During the weekend’s racing, the screens at the tracks showed footage of a meeting the Korea Racing Authority held with its Cambodian counterparts last week.  Apparently, the two signed signed a Memorandum of Understanding for future co-operation.  Cambodia is not currently a member of the Asian Racing Organization.

Racing takes a break for the end of the lunar new year holiday this weekend so there are no cards to preview today. Instead, I’ve taken the opportunity to belatedly update full results from Seoul last weekend and will be continuing our jockey profiles series with a look at the overseas riders currently racing at Seoul. Racing will resume at Busan next Friday – to tide things over until then, here’s a thirty minute review from Korean TV of last Saturday’s 12 race card at Seoul including Bally Brae’s easy victory.

Jockey’s Championship
Moon Se Young and Cho Kyoung Ho are level after the fourth weekend of the year. Moon followed up his four winners on Saturday with a winless Sunday but Saturday’s exploits were enough to catch up Cho on 15 winners. There’s then a big gap down to Yoon Dae Keun in third. Forty-one jockeys have now had winners in 2008 so far. Among those with their first winners of the year over last weekend were Shim Seung Tae, Lee Dong Kook – with a double on Sunday – and Nozomu Tomizawa.

1=. Cho Kyoung Ho, Moon Se Young 15

3. Yoon Dae Keun 7

4. Park Tae Jong 6

5=. Choi Beom Hyun, Ikuyasu Kurakane, Kim Hey Sung 4

Five winners over the weekend for Cho Kyoung Ho saw him overtake Moon Se Young at the top of the 2008 table. Cho’s wins included a true hat-trick in races 6,7 and 8 on Saturday and victory on Myeongmun Gamun in the weekend’s big race to move onto 12 this year.  Moon had a winner each day and is one back on 11. There’s then a gap of five back to third placed Yoon Dae Keun. There were first wins for 2008 for Shim Seung Tae and Woo Chang Gu.

1. Cho Kyoung Ho 12

2. Moon Se Young 11

3. Yoon Dae Keun 6

4. Park Tae Jong 5

The Chosun Ilbo today quoted a report from the “Center for Free Enterprise” recommending that a number of Korea’s public corporations, including the Korea Racing Authority, be privatized by the incoming Lee Myung Bak Presidency. The KRA currently operates under the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. The full article can be read here.

Gary Baker completed two years at Busan Race Park at the end of 2007 and has now returned to Australia to resume his career riding on the Gold Coast Baker spoke to the local press on his return about his time in Korea. Although Baker had a successful time in Busan, becoming one of the track’s top jockeys, especially in his first year, it seems he didn’t enjoy it as much as he hoped. His comments about the weather are to be expected but the one that should make the KRA take note is “But you did get the feeling they didn’t particularly want you there and I was happy to come home after two years.” The article from goldcoast.com.au can be read here. They lose marks for that overused headline.

Baker originally came with two other Australians, Mark Newnham and Nathan Day, both of whom only lasted a few weeks before deciding to end their contracts as the winter kicked in. The one remaining Australian jockey in Korea is Danny Craven at Seoul who has 3 winners, 1 second place and 3 thirds from 46 rides since his debut in November 2007.

The Times (and others) reported over the weekend that the Chinese government is to allow racing and eventually even legal betting on the mainland. How long before there’s a “Chinese Jockey Club Handicap” at Gwacheon?

Over the three days of racing in 2008 so far, 21 jockeys have ridden winners. Despite being unsuccessful today, Moon, Se Young still leads after his treble last Sunday ahead of Yoon, Dae Keun and Cho, Kyoung Ho.

1 Moon, Se Young 4

2= Cho, Kyoung Ho; Yoon, Dae Keun 3

4= Shin, Hyoung Cheol; Choi, Beom Hyun; Yoo, Sung Wan; Ikuyasu Kurukane; Jung, Ki Young 2

Last weekend’s International Jockey Challenge received a little overseas attention with one or two English language websites carrying reports notably in South Africa. SAHorseracing.com had a story on Gerrit Schlecter’s victory as well as a link to the article the website wrote as a follow-up to its junket trip to Seoul on the KRA last year (half of which is a cut and paste from the KRA’s site).