The unsurprising news overnight from the US is that Pick Me Up’s third American outing ended unplaced. The six year old ran over a mile on dirt in race 8 at Laurel Park, a $40,000 allowance race. He finished seventh of the eight runners behind winner Kaufy Big Shot.
UPDATED: The video of the race is now available, should anyone be so inclined, courtesy of fpop.
Pick Me Up will try to make it third time lucky – or at least a first time without humiliation – when he goes at Laurel Park in Maryland on Wednesday afternoon. The six year old, in the USA for the KRA’s internationalization experiment, will go on dirt over a mile at 3:57pm local time in race 8 on the card. The allowance race has a purse of $40,000. Pick Me Up has suffered disappointing reverses in his first two outings in the US, first on turf, then on dirt and, unsurprisingly, is rated the outsider of 10 in this race. We’ll have a full report of how he does on Thursday morning.
Following the introduction of English language stewards’ reports at Busan Race Park during the summer, Seoul Race Park has now followed suit and has added English translations of the stewards’ reports to their website. As with the Busan reports, they are currently only available on the Korean language section of the KRA website, so we will be linking to them directly from the results page of this site. While the Busan reports are generally available on the day of the meeting, what with Seoul’s race days being consecutive, it is anticipated that it will take two to three days for the reports to be published. Both Seoul and Busan Race Parks have one foreign steward on their regular panel. Click here for the first English report from Seoul.
A small field of nine go in the President’s Cup race at Seoul Race Park this coming Sunday. The Group 1 race, over 2000 metres, is one of the biggest of the year for Korean-bred older horses with a KRW 265Million first prize. Leading the field is Myeongmun Gamun. The seven year old is without a start on two months, perhaps in part due to his notorious refusal to go in the stalls and habit of picking up suspensions as a result. Nevertheless, when he goes in, he’s one of the best in any race. Also going is Baekpa, the only filly in the field. Full list of runners, records and riders:
President’s Cup (G.I) – Seoul Race Park – 2000M – Nov 16, 2008 – 16:40
1. Baengnokjeong (22/7/2/3) – Hwang Soon Do
2. Natural Nine (16/7/2/2) – Park Soo Hong
3. Baekpa (20/8/4/2) – Park Tae Jong
4. Hongji (26/8/9/3) – Shin Hyoung Cheol
5. Flying Cat (70/16/6/8) – Oh Kyoung Hoan
6. Saebyeok Dongja (31/9/4/2) – Moon Se Young
7. Myeongmun Gamun (28/16/3/4) – Cho Kyoung Ho
8. Triple Seven (11/3/2/2) – Choi Beom Hyun
9. Dashing Champ (32/7/8/2) – Shim Seung Tae
With Cho Kyoung Ho sidelined through suspension at the weekend, Park Tae Jong moved up into second place in the 2008 Jockeys’ Championship. Moon Se Young landed a double on both Saturday and Sunday to move onto 110 but it was Choi Beom Hyun who was the most prolific rider of the weekend with a total of six winners:
1. Moon Se Young 110
2. Park Tae Jong 81
3. Cho Kyoung Ho 80
4. Choi Beom Hyun 61
5. Ikuyasu Kurakane 42
Tough time highlights difficulties faced by overseas riders
Danny Craven, who completed nine months in Korea in August this year is back riding in Queensland and has been speaking about his time in Korea. Craven had 131 rides during his Korean stint landing 10 winners, 9 seconds and 13 third place finshes. He spent five months at Seoul and then a further four at Busan.
Speaking to WWOS.com.au, Craven talked about the difficulties faced by foreign jockeys in Korea saying “It was very difficult trying to get rides as the Korean trainers stuck with their local riders”. Also, as most of the overseas riders have found, the language barrier proved very difficult to overcome. Craven’s final comment was “I know one thing, I’ll never go back to ride there again”. Read the full article here.
South African veteran joins Seoul Race Park
The latest overseas jockey to come to Korea will make his debut this Saturday at Seoul Race Park. South African Willie Uys has signed a one year contract and will line up on the three year old Absolute Power in race 4. The forty six year old Uys comes to Korea off the back of a career that has so far yielded just over one thousand winners from just under ten thousand rides. Uys will be the third South African jockey to debut this year. Chris Taylor’s stint at Seoul was short-lived but Deryl Daniels is into his third month at Busan and looks set to be joined by another, Petrus Botha, later this month.
Uys has just the one ride on Saturday and then one more on Sunday when he will partner Eastern Hotshot in race 3.
There’s just a week and a half to go until the President’s Cup, one of the year’s biggest races for older horses at Seoul Race Park where Myeongmun Gamun and Baekpa are expected to renew hostilities. This coming weekend, however, most of the top action will be at Busan Race Park.
On Friday, Korean Derby winner Ebony Storm will face off against the formidable Areumdaun Jilju in a handicap and then on Sunday, thirteen will line up for the Busan Metropolitan City Cup, one of the biggest races of the year open to foreign bred horses. Golding heads the field for the 2000 metre handicap which has a first prize of KRW 142Million. The race is off at 15:20 and will be simulcast to Seoul Race Park. Full list of runners, records, weights and riders:
Busan Metro City Cup (G.III) – Busan Race Park – 2000M – Nov 9, 2008 – 15:20
1. Bugyeong Choegang (AUS) (17/7/4/2) – 55.5kg – Gu Young Jun
2. Gamun Bobae (USA) (19/5/3/4) – 58kg – Chae Gyu Jun
3. Angle Slam (USA) (35/7/6/8) – 54.5kg – Eiki Nishimura
4. Alchan Sonyeo (USA) (52/1/4/8) – 50kg – Kim Myoung Shin
5. Winter Invitation (AUS) (30/3/6/5) – 52.5kg – Jo Chan Hoon
6. Hard Ride (USA) (14/4/2/1) – 52.5kg – Lim Sung Sil
7. Wonder Love (USA) (36/5/9/6) – 57kg – Han Sang Gyu
8. Florida Native (USA) (21/7/3/3) – 54.5kg – Yoo Hyun Myoung
9. King Kephalos (JPN) (9/5/1/1) – 53kg – Jo Chang Wook
10. Golding (USA) (32/15/7/4) – 60kg – Toshio Uchida
11. Oreumak (AUS) (45/5/5/8) – 50kg – Choi Si Dae
12. Dongbang Geona (JPN) (22/9/3/1) – 55.5kg – Kim Eu Su
13. Seonbaljein (JPN) (39/5/7/5) – 53.5kg – Ahn Sun Ho
Moon Se Young has gone past the 100 winner mark for the season and remains a long way clear at the Jockey’s Championship for 2008 as he bears down on Park Tae Jong’s previous calender year best of 120:
1. Moon Se Young 106
2. Cho Kyoung Ho 80
3. Park Tae Jong 78
4. Choi Beom Hyun 55
5. Ikuyasu Kurakane 42
Park Byoung Yun was the latest of the newly qualified apprentice jockeys to pick up his first winner on Saturday. Of the seven newcomers this year, Lee Sang Hyuk, Park Si Cheon and Kim Cheol Ho have all landed four winners with only Kim Dong Min and Yoo Mi Na, now recovered from injury, yet to score.
1. Lee Sang Hyuk 4/5/2
2. Park Si Cheon 4/3/10
3. Kim Cheol Ho 4/1/2
4. Park Byoung Yun 1/1/9
5. Jo In Kwon 1/1/1
6. Kim Dong Min 0/0/2
7. Yoo Mi Na 0/0/0
There will be a full field of fourteen contesting Sunday afternoon’s Gyeonggi-do Cup at Seoul Race Park. The 1800 metre race, named for the province where the Seoul track is located, is a handicap for locally bred category 3 fillies and has a first prize of KRW 106Million. Full list of runners, riders and weights:
Gyeonggi-do Cup – Seoul Race Park – 1800M – Nov. 2, 2008 – 16:40
1. Yosulgongju (17/2/2/3) – 54kg – Moon Jung Kyun
2. Gyeongcheonyeowang (19/2/4/1) – 53.5kg – Yoo Sang Wan
3. Hwanggeumnara (21/1/5/7) – 53.5kg – Nozomu Tomizawa
4. Gayawangbi (19/2/4/2) – 54kg – Kim Hyo Seob
5. Happy Queen (12/2/3/3) – 53.5kg – Cho Kyoung Ho
6. Gate Way (15/3/3/1) – 54kg – Lee Gi Hwoi
7. Seonggongchulbal (10/1/2/2) – 53kg – Lee Jun Cheol
8. Mild Go (11/3/3/0) – 56kg – Moon Se Young
9. Meotjin Segye (10/2/2/2) – 54kg – Ikuyasu Kurakane
10. Night Fever (15/2/2/2) – 53kg – Oh Kyoung Hoan
11. Hera (7/3/1/1) – 54kg – Lee Dong Kuk
12. Gangdonguijumal (18/4/0/2) – 55.5 – Park Tae Jong
13. Dreamer (19/2/2/4) – 54.5 – Shin Hyoung Cheol
14. Wonder Wonder (20/2/5/2) – 56kg – Choi Beom Hyun
As noted below, racing begins at Seoul Race Park at 11:00am on both Saturday and Sunday.
The weekend’s action got underway at Busan Race Park this afternoon, CLICK HERE FOR FULL RESULTS.
Horse Racing in Korea 