Noel Callow has won the first leg of the International Jockey Challenge at Seoul Race Park (Pictures: Ross Holburt)
Noel Callow Dismounts from Victory Dancer
Macao Jockey Club Cup Presentation
Noel Callow on Victory Dancer edges out Fausto Pinto on Blue Camp to win the MJC Trophy
Macau Jockey Club Trophy – Seoul Race Park – 1400M
1. Victory Dancer (KOR) – Noel Callow
2. Blue Camp (KOR) – Fausto Durso
3. Geomtan (KOR) – Raymond Danielson
Distances: 0.5 lengths/2.5 lengths – 12 ran
We’ve already taken a look at the jockeys who will be visiting Korea to make up the Rest Of The World team in this weekend’s Seoul International Jockey Challenge, now it’s time to examine the home team.
Moon Se Young
Moon Se Young: The reigning champion jockey at Seoul, Moon has won just about every big race going in his 12-year career to date including the Korean Derby and Grand Prix Stakes.
Second on the all-time Korean winners’ list with nearly 900 wins. Earlier this year, Moon spent a successful 3 months riding in Macao and despite giving his rivals such a head start, is already up to 3rd in the 2013 championship at home
Park Tae Jong
Park Tae Jong: The only jockey to have ridden more winners than Moon Se Young, Park is also perhaps the only jockey to be known by the wider Korean public.
In his 26 years in the saddle, he’s ridden nearly 2,000 winners (from just 11,000 rides) and has won pretty much all there is to win in Korea. Korean Oaks aside, if he’s not won it, no-one has.
Jo In Kwen
Jo In Kwen: One of the new generation of jockeys who benefitted from the KRA’s improved training during the last few years, Jo In Kwen debuted in 2008 and currently leads the 2013 standing with 62 winners.
Only three Stakes wins to date but very talented and is expected to go on to become one of the dominant jockeys of the next decade in Korea.
Seo Seung Un
Seo Seung Un: He burst onto the scene in 2011 riding 2 winners on his debut weekend. He then went to the USA for further training, riding 2 winners in the process. He participated in the Asia Young Guns Challenge in Macao last year.
Seo rode out his apprentice claim in a Korean record time and, while yet to secure the really big rides, currently lies 2nd in the 2013 championship.
Dangdae Bulpae and Jo Sung Gon will look for a 2nd consecutive Busan Metropolitan
Jo Sung Gon: Busan’s champion jockey will travel to Seoul for the event and when he comes to the capital, Jo Sung Gon usually wins. That’s because he’s usually partnering Dangdae Bulpae, who’s won more Stakes races than any other Korean horse.
He won’t be on him this time but Jo is considered by some observers to be the most talented local jockey at either Seoul or Busan and is currently running away with the 2013 Busan championship.
Yoo Hyun Myung
Yoo Hyun Myung: Another Busan jockey completes the home team. Yoo Hyun Myung won the Grand Prix Stakes on Mister Park at Seoul in 2010 and has been consistently among Busan’s top riders for the last few years. He comes into the event in good form.
All jockeys will compete in four races over the weekend, culminating in the YTN Cup on Sunday evening. Rides will be allocated by a draw which will take place at Declarations on Thursday afternoon at Seoul Racecourse.
While Seoul is dark this weekend, next week sees the first of two big events with an international flavour at the capital track.
On September 1, the SBS Goodwill Cup will involve 3 horses visiting from Japan – the first time foreign trained horses will have run in Korea. First up though on August 10 and 11 is the annual Seoul International Jockey Challenge when 6 visitors will take on 6 locals in the Jockey Challenge over 4 races culminating in the YTN Cup.
A strong line-up has been secured this year. Here is a run-down of the international team:
Niall McCullagh
Niall McCullagh (Ireland) – Returning to Seoul after taking part in the 2010 event, the 44-year-old has been a consistent performer in his native Ireland for over 20 years.
Since his last trip to the Korean capital, he has secured the biggest prize of his career, guiding Royal Diamond to victory in the 2012 Irish St.Leger. Watch the race here.
Noel Callow
Noel Callow (Australia – representing Malaysia) – A prolific winner whose big race victories include the 2005 Victoria Derby and the 2008 Singapore Derby, the globe-trotting Aussie Noel “King” Callow will be in Seoul to represent the Selangor Turf Club.
While successful at home, primarily on the Victorian circuit, it is in Asia where Callow is best known with a number of stints in Singapore – where he was leading Jockey in 2007 – and Malaysia. He has also ridden in Mauritius where he became something of a folk-hero among local racing fans.Here he is winning the 2008 Emirates Singapore Derby on Top Spin.
Fausto Durso
Fausto Pinto Durso (Brazil – representing Macau) – The Sao Paolo native, with nearly 700 wins in his homeland has been a long-term fixture in Macau where he has racked up over 600 winners.
His biggest triumphs came in 2010 when, among other Group 1’s, he won the Macau Derby.
He has also ridden in Dubai and Malaysia as well as the occasional weekend in Hong Kong. Here he wins the 2010 Macau Hong Kong Trophy on Viva Hong Kong.
Raymond Danielson
Raymond Danielson (South Africa) – Qualifying in the same class as Richard Fourie and Muzi Yeni – both alumni of this event – Raymond Danielson has ridden nearly 500 winners in South Africa.
Danielson rode the winner of the Group 1 Champions Cup at Greyville in 3 consecutive years from 2009-2011.
Here he is winning the 2011 edition on The Apache.
Yucel Bilik
Yucel Bilik (Turkey) – Turkey always sends one of its top jockeys to this event and this year is no exception.
Only last month, 29-year old Yucel Bilik landed the biggest win of his career, guiding Divine Light to victory in Turkey’s richest and most prestigious race, the G1 Gazi Derby. Watch the race here.
Shinichiro Akiyama
Shinichiro Akiyama (Japan) – This year, the JRA sends a 16-year veteran with nearly 800 winners to his name.
Lightweight jockey Shinichiro Akiyama has a number of big wins under his belt but is best known in his homeland for victories in the NHK Mile Cup and the Hanshin Juvenile Fillies. Here he is winning the 2012 Hanshin Juvenile Fillies on Robe Tissage
We’ll have more on the build-up to the event – including a look at the home team – over the next few days.
All jockeys will compete in 4 races; 2 on the Saturday and 2 on the Sunday. Mounts will be drawn on Thursday.
The same weekend will also see exchange races sponsored by racing authorities from Turkey, Singapore, Malaysia, Ireland and Macau.
Almost a year after being diagnosed with tendinitis, Smarty Moonhak, the phenom who took Korean racing by storm as a 2-year old in 2011, has quietly been returned to Seoul Race Park to resume training after his treatment was deemed a success.
Back: Smarty Moonhak (Pic: KRA)
Smarty Moonhak [Smarty Jones – Madeira M’Dear (Black Tie Affair)], a bargain $14,000 purchase at the 2010 Keeneland September Yearling sale, was beaten on his debut but went on to record 4 straight crushing victories against older opposition culminating in a 10-length win in the Turkey Jockey Club Trophy in November 2011.
This earned him an unexpected nomination to the season ending 2300 metre Grand Prix Stakes – the first 2-year old ever to receive one – in which he ran 3rd behind Tough Win and Mister Park.
He started his 3-year old season in imperious form winning four class 1 races with his by now customary ease before travelling to Busan for the “Summer Grand Prix”, the Busan Metropolitan City Mayor’s Stakes.
On a sweltering night on the south coast and sent off the odds-on favourite, Smarty Moonhak found himself beaten by Dangdae Bulpae, a horse who by that time was already winner of more Stakes races than any other in Korea.
Recovery: Smarty Moonhak with owner Ha Jun Hwan (Pic: Sports Hankook)
While a slight disappointment, it was no disgrace. However, a week after the race it was confirmed that tendinitis had been detected. Coming just weeks after the tragic death of his Grand Prix rival Mister Park, it was a heavy blow for racing.
Between spells of treatment, Smarty Moonhak recuperated at Taepyeong Farm, the same place he had stayed when first imported to Korea. He returned to Seoul Race Park on July 4 and is now in the care of trainer Park Hui Cheol, his previous handler Ko Ok Bong having retired during his absence.
Reaction to his return has been mixed. There is happiness that the treatment has been successful but also a certain amount of acknowledgement that past experience tells us that Smarty Moonhak may not be the same horse he was before.
There have been instances of horses returning after long lay-offs. Baekgwang (The Groom Is Red) had 2 year-long absences, receiving a similar kind of stem-cell treatment during the second one. He returned – and won a class 1 race – but was retired shortly after.
Then there have been those who have returned to the track but never made it to racing. J.S Hold (Ft. Stockton) was injured as he won the final leg of the 2007 Korean Triple Crown. He returned to training nearly a year later but never made it onto the course.
While he has been seen on the track in the mornings, Smarty Moonhak is yet to put in a timed-work. His next step is to be entered for a race-trial so he can re-qualify to race. Then and only then can he be entered for real.
Connections have assured racing fans that they wouldn’t have brought him back if it wasn’t safe to do so and he will be returned to Taepyeong to begin his Stud career if anything changes. He won’t race unless they are convinced he will do himself justice.
Welcome back, Smarty Moonhak. Be safe.
Watch: Smarty Moonhak as a 2-year old destroying a field of older horses in the TJK Trophy in 2011:
They say you should never go back, but Ikuyasu Kurakane’s second stint at Seoul Racecourse is shaping up to be just as good – and maybe even better – than his first.
Ikuyasu Kurakane is into his second successful stint at Seoul Race Park
Japanese jockey Kurakane first rode at Seoul in 2007 and spent nearly 18 months in Korea, riding both in the capital and at Busan, scoring 106 winners in all.
He returned at the beginning of April this year and has quickly become the hardest working man at the track, riding in 188 races since – no mean feat when there are only 2 race meetings a week.
The horses he’s been riding haven’t necessarily been the best and it is rare for Kurakane to get on a favourite, however, this past weekend the 38-year-old partnered 5 different horses to victory. It takes him up to 22 since his return and puts him in 8th place in the 2013 jockeys’ championship.
Shortly before returning to Korea, Kurakane rode his 1500th winner in Japan. Prize-money and lifestyle in Korea is such though that there is plenty of competition among Japanese jockeys to ride here and many apply to return after they leave.
It does take a certain kind of jockey to succeed in what is a harsh weighing room environment for foreign jockeys and the workaholic Kurakane, who rides a full lot of trackwork every morning and never turns down a mount, fits it exactly.
In the winner’s circle: Ikuyasu has been in it more times than any other foreign rider at Seoul
While Japanese jockeys find things much easier than western riders, there have still been as many who haven’t been a success than have. At semi-foreigner friendly Busan, Toshio Uchida and Joe Fujii have, a couple of years apart, both become the track’s top rider. At Seoul, Ikuyasu has been the only one to break through to the top-tier of jockeys.
Currently there are 5 foreign jockeys licensed in Korea. Britain’s Darryll Holland – with 9 wins to his name so far – is the only non-Japanese. Another Japanese rider will start at Busan this month.
Meanwhile in foreign training terms, there really is only one Peter Wolsley. The remarkable Australian is closing in on 200 Korean winners and made it 190 on Sunday afternoon when Cheongchun Bulpae (Milwaukee Brew) took the first of Busan’s co-feature races.
Fly Top Queen may have kept us waiting for over a year but the most expensive racehorse ever to be imported to Korean didn’t disappoint when she finally made her debut at Seoul Race Park today.
While the morning tip-sheets were sceptical, punters sent Fly Top Queen off as the odds-on favourite and it was the punters who were proved correct as the 3-year-old filly led from gate to wire for a 5-length win.
Fly Top Queen [Henny Hughes – Cape Discovery (Cape Town)] was a $225,000 purchase out of the Ocala Spring Sale last April, shortly after the KRA lifted the $70,000 limit that Korean buyers were previously restricted to spending on imported fillies.
Busan based jockey Jo Chan Hoon is in Kuala Lumpur to represent Korea in this weekend’s Selangor Turf Club Australasian Racing Bloodstock International Jockeys Championship.
Jo Chan Hoon, who rides at the Selangor Turf Club this weekend, winning the 2008 Korean Oaks on Jeolho Chance
The contest, which coincides with the Selangor club hosting an International Racing Carnival, features 13 jockeys competing over 6 races.
Joao Moreira, currently far and away the top jockey in Singapore, heads the line-up of international invites while well-known Australian jockeys Stephan Baster and Noel Callow are also taking part. Greg Cheyne, who raced in the Seoul International Jockey Challenge a few years ago, will represent South Africa.
35-year old Jo qualified as a jockey in 2003 at Seoul Race Park and moved to Busan upon its opening. He has 276 career wins, the highlight of which was the 2008 Korean Oaks on Jeolho Chance, as he gamely tells Selangor Turf Club TV in English here:
More information, including racecards, at the Selangor Turf Club website.
On Sunday afternoon at Seoul Race Park, Charming Girl was saddled up, led around the paddock and cantered down to the start of race 6, a 7-furlong class 4 event for Korean-bred horses. Then, just as had happened on all of the 95 previous times she had gone through this process, she entered the starting gate, ran as fast as she could and was beaten.
Charming Girl with owner Byun Young Nam after her 96th defeat. Jockey Yoo Mi Ra, who has ridden her 76 times, looks on
In finishing 9th of 11 and taking that sequence to 96, Charming Girl broke the Korean record for longest consecutive losing streak. The previous holder of this dubious honour was a New Zealand bred gelding named Dang Naru (Ivory Hunter), who went through his whole career of 95 runs without a victory between 1995 and 2000.
Dang Naru did, however, manage to record one 2nd place finish. Charming Girl’s best finish is 3rd, a position she has achieved on eight occasions.
Charming Girl [Pacific Bounty – Tweddles (Golden Juggler)] made her racecourse debut in January 2008, finishing 10th of 12. She would perform in similar fashion for much of the year, until in October, she broke into the money for the first time, with a 3rd place finish over 6 furlongs. Two months earlier, she had been ridden for the first time by newly qualified apprentice jockey Yoo Mi Ra. Yoo has since ridden her on a further 75 occasions which works out as almost exactly 10% of her total rides to date. It is no coincidence that her win ratio is one of the lowest of all jockeys at Seoul.
Indeed, just as Yoo Mi Ra’s figures do not necessarily do her justice, so Charming Girl is not a terrible racehorse. However, under Korea’s strict class rating system, horses who are talented to a certain extent but reach their limit, have nowhere to go. Once a horse goes up on class, they can never be dropped down again. Over the course of her career, Charming Girl has managed to amass enough prize money – around US $50,000 to date – to be promoted first to class 5 and then to class 4 where she remains. Not fast enough to win, but never able to return to a lower level where she might be competitive.
It is a system that does provide extra security for betting integrity and for ensuring that the majority of uncompetitive horses are retired but it is also one that leaves many racehorses facing an uncertain future once they have reached a level where it is impossible for them to win.
Charming Girl crosses the line at the end of her 96th defeat
Charming Girl won’t have any problems. Her owner Byun Young Nam thinks the world of her and has announced his intention to keep running her so long as she is sound – and with no injuries or illness in five years, she perhaps is the soundest horse at the track – with a comfortable retirement to look forward too. Byun was on hand in the unsaddling enclosure after Sunday’s race to welcome his mare back and to pose for pictures.
In Korea especially where purses are high but ownership isn’t something to show off in polite society, racing is about winning. Charming Girl’s career has been about anything other than winning. In 2011, with 60 defeats already under her belt she, alongside the vastly more successful mare Luna, who nearly died aged 2 before coming back from injury to win several Stakes races, was featured in a campaign to promote ownership. The message owner Byun was passing on was that you don’t have to win to have fun.
If every horse was like Charming Girl, we wouldn’t have much of a sport, however, having been a popular fixture of the Seoul track for the past 5 years, she deserved her moment in the spotlight on Sunday. She should break the 100 by the end of summer.
K Pop (Vicar) came home on top in race 5 at the Penang Turf Club in Malaysia last Saturday to become the first Korean bred horse to win a race in that country and in the process record an important milestone for the Korean breeding industry.
Journey Ends in Winner’s Circle – K Pop on his way to export in 2011 (KRA)
A 4-year old gelding, K Pop was one of three horses exported from Korea to Malaysia in 2011. They were followed by six more in 2012. K Pop was making his 5th start and had one previous 2nd place finish to his name before last Saturday’s win. His time was 4 seconds quicker than the Seoul Racecourse record for the same distance of 1700 metres although it was on turf.
The KRA began its breeding program in the early 1990’s, however, the three sent to Malaysia in 2011 were the first to be commercially exported. The KRA has set a target of 50 horses per year to be exported by 2020, primarily to Macau and Malaysia, however the long-term goal is to break into the potentially huge market of the gargantuan neighbour to the West of the Korean peninsula.
Last year, Feel So Good (Ft.Stockton) became the first Korean bred horse to win a race in the United States. However, like a number of Korean horses each year, he had been sent there for training purposes and was brought home shortly afterwards.
K Pop is different and many involved in the breeding industry here will have been celebrating his win. As for K Pop himself, he celebrated breaking his maiden by promptly dumping his apprentice jockey onto the track as soon as they crossed the line.
The KRA is sticking with Girl Groups for its K-Pop fix this year – they know their market well. Sistar are the biggest name and will be performing a “mini-concert” (i.e. 3 songs) at Seoul Racecourse on Korean Derby Day on May 19.
A K-Pop girl group will be at Seoul Racecourse every Sunday until November
Here is a full list of who is appearing when. Some are well-known, others…less so (final schedule may change and will be confirmed at the beginning of each month:
May 12: Goddess
May 19: Sistar
May 26: Tiny G
June 2: Heart Rabbit Girls
June 9: Aurora
June 16: Purplay
June 23: Kim So Jung
June 30: SPICA
July 7: Peernine
July 14: Sunny Days
July 21: Fresh
July 28: T Angel
August 4: Fiesta
August 11: Brave Girls
August 18: TBC
August 25: AB
September 1: TBC
September 8: Wind Hold Venus
September 15: Gangkiz
September 29: Swincle
October 6: Stellar
October 13: Two X
October 20: Tahiti
October 27: Jewelry
November 3: T Angel
November 10: Ladies’ Code
Horse Racing in Korea 