end of January next year.  Ikuyasu currently has a record of 42 wins from 508 rides and Nozomu 18 from 338.

Meanwhile, various media have reported that South African jockey Chris Taylor will become the third overseas rider at Seoul.

One of the most senior figures in the paddock, An Byung Ki is retiring as a jockey at age 42. Making his debut at Ttukseom in 1984, An went on to record figures of 5501 rides with 770 winners, 648 seconds and 579 thirds. He won a number of cup and group races throughout his career with the highlight being winning the 1997 Grand Prix race on P’Ulgeurim, one of the dominant horses of 1997-98. An’s last race was on Sunday with a seventh placed finish on Sudden Attack in race 4. His last winner cam on Saturday May 17 when Lucky Mountain in race 6 gave him the second leg of a double and leacing him with a career win strike rate of 14.0% and a place rate of 25.8%. An will now take up a trainer’s licence. Here is a video of his 1997 Grand Prix win on P’Ulgeurim.