Joe Fujii won the Grand Prix Stakes, Korea’s most prestigious race on Gamdonguibada at Seoul on December 9th, becoming the first foreign rider to do so. However, it had been a quiet start to 2013 for the Japanese jockey.
Winning Again – Joe Fujii
After the Grand Prix, he had to sit out the remainder of the season and the start of this after picking up an 8-meeting ban after his mount was slow into stride in a race at Busan (Fujii believed his horse to be injured).
Things changed this past Sunday though as Fujii landed a treble, guiding Raon Bally, Raon Boss and Myeongun Jewang to victory. Fujii’s compatriot Narazaki Kosuke was also among the winners, keeping him in 2nd place in the Busan Jockey Championship.
Fujii now has 34 wins from 236 rides at Busan while Kosuke has 62 from 462. A new foreign jockey arrives in Korea this week – a big name from Europe.
All three of Fujii’s winners were for Busan’s leading trainer Kim Young Kwan. Kim also trains Gamdonguibada and the champion filly is tentatively scheduled to make her 2013 debut at Busan next Sunday. Also coming up on Sunday, on Busan’s first really big race day of the year, is the Busan Ilbo Cup. While Dangdae Bulpae is set to be the overwhelming favourite, trainer Kim has two runners likely to start and Fujii could be in the frame to ride one of them.
As of February, jockeys at Seoul Race Park can once again designate themselves freelance and eleven local riders have opted to join Japanese jockey Yukio Abe in being unattached to a trainer.
I’m Free! Moon Se Young is among 11 jockeys goinf freelance
The majority of the track’s big names are among them, including current champion Moon Se Young (who is riding in Macau at the moment), current leader Jo In Kwen and all-time great Park Tae Jong.
Kim Hae Sun, who is poised to shortly become the all-time leading female thoroughbred jockey in Korea joins them.
The advantage of a jockey being freelance is that he or she is not restricted in the number of rides they can accept across a weekend of racing while the disadvantage (in theory) is that they have to battle for every mount. They also do not receive a salary from a trainer for trackwork but instead get paid per work.
The full list is as follows:
Kim Young Jin
Moon Se Young
Cho Kyoung Ho
Park Tae Jong
Jang Chu Yeol
Kim Hae Sun
Park Sang Woo
Lee Sang Hyeok
Jo In Kwen
Oh Kyoung Hoan
Yoo Seung Wan
As a foreign rider, Yukio Abe was already a freelancer even when the locals weren’t. Abe recently received an extension to his license to ride at Seoul but is having a quiet time at Seoul despite being a roaring success at Busan.
Down on the South-Coast, where different union agreements exist among the riders, the two Japanese jockeys, Joe Fujii and Narazaki Kosuke remain the only freelancers and both are in demand from owners and trainers.
Last Saturday afternoon at Seoul, something happened that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. Race 7, an otherwise unremarkable domestic class 4 allowance race, was won by jockey Yoo Mi Ra. The second place horse was ridden by Kim Hae Sun and Ahn Hyo Ri was on the third. Female jockeys had swept the placings for the first time ever in Korea.
Earlier in the afternoon, a horse called Dewma had given Lee Shin Young, Korea’s first female trainer, her 39th winner and the following day, Sunday, saw Lee Ah Na ride Imperial Girl to second place behind Tough Win in the afternoon’s feature event.
It is questionable what would be the more unlikely: that by 2013, South Korea would have a female President or that women would be performing so strongly in the traditionally ultra male dominated world of Korean horse racing.
Korea’s first female jockey, Lee Ok Rae in 1975. At the time, the horses were not thoroughbreds
Park Geun Hye was elected the nation’s first female President last month, however, somewhat surprisingly, you have to go back to the now long-gone Ttukseom Racecourse on the north bank of the Han River and to the Spring of 1975 when 21-year-old Lee Ok Rae became the first woman to be granted a jockey license in Korea.
South Korea was, at the time, under the authoritarian rule of President Park Chung Hee – father of the new President Park Geun Hye – who had recently survived the second of three assassination attempts – this one had resulted in the death of his wife. Then, as now, racing held a near monopoly on gambling and Ttukseom was full to bursting on each race-day.
Lee Ok Rae graduated in the same class as Bae Dae Sun and Ji Yong Cheol, who would go on to become two of the top riders of their generation and today are among the country’s most successful trainers. Assigned to trainer Kwon In Deok, on March 17 that year, Lee rode in her first race.
In true storybook fashion it was a winning debut as in race 4 that day, she partnered horse number 1, “Kansas” to victory over five and a half furlongs.
Lee continued to establish herself over the coming months, however, in August that year, disaster struck in the shape of a fall in which she sustained injuries that would end her career. She retired just six months after her first ride with seven wins from forty-eight starts. No Korean woman would ride in a race for the next quarter of a century.
By the time they did, Park Chung Hee had been dead for two decades and his once bitter enemy Kim Dae Jung was now President of South Korea. Seoul had hosted the Olympic games in 1988 and Ttukkseom Racecourse was closed as the huge new track at Gwacheon opened, having been constructed on the site of the Olympic Equestrian events. At the turn of the millennium, the KRA made an effort to get more women into the sport.
From left: Lee Ae Li, Lee Keum Ju and Lee Shin Young in the early 2000s (KRA)
In 2001, two jockeys were granted licenses, Lee Keum Joo and Lee Shin Young. They were followed a year later by Lee Ae Li and Park Jin Hee. Lee Keum Joo and Lee Ae Li are these days occasional riders, the former having only ridden sporadically since her marriage while the latter, despite retaining her popularity with punters with her “Ae Li Gongju” (Princess Ae Li) image complete with pink silks and boots, has only ridden 50 times in the past year.
Of Lee Shin Young and Park Jin Hee, we will return to shortly.
Tragedy struck the next intake. Granted a license in 2005, Lee Myoung Hwa took her own life shortly afterward. She was found to have been suffering from depression that is believed to have been exacerbated by worries about constant reducing to make weight. A year later, newly licensed Kim Seo Jin quit before her first ride.
In 2006, female jockeys received mainstream publicity in Korea with the release of the movie “Gaksoltang” (Lump Sugar). Starring actress Im Su Jeong as a jockey and largely shot at Seoul Race Park, the movie is, for its acting and focus on the horse as a star, arguably one of the best racing movies ever produced (Click here to see trailer.). KBS Television produced a one-off documentary about Lee Ae Li to coincide with the film’s release.
Na Yu Na after winning the Jeju Cup (KRA)
Meanwhile, down on Jeju Island Kim Joo Hee and Na Yu Na became the first women to receive jockey licenses for the pony racing there. Kim was formerly a promising athlete while Na was an Aerobics instructor. Both have become prolific winners with Na becoming the first woman to reach first 100 – and now 200 – career winners as well as landing the prestigious KRA Jeju Cup.
Na and Kim have found it easier to compete riding the Jeju ponies than their counterparts have on the thoroughbreds on the mainland and in a short time have risen to first and third in the all-time female winners list. They’ve been joined in recent years by Kim Da Young who is also winning regularly.
Back in Seoul, Yoo Mi Ra qualified in 2008. She along with 2010 graduate Park Jong Hyun have struggled to gain much of a foothold but are still working hard although Yoo did make all to win that historic race on Saturday.
2010, however, saw another desperately sad turn of events, one that shook everybody involved in racing here. Having begun racing at Seoul in the same graduation class as Lee Ae Li, Park Jin Hee moved to the new track at Busan when it opened in 2005.
She started riding winners and became well established but in 2009 her form began to dip. One Friday in March 2010, she failed to appear for her rides. After the alarm was raised, she was found dead in her apartment. She was 28.
Park Jin Hee
Park Jin Hee left behind a detailed suicide note, outlining what she believed to be unfair treatment and bullying in racing in general and that she in particular had suffered, principally from trainers. The recriminations were bitter with the jockeys and trainers unions engaging in furious rows.
Nearly three years on and for all that Busan is a much more progressive track than Seoul in terms of its raceday operation, its rules and its openness to foreigners, no Korean woman has been licensed at the track since.
Later in 2010, the Korean movie industry once more turned its attention to female jockeys as Kim Tae Hee starred in “Grand Prix” Unlike Gaksoltang, however, this was not a movie to live long in the memory.
At Seoul Lee Shin Young, who qualified as a jockey nine years earlier, sat and passed the exam needed to gain a trainers’ license. She continued riding for nearly a year until, with 90 winners to her name, a barn became vacant. On July 1, 2011 and still only 31 years old, Lee Shin Young surrendered her jockey license and became Korea’s first female trainer.
Kim Hae Sun is winning on the track
She has started well, saddling 35 winners including one in a listed race.
Her barn now has 24 horses in it, including Feel So Good, the first Korean bred horse to win a race in the US and she is thought of as one of the most promising talents on the backstretch. As a jockey she had an aggressive style which landed her in the stewards room far too often.
It is an attitude has served her well in an environment where many people were hoping for her failure.
On the track, Lee Shin Young’s protegé is Kim Hae Sun who has 80 winners to her name. A product of the Seoul Jockey Academy, which has started to churn out a series of promising young riders who have been putting their elders to shame, Kim along with 2011 graduate Lee Ah Na and 2012’s Ahn Hyo Ri, have every chance of making it to the very top.
All time List – (Winners/Rides as of January 2013):
1. Na Yu Na* – 219 (1829)
2. Lee Shin Young – 90 (895)
3. Kim Joo Hee* – 88 (1542)
4. Kim Hae Sun – 80 (1147)
5. Lee Ae Li – 53 (1062)
6. Park Jin Hee – 38 (651)
7. Kim Da Young* – 35 (450)
8. Lee Keum Ju – 19 (755)
9. Lee Ah Na – 12 (165)
10. Ahn Hyo Ri – 9 (134)
11. Lee Ok Rae – 7 (48)
12. Yoo Mi Ra – 7 (629)
13. Park Jong Hyun – 2 (110)
14. Lee Myoung Hwa –
15. Kim Seo Jin –
*Jeju Pony Racing
** There have also been three Japanese women riding in Korea and all of them have been successful. Mai Beppu rode at Seoul in 2011 while Hitomi Miyahsita rode plenty of winners at Busan in 2009/2010. Akane Yamamoto also had a successful speel at Busan in 2011/2012. Unfortunately, Akane suffered a serious injury in a paddock accident in Japan last year.
*** This post is an updated version of one published on this blog back in 2009 titled “Korean Racing Girls”. Much of the information for that original post was sourced from the excellent Korean language blog “Enjoy Horse Racing” whcih is still going strong.
Jung Dong Cheol and Yoo Gwang Hee Win in Queensland
After Seo Seung Un’s recent triumphs in the USA, it was the turn of two more young Korean jockeys to open their accounts overseas today as Jung Dong Cheol and Yoo Gwang Hee both rode their first winners in Australia.
Jung Dong Cheol (left) and Yoo Gwang Hee (centre) both rode winners in Australia on Saturday (KRA).
The two first year apprentices, who are based at Busan Racecourse, both debuted in August last year and are in Australia as part of their ongoing training. Between them they won three of the five races on Saturday’s card at Longreach Racecourse, a small track, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, in Central Queensland.
Yoo got things started in race 3 taking a half-length victory on 11/1 chance Vanguard (Chateau Istana) for trainer Charlie Prow. A race later he completed his double, riding Golden Portrait (Perugino), a 9/2 shot, to a two length win over Jung who grabbed second on 25/1 outsider Heza Flashman (Iglesia).
Jung didn’t have to wait too long to get in the winner’s circle himself, claiming the fifth and final race on Sistabella (Hidden Dragon) by just under half a length.
Since debuting at Busan last year, Jung has ridden 16 winners from 235 rides while Yoo has triumphed 7 times from 188.
Apprentice jockey Seo Seung Un has had quite the career so far. He debuted in August last year – riding two winners on his first weekend – and went on to ride 25 more until he went to the USA two months ago where he rode three more winners.
Seo Seung Un returns after his 25th winner – he’ll be off to Macau in August for the Asian Young Guns Challenge
Now back in Korea, Seo will soon be on his travels again as he becomes the first Korean jockey to participate in the annual “Asian Young Guns Challenge” which will be held in Macau on August 4.
Now in its fourth year, the challenge brings together some of the most promising apprentice jockeys from the Asia-Pacific region (and South Africa) to ride in a three-race series.
The event was hosted by the Victoria Racing Club at Flemington in Melbourne in 2009 and 2011 and by the Singapore Turf Club at Kranji in 2010.
Jockeys taking part this year are:
Ng Ka Chun (Hong Kong) Taichi Nishimura (Japan) Shinsuke Ishikawa (Japan) Seo Seung Un (Korea) Yazid Kamal (Malaysia) Zawari Razali (Singapore) Keagan De Melo (South Africa) Jake Noonan (Australia) Jason Collett (New Zealand)
They will be joined by a local representative from Macau for the three races, two of which will be on turf and one on sand. KRA Jockey Academy Instructor Robert Moore will be accompanying Seo on the trip.
Two apprentice jockeys scored their first ever career winners in the unlikeliest of circumstances at Seoul this past Saturday.
Park Hyun Woo and Ahn Hyo Ri demonstrate traditional awkward Korean poses after their debut wins at Seoul (Pic: Ilgan Sports)
Park Hyun Woo and Ahn Hyo Ri both graduated from the KRA Jockey Academy this year and debuted last month.
Neither had won on from their few rides to date coming into last weekend but that changed as first Park and then later Ahn both rode long priced winners.
Race 2 saw Park ride 280/1 chance Misojanchi to a half-length victory, overtaking champion jockey Moon Se Young on Jeilgosu in the final furlong. It was the longest priced winner at Seoul for some years and an encouraging performance in the saddle from Park who looked very much at home in the finish.
Late on in the afternoon, it was Ahn’s turn. Her win came in race 8 on 53/1 chance Time Zone. Always well-placed, the pair overtook early pacesetter Vicar Summit in the final furlong and went on to record a relatively comfortable length and a half victory.
Winner at Busan: Kim Hyun Joong (Pic: Ilgan Sports)
Down at Busan another new apprentice was also riding a long-priced winner last weekend. Kim Hyun Joong, who debuted at the same time as Ahn and Park, got his second career victory on Sunday.
And it was an impressive performance as, on 48/1 Busan Prince, he beat out South African rider Gerrit Schlechter riding odds-on favourite Gwangsok Engine by a nose in a photo finish.
It’s early days but it seems we have another talented crop of young apprentices. With young jockeys these days being given much more of an opportunity to prove themselves than they once were – owners and trainers knowing that they’ve been better trained than their predecessors – no doubt there will be plenty more visits to the winner’s circle for all of them
There’s another new Japanese jockey on the South Coast. Kanichiro Fujii will have his first rides at Busan Race Park this coming weekend.
Kanichiro “Joe” Fujii debuts at Busan this weekend
Fujii – who goes by Joe – was born in Nara, Japan but went to Australia at the age of 15 to train as a jockey. He debuted in 2001 and spent the next five years riding mainly in New South Wales, finishing 2nd in the State’s Apprentice Jockey race in 2006.
In 2007, Fujii spent nine months in Singapore where he won the Listed Chairman’s Trophy and rode third-placed finisher Jade in the Group 1 Emirates Singapore Derby.
After Singapore, Fujii went to Europe where he rode work in France for, amongst others, Criquitte Head before returning to Australia in 2008.
In 2009 he went to the USA and rode work at Belmont Park before relocating once more to Australia, this time to Queensland where he has been riding until recently. To date, he has ridden just shy of 300 winners.
Fujii is married and became a father for the first time earlier this month.
Riding on an initial four-month license and joins fellow Japanese riders Narazaki Kosuke and Yukio Abe as well as South African Gerrit Schlechter in making up the foreign jockey contingent at Busan. He will make his racing debut this Friday in race 7.
He told Korea Racing that he became interested in riding in Korea after speaking with Japanese riders Nozomu Tomizawa, Yoshi Aoki, Hiro Hamada and Akane Yamamoto – all of whom rode in Korea and have strong Australian connections, as well as Aussie jockey Garry Baker who rode at Busan from 2005 until 2007.
It has been announced that Chun Chang Ki, a multiple Classic winning jockey and a Stakes winning trainer, died on Wednesday May 2 at the age of 46. Chun had fought a long battle with cancer.
Chun Chang Ki, 1966-2012 (KRA)
Chun Chang Ki turned professional in the Spring of 1987 at the old Seoul Racecourse at Ttukseom. Although a solid rider in the nineties, in was in the early 2000’s that Chun went on to establish himself as one of the top jockeys in Korea. In a five-year period between 2002 and 2007, he won every big race going.
Among 21 Stakes wins he won the Grand Prix once (Bohamian Butler in 2002), the Korean Derby once (Saebyeok Dongja in 2005) and the Ttukseom Cup three times (Bukcheon in 2003 and Star Wood in 2005 and 2006). However, it is his partnership with two of Korea’s most famous horses, that many racing fans will remember him for.
The grey half siblings Baekgwang and Baekpa are arguably the most popular Korean horses ever. In 2006, Chun guided the colt Baekgwang to victories in the Donga Ilbo Cup and the Minister’s Cup, the third leg of the Korean Triple Crown. A year later he rode half-sister Baekpa to the Sports Seoul Trophy and then, most famously, to the Korean Oaks. It was the jockey’s third triumph in the fillies’ classic.
In early 2008 Chun was first diagnosed with lung cancer. He fought the disease vigorously and while he had to give up his twenty-year jockey career, by 2009 he had recovered sufficiently to take up the trainer’s license that he had earlier qualified for.
Chun Chang Ki wins the 2007 Korean Oaks on Baekpa (KRA)
Chun’s second career showed every sign of being as successful as his first. Building up a barn of 22 horses, he had sent out 46 winners since saddling his first runner in 2009 with his greatest success coming in the 2011 Munhwa Ilbo Stakes with filly Legal Lady.
Another filly of his, Cheoneun, is a possible runner in the Korean Derby later this month and is likely a major contender for the Korean Oaks. Sadly, the cancer never let go and the widely respected Chun will not see if she can repeat Baekpa’s feat.
Chun Chang Ki is survived by his wife and two children.
There are two new foreign jockeys in town at Busan.
Japanese Yukio Abe made a winning debut last weekend while South African veteran Gerrit Schlechter will ride for the first time this coming Friday.
New Boys: Gerrit Schlechter and Yukio Abe
Forty-three year old Abe, who usually rides at Nagoya, has over 2600 career victories to his name and opened his Korean account with victory on 7/1 shot Fine Fine in race 3 at Busan last Sunday. Officially freelance, Abe has so far been booked by a wide range of trainers.
Cape Town rider Schlechter, who also has over 2600 victories over the course of his near thirty-year career, is already known to Korean racing fans having ridden in and won the 2007 International Jockey Challenge at Seoul Racecourse.
At the time, this blog described him as a “man with a truly incredible head of hair” – which in retrospect may have been a slight exaggeration – and also noted that he wasn’t afraid to interact with heckling punters, suggesting confidence that may serve him well here full-time.
It appears that Schlechter, while also officially freelance, will replace Nathan Stanley as de-facto first-choice jockey for Australian trainer Peter Wolsley. Joe Murphy also puts the forty-six year old up this weekend.
Schlechter is the fifth South African to take up a riding licence in Korea. They’ve had mixed experiences.
Exception: Martin Wepner
Chris Taylor spent seven weeks at Seoul in 2008 while the less said about Willie Uys’ one weekend in the Capital, before he dashed to the airport, the better.
Down at Busan Deryl Daniels had the misfortune to be riding at the track at the same time as Toshio Uchida was monopolizing the winners and went home, initially on vacation but decided not to return.
After a spell in the United Arab Emirates, Taylor is now riding in Durban. Also in Durban, Daniels meanehile recorded his first Group 1 winner recently and has just relocated to Johannesburg. Uys has been forced into retirement through injury.
The one successful exception in Korea was Martin Wepner who was arguably Busan’s top jockey for a while in 2009 and early 2010, picking up victory in the Minister’s Cup on Namdo Jeap.
His was a turbulent stint, however, which wasn’t made any easier by his being inadvertently stuck in the middle of a bitter dispute between the Jockeys’ Union and the Trainers.
With backing from Wolsley though, it is likely that Schlechter will have every opportunity to do well. Both he and Abe have been granted initial licenses for four months.
It was Sho Ueno at Seoul last week, this week it is the turn of another Japanese jockey to make his Korean debut.
Narazaki Kosuke
Narazaki Kosuke will have his first rides at Busan this Friday as he fills the foreign jockey slot recently vacated by his countryman Eiki Nishimura.
Kosuke – as he will be known in Korea – is 30 years old and has career figures of 848 wins from 7484 rides since debuting in 1999.
An NAR (rather than the more prestigious JRA) jockey, he has most recently been based at Fukuyama Racecourse in Hiroshima.
Kosuke only has two rides on his first weekend although one is for Busan’s leading trainer, Kim Young Kwan, which is a good sign. The other is for Kim Jae Sub who is one of the biggest supporters of foreign riders at the track.
Two other foreign jockeys have also been granted temporary licenses at Busan. More on that next week.
Horse Racing in Korea 