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Matsuo, well-known in her own right as an actress and TV personality, continued to wipe away tears as she smiled and waited for her husband, watching the weighing room doorway for a final time. His wife and gathered media had waited patiently outside, their focus entirely on their retiring hero as the Riyadh Dirt Sprint winning rider Frankie Dettori’s post-race interview was broadcast on the big screen behind them: the US raider Elite Power’s impressive success was of little concern to the group.
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I think I can let them put their worries down now.”įukunaga spoke after he had exited the jockeys’ room for the final time as a professional rider.
They had been worrying about me for a long time and I have had various injuries in my career, but I was able to finish in one piece and I am in good health. “ I believe that completing my work (as a jockey) is the greatest filial duty to my parents. And my parents too,” Fukunaga said, delivering his words carefully, pausing, fiddling with his cuffs, brimming with contained emotion. Dressed in a blue kimono, she ran to the trackside rail with tears streaming: a jockey runs a dangerous gauntlet every time they go out to ride and their closest loved ones know and feel that most. His wife, Midori Matsuo, let loose her emotions at the final realisation that, yes, it was over. There was this ‘So that’s it’ feeling,” he said. Remake, that final mount, ran home third and as Fukunaga pulled the four-year-old to a stop and turned back towards the grandstand, he looked to the skies. But at age 46, just 15 months after the brilliant Contrail’s career-capping Japan Cup win, Fukunaga, too, bowed out while still among the elite. Internationally, he made history as the first Japanese jockey to ride a Japanese-trained horse to victory in North America when he guided Cesario in the American Oaks in 2005 he also steered Just A Way to a sensational Dubai Turf success and was aboard Eishin Preston for his QEII Cup and Hong Kong Mile wins at Sha Tin.įukunaga followed his father, Yoichi Fukunaga, in becoming a leading jockey: he had his first ride at Chukyo on March 2, 1996, a win for his master, Shuji Kitahashi, and was champion jockey in 20. His 2,636-plus wins include a long list of majors: three Tokyo Yushun triumphs, three Yushun Himbas, two Satsuki Shos, an Oka Sho and a Kikuka Sho for a full-house of Japanese classics a Japan Cup, the Autumn Tenno Sho, two Yasuda Kinens, a Sprinters Stakes, three Takamatsunomiya Kinens and more besides. There was to be no victory to enhance the goodbye, but it was not needed: Fukunaga has known more glory than most jockeys ever will.
Jockey Yuichi Fukunaga weighs out for the final time in a stellar career after a third in the Riyadh Dirt Sprint aboard Remake.Ģ,636 career wins.
The bell rang and moments later Fukunaga was sitting atop Remake, running the red reins through his hands to find easily the sweet grip he had felt in such a moment about nineteen-and-a-half-thousand times before he slipped his right foot into its iron and reached down with his hand to make sure his left foot was in the comfortable spot, then out he went to compete for the final time. Yoshito Yahagi, for whom Fukunaga rode the Triple Crown hero Contrail, crossed the paddock to offer a handshake and warm words. “Today is the last day of my jockey life, so I had a lot of memories coming into my mind before the race,” he told Asian Racing Report ahead of his next challenge as a JRA licensed trainer. As he smiled and talked, Fukunaga shifted repeatedly from foot to foot, all the while flicking and pressing the end of his whip at the toe of his right boot in an unconscious indication that his mind might be at least partly elsewhere. Yuichi Fukunaga’s face gave no sign that anything was out of the ordinary as he waited for the ‘mount-up’ bell before the Riyadh Dirt Sprint: he nodded a quick bow to the connections of Remake and chatted casually.īut the little things give us away.
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