Have Whip, Will Travel: NAR Legend Hiroto Yoshihara Wants Offshore Glory
The Breeders’ Cup brought disappointment, but the man from Kanazawa has forged a career travelling away from his home base to rack up wins around Japan’s NAR tracks, and in Seoul this weekend he is aiming for a coveted offshore victory.
Have Whip, Will Travel: NAR Legend Hiroto Yoshihara Wants Offshore Glory
The Breeders’ Cup brought disappointment, but the man from Kanazawa has forged a career travelling away from his home base to rack up wins around Japan’s NAR tracks, and in Seoul this weekend he is aiming for a coveted offshore victory.
25 November, 2025IT WAS RACE DAY at Del Mar: California’s autumn sunshine was living up to its golden reputation; the Breeders’ Cup crowd ebbed to and from the paddock, and Hiroto Yoshihara moved among the funnelled throng passing the jockeys’ room.
But he was not togged out in racing silks, he had no whip to hand, no helmet to strap on: he was dressed for watching.
“I am the scratch jockey,” he said in English and laughed, pointing at himself to exaggerate the absurdity.
Humour is always a good go-to when disappointment needs to be quelled and Yoshihara had no problem poking fun at the situation he was in: a dream on ice, a fruitless 11,000-mile round-trip.
First came Fee Blanche, the filly that took him to the Breeders’ Cup in the first place. The Terunobu Fujita-trained mare was supposed to give Yoshihara a shot at the G1 Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint and a place in history as the first horse, trainer, and jockey from Japan’s second tier National Association of Racing (NAR) to compete at the self-styled “World Championships”.
Fee Blanche was scratched three days out from the race when vets identified a concern with her off fore-leg and a scan showed signs of sclerosis. But a second-chance fell his way, a pick-up ride on Puro Magic on the undercard. The fates were against him, though: Arizona Blaze was scratched from the G1 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint, Puro Magic was promoted from the standby list and the ride went to Oisin Murphy instead.
But, despite Yoshihara, 42, failing to even make the Breeders’ Cup starting gate, his ambition remains firm.
“My dream is still to carry my whip and travel everywhere I can around the world,” he told Idol Horse via interpreter Frank Chang. “I will ride wherever people are offering me rides, and that’s my dream. I’m currently on my way towards my dream.”
There’s more to it than that, though. After all, Yoshihara had ridden outside Japan before, in Australia, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, and in South Korea.
“My goal at the moment is to win a stakes race overseas,” he explained. “I really hope I can win one.”
His next opportunity will come this Sunday at Seoul, South Korea, riding the NAR cult hero Yumeno Honoo against the local star Global Hit in the 2300m Grand Prix, designated a local Group 1. Yoshihara partnered the galloper from provincial Kochi to finish third to Global Hit in the Listed YTN Cup at Seoul last April, the only race the five-year-old has contested away from Kochi in 26 career starts.
Yoshihara has ridden Yumeno Honoo 20 times for 16 wins, including all three of low-key Kochi’s Triple Crown races – the Kuroshio Satsuki Sho, the Kochi Yushun (Kuroshio Derby), and the Kuroshio Kikka Sho – then won the Kochi Ken Chiji Sho, an end of year grand prix race, two years running.
Winning feature races and breaking sporting boundaries is not unusual for Yoshihara. In the quarter of a century since he debuted at Kanazawa – race two, April 7, 2001 – he has become an icon in his homeland, a superstar of the NAR, Japan’s locally administered weekday circuit.
“He’s the best jockey in Japan,” Fujita told Idol Horse before the Breeders’ Cup, or in his sage opinion the best available to him within the NAR sphere.
Yoshihara might be based out of Kanazawa in provincial western Japan but that ‘have whip will travel’ outlook he mentioned has taken him all around the country. He was the first jockey ever to win stakes races at all 14 NAR tracks, the fastest jockey to 100 wins in Kanazawa history, and the NAR’s Grand Prix outstanding jockey award recipient in 2011 and 2019. He has also collected a stack of feature race victories including the Haneda Hai and Tokyo Derby on Happy Sprint, and the Tokyo Derby again on Baldassare.
The horse racing journey all started for him during his school years.
“Since I was in elementary school, my body has been smaller than others, so I wanted to find a job that could fully take advantage of that aspect,” Yoshihara said.
“I was from Shiga Prefecture, not far away from the Ritto Training Centre, and when I asked my uncles if there was a nice job for me, they told me I could become a jockey. Then I started to pay attention to horse racing, and being a jockey became a dream for me.
“I loved those horses that had prefixes such as Sakura or Eishin/A Shin, Sakura Laurel for example, I remember I loved to follow those horses. As for the jockey, it was Yutaka Take.”
He watched on TV and his burgeoning fanhood fuelled his jockey ambition. He applied for the ‘big show’, the centrally-administered Japan Racing Association (JRA) jockey exam. He failed. He tried the NAR. He passed.
“I didn’t really have any idea about the difference between JRA and NAR at that time, so I did not feel any frustration. Instead, I was pretty much happy that I could finally become a jockey,” he said.
But Yoshihara found the initial induction into riding horses difficult. He had “barely ridden a horse before” and was not a natural in the conventional riding style.
“I was a complete novice, and initially I couldn’t keep up with the training. That made me feel frustrated and exhausted,” he said.
Things improved, though, when he and his classmates were introduced to the crouched riding style they would embrace and develop as jockeys.
“Everything changed when the practice of race riding started,” he said, noting that his natural balance and agility came into play. “When the coursework progressed from regular horse riding into race riding, where we started to ride the horse in the ‘monkey crouch’, it became a game changer and I suddenly became the top of the class and graduated the school as such.”
Once he had graduated and moved to Kanazawa, his career took off at a rapid rate. His first win came on his first race day at his fifth ride; he won the NAR best newcomer award and the Japan Professional Sports Awards rookie of the year.
It was a whirlwind of success, but he was still raw, relying on his natural athleticism and willpower while not quite grasping the nuances of pace, strategy and tactics.
“I was able to record 100 wins in my rookie year,” he said. “However, I really didn’t know what the best way to win was; I was just riding hard every race. I didn’t know why I could win. But as I become more seasoned, I gradually learned the way to win a race, and the way I look at horse races has changed significantly.”
During his sensational rookie year, Yoshihara participated in his first JRA race. It was at Kyoto in late October 2001, the day after his 18th birthday, and he rode the Kanazawa raider Twin Cheers, a two-year-old filly, in the Momiji Stakes against JRA horses. Twin Cheers won.
“It was a 1200m race on turf, and I was just pushing my horse for dear life. I took the lead after the start, and I just led all the way to the finish line,” he recalled.
“It became a turning point in my career, which led to later opportunities, so I would say Twin Cheers is the most meaningful horse to me.”
Watching that race was one of Japan’s most iconic trainers, the offbeat, international pioneer Hideyuki Mori, a man with an ‘I’ll do it my way,’ approach. In the previous three years he had made history when sending out Seeking The Pearl at Deauville to become the first Japanese-trained Group 1 winner on foreign soil, and followed up with Agnes World’s Group 1 wins in France and Britain.
“Hideyuki Mori sent me to Australia and taught me a lot of things there, and then he just straight took me to Dubai. He really let me experience a lot, and I’m always grateful to him.
“I was just a rookie, but he would dare to let me ride his horses in those big races. It was almost like he didn’t care that much about having the best chance to win, and I was really in awe of that. Normally nobody would want to call up an NAR jockey like me, as at that time it was really rare for an NAR jockey to ride JRA horses. From this angle, he was really extraordinary.”
Mori put Yoshihara on his sprinter Agnes Jedi when he contested the G1 Dubai Golden Shaheen on Dubai World Cup night at Nad Al Sheba in 2006.
“I really appreciate that,” Yoshihara continued. “Thanks to him, my talent could grow.”
He is now looking to Seoul and Yumeno Honoo’s attempt to snare that overseas stakes race his rider is so eager for.
“We were going there to win last time, but it was the first time the horse had travelled,” he said. “In fact, the horse had never travelled out of Kochi previously, and then he just headed straight abroad.
“I just felt it was great to see him run a good race like that. This time we definitely want to win.”
Some of Yumeno Honoo’s ardent fans made the journey to support him last time and Yoshihara was appreciative of their dedication.
“Hearing the fans is my biggest motivation,” he said.
Well, almost his biggest. He pulled out his phone and showed a picture of his baby daughter, Rin.
“I feel I am very blessed,” he said and gave a knowing laugh when it was put to him that he clearly now has three loves, horse racing, his wife and his daughter.
“I feel like I have been stoic throughout my career,” he said. “I think most people would spend more time playing around or enriching their lives, but I just love riding races, and riding makes me happy. I will still focus on horse racing as usual.”
His focus remains fixed, he is determined to get that offshore stakes win: as long as scratchings don’t get in the way. ∎
