Djordje Perovic has ridden his first winner in South Korea. The 33-year-old partnered Gold Mountain to a 5-length victory in race 6 on the Ttukseom Cup undercard at Seoul Racecourse today.
It was Perovic’s first winner in Seoul and came on his 35th ride in the Korean capital. Crucially, it was one of the first he’d had that had been given much of a chance pre-race.
Perovic has two more rides later in the day and the chance of at least one more winner. His win added to the three second places and a third he’d already managed.
The other two foreign jockeys at the track, Jarred Samuel and Rakesh Bhaugeerothee are still working for their first wins. Hopefully they are not too far away.
There are thirteen left in this coming Sunday’s Ttukseom Cup at Seoul Racecourse, the track’s first International Open race. They are headed by Japan-based Esmeraldina, who arrived in Korea last week.
Esmeraldina
Esmeraldina’s connections have shrewdly opted to give the ride to Busan-based Japanese jockey Joe Fujii, a man who has won three big Stakes races in the Korean capital before; the Grand Prix Stakes, the Korean Derby and the Jeju Governor’s Cup. The four-year-old Esmeraldina has reportedly settled into Seoul Racecourse very well.
The other Japan-based filly initially entered to run, Robe De Soie, was unable to make the trip after suffering a bleeding attack.
Four are set to travel up from Busan with Heba and New York Blue among them with the rest coming from the home track.
We will have a full preview after final declarations later in the week but in the meantime, here is a run-down of those left in with pedigree (Starts/1st/2nd/3rd) and home track:
Ttukseom Cup (KOR G3) – Seoul Racecourse – 1400M (Fillies & Mares 5yo and down) – June 7, 2015
Cheonnyeon Dongan (KOR) [Ecton Park – Honeycakes (Hennessy)] (22/10/5/3) Seoul Ua Deungseon (KOR) [Menifee – Singgeureoun (Mr. Adorable)] (13/6/0/1) Seoul Geumbit Hwanhui (KOR) [Peace Rules – Sincheongchun (Silent Warrior)] (16/5/3/2) Seoul Joy Lucky (KOR) [Vicar – Proper Gun (Prosper Fager)] (16/10/1/0) Seoul Esmeraldina (USA) [Harlan’s Holiday – Tasha’s Star (Spanish Steps)] Japan My Day (KOR) [Touch Gold – Smart Advice (Smart Strike)] (30/11/7/4) Seoul Bichui Jeongsang (USA) [Wildcat Heir – Persimmon Honey (Colonial Affair)] (12/5/4/0) Seoul Heba (USA) [Peace Rules – Sue’s Temper (Temperence Hill)] (30/7/5/1) Busan Halla Chukje (USA) [Gottcha Gold – C D Player (Montbrook)] (19/3/4/1) Seoul Golden Lass (KOR) [Ecton Park – Golden Eagle (Big Sur)] (12/4/2/3) Busan Fly Top Queen (USA) [Henny Hughes – Cape Discovery (Cape Town)] (15/7/1/1) Seoul New York Blue (USA) [Candy Ride – Aim For The Moon (Deputy Minister)] (17/5/7/1) Busan Ms. Margaux (USA) [Midnight Lute – Sixtyone Margaux (Cozzene)] (17/1/7/7) Busan
Two jockeys from Mauritius have arrived in Korea and are set to begin riding as soon as this coming weekend. Niven Marday will be based at Busan while Rakesh Baugheerothee will be in Seoul.
Niven Marday and Rakesh Bhaugeerothee (Pics: lemauricien.com)
Niven Marday gets arguably the easier assignment at Busan where foreign jockeys have tended to enjoy more success. The 25-year-old trained at the South African Jockey Academy and in 2014 rode six winners at Champ De Mars in Mauritius, finishing 19th in the Jockey Championship. He lies in 11th place this year with 3 wins so far.
A couple of months ago, there were no foreign riders at Seoul. South African Jarred Samuel then joined in April and was quickly followed by Italian licensed Serbian jockey Djordje Perovic at the start of this month. Bringing the number to three is Rakesh Bhaugeerothee.
Like Marday, the 38-year-old Baugheerothee also rode six winners in Mauritius last season and has added another one this term.
At Busan, Marday joins the Japanese quartet of Joe Fujii, Nozi Tomzawa, Masa Tanaka and Nobuyuki Oyama.
Yeongcheon Ace was the winner of the 2015 Korean Derby at Seoul Racecourse on Sunday. The second-favourite secured victory by two lengths to ensure that no horse will sweep the Triple Crown this year with KRA Cup Mile victor Rafale ending in 3rd.
Choi Si Dae and Yeongcheon Ace return to the unsaddling area after winning the Derby (Pic: Slickpix)
Yeongcheon Ace is the third consecutive Korean Derby winner to have been sired by Menifee following the fillies Speedy First in 2013 and Queen’s Blade in 2014. He is also the 6th horse from Busan to win the Derby from the 8 editions that have taken place since horses from that track became eligible.
Here’s how they went:
1. Yeongcheon Ace (Choi Si Dae) – Away steadily and sat towards the back until they entered the home straight. He closed strongly and took the lead inside the final furlong to win by two lengths, going away. 4.8 to win, 1,7 to show.
2. Triple Nine (Oh Kyoung Hoan) – Ostensibly Kim Young Kwan’s second string, after receiving a lot of backing in the morning’s racing media, he was quite heavily backed. He sat in midfield but improved around the home-turn to second. He was passed by the winner and was labouring a little towards the line. 6.6, 2.5 (2 lengths behind the horse in front)
3. Rafale (You Hyun Myung) – The KRA Cup Mile winner, who’s lost 13kg since that race, sat comfortably in the middle of the pack and closed down the outside in the home straight. Finished strongly but was three-quarters of a length behind Triple Nine. 5.0, 1.7 (0.75 lengths)
4. Daegunhwang (Seo Seung Un) – When he opened up a lead of two lengths at the top of the stretch, the race was his to lose. Lose it he did but it was still a solid run from Seoul’s best finisher who was close to the front throughout and took things up as they began to turn for home. Weakened in the last half furlong. 9.1, 2.1 (0.75 lengths)
5. Doraon Hyeonpyo (Kim Dong Young) – The pre-race favourite raced in 4th or 5th the whole way around. Although he he quickened sufficiently to pass the early leaders as they tired, he too was passed in the home straight. 2.4, 1.2 (0.5 lengths)
6. Seonbong (Lee Joon Chel) – A good run although he just missed out on the prize money. He went towards the back early and closed well although couldn’t make inroads into the big guns in the final furlong. 113.9, 9.9 (1.5 lengths)
7. Smart Time (Ham Wan Sik) – The lowest rated pre-race was the first of the two fillies to finish and it was creditable enough. Went back early but passed four in the home straight. Was finishing the 3rd quickest in the race, she may be Oaks bound. 148.8, 28.5 (1 length)
8. Yuseong Fighting (Lee Hee Cheon) – We said in the preview that this one would go forward as there was no way he would be able to win from the back. Well they did totally the opposite, going right to the back and then closing impressively. Of course, there was far too much to do but only the winner finished quicker. The last of those who were in touch with the winner and can be said to have had a good race. 161.2, 15.6 (1.5 lengths)
9. Mac And Cheese (Joe Fujii) – After his performance in the KRA Cup Mile, expectations were low and he duly lived down to them. He went towards the back early and didn’t quicken when asked. 58.0, 13.7 (5 lengths)
10. Yeongung Bolt (Song Keong Yun) – The other filly, she went towards the back of midfield early and didn’t find anything in the home straight, finishing slowly. After the race she was found to have bled and will be suspended for one month. 165.4, 25.0 (5 lengths)
11. Yeonggwanguitaepung (Masa Tanaka) – He’d lost 14kg since his KRA CUp Mile 4th and the race went exactly the opposite to how it was expected. Instead of starting slowly and finishing strongly, he went towards the front early and finished weakly. Didn’t look 100% right. 19.7, 4.2 (Nose)
12. New White Socks (Moon Se Young) – A big disappointment, this one showed close to the front much of the way around but was passed on the home turn and was slow in the straight. 16.3, 3.9 (0.5 lengths)
13. Sanggam Mama (Park Eul Woon) – As expected, he went out quickly and took the early lead. As expected, he couldn’t keep it up and was done by the time they got to the home straight. 75.7, 15.8 (2.5 lengths)
The Korean Oaks will be run at Busan on June 21 while the final leg of the Triple Crown is the Minister’s Cup, back at Seoul on July 19.
The Korean racing community was one of several around the world to be saddened to learn of the death of jockey Fausto Durso in Brazil on Saturday.
Fausto Durso: 1974-2015
Durso first came to Korea to ride in the Seoul International Jockey Challenge in August 2013, winning the feature race of the event, the YTN Cup, on Choichoro. He immediately applied for a short-term license, which was approved. He returned to Korea in October that year and rode five more winners during a three-month stay over the winter of 2013-2014.
Having turned professional aged 18 and ridden 700 winners in his native Brazil, Fausto Durso moved to Asia and competed in the 2013 Jockey Challenge as a representative of the Macau Jockey Club.
It was in that jurisdiction where he had his biggest successes, riding 600 winners and winning many of the biggest races as well as twice being crowned champion jockey. Durso also had stints in Dubai, Malaysia and most recently, in Mauritius.
Fausto Durso winning the YTN Cup at Seoul Racecourse in 2013 (Pic: Ross Holburt)
Like many foreign riders who come to Seoul, Durso didn’t get as many opportunities as he would have liked but regularly made the most of what he had to work with, achieving a very high place percentage over his 165 rides.
Fausto Durso is remembered by those who knew him here as being friendly, hard-working and a very talented jockey.
According to local media reports, Durso died following an altercation outside his parents’ house in Senador Firmino. He was 40 years old. Thoughts are with his family and friends.
Primary nominations were made this Friday for June’s Ttukseom Cup and the stand-out names among the 22 early entries are two Japanese-trained horses. If they run, they will be the first horses from the Japan Racing Association to run in Korea and also become the first overseas-trained horses to run in a regular Korean Open Stakes race.
Esmeraldina
Four Korean Stakes races have this year been designated as open to overseas-trained runners this year and it’s the two from Japan who have stepped up to take on the challenge.
The Ttukseom Cup, which will take place on Sunday June 7, is a 1400M race open to fillies and mares and is the first leg of the “Queens’ Tour”. US-bred Esmeraldina and Japan-bred Robe de Soie are both experienced runners in the JRA.
Esmeraldina [Harlan’s Holiday – Tasha’s Star (Spanish Steps)] is a four-year-old who has won three of her eight races to date. She won her only start as a 2-year-old at Tokyo Racecourse in November of 2013 before starting 2014 successfully with a victory at Nakayama before finishing 3rd in the Group 2 Hochi Hai Fillies’ Revue, a Japanese 1000 Guineas Trial, at Hanshin last March.
Her biggest prize was earned through victory in an NAR/JRA Exchange race at Kawasaki, the Kanto Oaks, in June with Craig Williams in the saddle. Since then she’s raced just three times without success, most recently at Nakayama on April 19 this year. Her best (and only) time recorded over the Ttukseom Cup distance of 1400M is 1:22.5 – inside El Padrino’s Seoul Racecourse track record – and was recorded on turf.
Robe de Soie
Robe de Soie [Special Week – Velvet Robe (Gone West)] is also a four-year-old. She has four wins from nine career starts. A winner on her debut at Chukyo, she went on to win the Yamaboushi Sho at Hanshin in September 2013. As a three-year-old, she was an also-ran behind Esmeraldina in the Kanto Oaks but would finish the year with back-to-back wins at Hanshin and Kyoto.
She was 7th on her most recent start at Hanshin on April 4. Her best time over 1400M is 1:23.3 on dirt. A dedicated sprinter to the all-rounder Esmeraldina, Robe de Soie comes in here with the more imposing recent form while Esmeraldina has won far more prize-money over her career. It is likely we will see some familiar jockeys riding both of them.
And it’s prize-money that they come here looking for and that is what makes this race so significant. The Korea/Japan Goodwill Cup in 2013 and last year’s Asia Challenge Cup were both invitational races meaning that the hosts picked up the bill. Win or lose, they couldn’t actually lose. In an Open race that isn’t the case and connections will be paying a substantial proportion of the costs involved in bringing their horses to the race.
The Asia Challenge Cup, which will also feature horses from Singapore and possibly Dubai, remains an invitational and on that weekend in August there will be two further races open to overseas-trained runners; the Singapore Turf Club Trophy and the KRA Cup Classic, as the internationalization program for Korean racing continues to gather momentum.
Korean connections have decided to meet the challenge head-on. In Primary nominations for the Ttukseom Cup, there were a total of 20 domestic entries; 10 from Busan and 10 from Seoul and includes most of the best fillies and mares in the country. We’ll have much more on the race over the next few weeks.
Seoul trainer An Byung Ki, whose horse Argo Asset was disqualified in March after weighing-in more than two kilos light, sparking off a near-riot at the racecourse, has had his license suspended for one year.
An Byung Ki won’t be adding to these figures for at least a year
An had horses entered in consecutive races just 25 minutes apart, circumstances in which weighing out is done prior to both races. Some time after the jockey sat on the scales, the wrong saddle found its way onto the wrong horse.
An Byung Ki’s stable has now been closed and his horses are being dispersed to other trainers. An is a fromer jockey who took up a training license in 2008 and has trained 200 winners from 2080 starters.
A week after the Argo Asset incident, Busan punters tried something similar when the saddle slipped on favourite Yeongung Bolt. This time the Authority did not budge and simply cancelled the remaining two races on the card. Seoul punters did not join in with the action that day.
Jockey Joe Fujii explains what happened to Yeongung Bolt in an appeal to punters on the Racing Broadcast Network
In the Yeongung Bolt case, which was also resolved this week, trainer Kang Byung Eun was fined KRW 3 Million (just under $3,000) and jockey Joe Fujii – whose stirrups-less ride around the track is destined to become a mainstay of stocking-filler comedy racing DVDs in years to come – received a reprimand.
A few years ago, I wrote an article with the title “What have we learned from Pick Me Up?” If one definition of insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results, then it must be concluded that more than six years on, the answer to my question is “not a lot”.
Bring her home: Queen's Blade wins the 2014 Korean Derby (Pic: Ross Holburt)
Last year an unfit Speedy First and an out of sorts Major King, Korean Classic winners both, spent the spring and early summer in the United States, each getting humiliated three times, before coming home. That three times is important as, for some reason, all these years later, the Korea Racing Authority still picks up the bill if a horse goes to the US and runs three times. A couple of years previously, Oaks winner Baekpa did the same.
This past Saturday, the 2014 Korean Derby winner Queen’s Blade was entered in a six-furlong race for fillies and mares at Pimlico. I’ll not post the video but she was left in the gate at the start and never featured, ending last by some considerable distance. Inevitably she will race twice more to get the subsidy.
If we were learning something from this, it wouldn’t be so bad but we’re not. We already know that four-year old Korean horses who have been going non-stop since their debuts nearly two years ago will not be competitive in US racing. We also know that if a horse was expected to perform well in Korea this year, it would not be sent overseas.
Similarly, we know that Korean bred horses who go to the US when young can be competitive. As someone once said, “maybe the problem isn’t the horse”.
We also know that when sent overseas at the right time and to the right race, Korean trained horses can compete – Watts Village winning the Interaction Cup at Ohi in 2013 proved that.
In the original piece about Pick Me Up, I wrote about the strange practice of sending a Korean horse halfway around the world in order to try and assess the strength of Korean bred horses, when there are plenty of imports racing in Korea, but only allowed to run in segregated races. The start of the rating system, whatever its critics may say, is finally addressing that.
In a year where Korea hopes to become recognised by IFHA as a Part II country, a second Derby winner in as many years going to the States and not even looking like a racehorse, is potentially damaging to the international perception of racing here.
If an owner wishes to take their horse themselves to race in the USA, then the very best of luck to them. Support though should focus on getting our best horses to Singapore in July, to Tokyo in late autumn and to Dubai early next year and also encouraging them to take on the visitors in the Ttukseom Cup, KRA Cup Classic and Asia Challenge Cup.
Two months after Ikuyasu Kurakane returned to Japan, Seoul Racecourse has a new foreign jockey with South African Jarred Samuel taking up a four-month license.
Jarred Samuel (Picture: Gold Circle)
Samuel, a 27-year-old who was previously based in Durban, has ridden 103 winners since debuting in 2004 and was in Seoul watching the races this past weekend. He is available for rides from this week.
Able to make 50kg weight, Samuel will be looking to get more opportunities than some of the other foreign jockeys who have ridden at Seoul in the past.
Samuel will be the fifth South African jockey to ride regularly in Korea (many others have participated in the Seoul International Jockey Challenge). Chris Taylor and Stephan Swanepoel weren’t given many chances during their times at Seoul several years ago although Martin Wepner and Gerrit Schlechter both fared much better in their stints at Busan.
A huge football fan, he will no doubt fit in well in Korea as his favourite team is Manchester United, although he has pledged to attend some K-League too.
Just two months ago he was featured on a South African TV show:
Desperately sad news from Jeju Island as Let’s Run Stud Farm has reported that one of the jewels of its breeding program, Sharp Humor, died as the result of an accident on March 18.
Sharp Humor, 2003-2015.
Aged just 12, Sharp Humor was in his 3rd breeding season in Korea, having been purchased by the Korea Racing Authority in November 2011, arriving the following February.
He covered 97 mares in 2013 and 85 in 2014, with another full book in progress this year.
Sharp Humor [Distorted Humor – Bellona (Hansel)] was a good racehorse whose full promise was thwarted by injury. As a two-year-old, he won two Stakes races at Belmont Park and there were high hopes of him as he began his three-year-old campaign in 2006. He won the G2 Swale Stakes at Gulfstream Park before narrowly running second to the tragic Barbaro in a stretch duel in the Florida Derby at the same track.
However, upon finishing 19th of 20 in the Kentucky Derby, again behind Barbaro, he was found to have fractured a knee. He underwent surgery and managed to return to race one more time at Belmont Park, before being retired with career figures of 4 wins from 10 starts.
Just as his potential was never truly reached on the track, regretfully neither will it be in the breeding shed. He sired plenty of winners in the USA and was sold to Korea in 2011 where he joined the rapidly improving breeding program. His two full crops have yet to make the track here with the first two-year-olds set to debut later this year.
There was very heavy rain on the island on the day of the accident. Jeju, with its rolling fields, agreeable climate and plenty of time out of the barn, is generally a pleasant posting for a stallion but a full inquiry into Sharp Humor’s death will review procedures with regard to the other valuable and high profile stallions, such as Menifee, Officer, Rock Hard Ten, Hansen and newcomer Tiz Wonderful, who stand there.
Pico Central, another expensive import, died in a paddock accident at the farm, which was previously known as the KRA Jeju Stud Farm, in February 2014.
Here’s that Florida Derby where Sharp Humor, the early front-runner, made Barbaro work all the way to the line:
Horse Racing in Korea 