Our questions are answered by Hall of Fame jockey who numbered ten Breeders’ Cup winners among more than 4,000 winners worldwide
Former jockey Corey Nakatani, who rode over 4,000 winners worldwide during a 30-year riding career, will be inducted into the Hall of Fame as part of the class of 2023.
The son of a Japanese-American who was born in a World War II internment camp, grew up in California. He was a champion wrestler at high school but gave that up to go to work on the backstretch at Santa Anita. “At the time my Dad had a heart attack,” he explains.”There were ten kids in my family so I went to work and to ride to help them.”
Nakatani, 52, won his first race in Mexico in 1988 but returned to his home state a year later to claim leading apprentice honours. His career flourished and he went on to ride 3,909 winners in North America, of which ten came in Breeders’ Cup races on horses such as Lit De Justice, Jewel Princess and Silic.
He also became the regular partner of Lava Man and Serena’s Song, while his overseas successes included the Dubai Golden Shaheen (Caller One 2001) and a pair of winners in Britain including Cool Jazz in the Diadem Stakes at Ascot (1995).
In August 2018 he suffered multiple compression fractures and herniated discs in a horrific spill at Del Mar and never returned to the saddle, retiring the following year. “They had to fuse five vertebrae in my neck,” he says. “They went in from the front and the back, but I can move now. I get to hang out with my youngest daughter who is 14 and get to see her do her jumping. I just think whatever happened was meant to happen.”
Which racing figure past or present do you most admire?
I always looked up to Laffit Pincay. He had this desire and determination to be the best and I idolised him. He was one of the best finishing jockeys I’ve ever seen on a horse. I was fortunate enough to ride with him – I learned a lot from watching him ride. There were a bunch of great riders here in California when I started, Shoemaker, McCarron, Stevens, Delahoussaye.
Which is your favourite venue, and race, anywhere in the world?
My favourite racetrack is Del Mar – that was where I had my first riding title. It’s a hard track to ride because you have to be very technical and you have to pay attention. Any top jockey would want to be there. Everyone who came had their game face on.
My favourite race was definitely the Kentucky Derby. I never won the race – I was second but I never had a legit horse going there.
I rode in the Kentucky Oaks twice and won it both times. Those are two of the most prestigious races that I think you can win in the States. You can only win it that one time. You don’t have another chance to go back and win it. There are over 100,000 people there at Churchill Downs and there is nothing like it anywhere else I’ve ever been to.
Who is your favourite racehorse and why?
My favourite racehorse was Lava Man because the things that he did when I got the chance to ride him were so amazing. To win the seven races for older horses over a 2½-year span in California was unprecedented. I only got beat on him the first time I rode him in Japan and when he came back I just kept winning on him.
We won races like the Santa Anita Handicap twice, the Charlie Whittingham, the Hollywood Gold Cup twice and the Pacific Classic. Then they changed the surfaces to synthetic; he wasn’t doing great and I didn’t ride him. He was so superior on dirt and he could run on turf. He had a pretty amazing record.
What is your fondest memory in racing?
When I got beat a head on Itsallgreektome by Lester Piggott on Royal Academy, not long after he came out of prison, in the 1990 Breeders’ Cup Mile. That race defined me as a rider and a person. It was my first time at the Breeders’ Cup.
That was like the tale of the tape for me. I decided that wasn’t going to happen again. It made me work harder and be the person I am. I didn’t ride that many horses in my career but I rode over 4,000 winners worldwide and 341 of them were Graded or Grade 1 races.
I always wanted to work with young horses to make them champions and that’s what getting beat in the Breeders’ Cup made me focus on. Winning the bigger races and going onto Breeders’ Cups was what I would look at. I didn’t have to ride the favourites. My first Breeders’ Cup winner Lit De Justice would drop his jockey but I was able to connect with him and make him a champion.
If you could change one thing in racing what it would be?
I would change the perception of people. Their perception of racing is that horses are not athletes. As someone who grew up in Covina, who didn’t have anything, I was living in the stall, grooming the horses so I could see the life the horses would give people and the opportunity horse racing gives back to the community.
I don’t think that is put out there enough. People apply a stigma to racing that it is cruel to horses – it’s not. Those horses get fed and taken care of better than most people. They get acupuncture, massages, three square meals a day. They are very well taken care of because all the people involved love the horses.
Going into the Hall of Fame is about my family who took a backseat to my career, the horses that I rode and the love and the passion I have for the horses. It’s not my body of work. It’s what got me there.
Corey Nakatani was speaking to Jon Lees
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