A familiar face will return to the Kiwi jockey’s room at Ellerslie on Saturday, with Kozzi Asano rejoining the ranks after a stint in South Korea.
Originally hailing from Japan, the 30-year-old came to New Zealand to pursue his career as a jockey and swiftly to prominence as an apprentice, winning the apprentice jockey’s premiership in 2019/20. Before taking a contract in Korea last term, he rode a total of 336 winners in eight seasons, 20 of those at stakes level and two Group Ones.
During his time in the Asian jurisdiction, Asano added a further 40 wins to his record, but with the recent birth of his second child, has returned to his property in Cambridge.
“I’ve come back recently from a stint in South Korea, this is actually my maternity leave as we have recently had our second baby on the 1st of October,” Asano said.
“My parents are coming over to New Zealand to help look after their grandchildren, so I thought I might as well get back into racing, not too much, but more so as a part-time job. I won’t be travelling too far and won’t be too busy, but it’ll be good to be riding.
“I’ve been riding trackwork for the last four weeks, mainly for Stephen Marsh, and I rode a couple of trials at Te Awamutu last week. I’m just slowly getting back into the fitness.
“I haven’t ridden in a New Zealand race for a long time, just over 15 months, so I’ll see if I can still remember what I used to do.”
Asano has four rides at the feature meeting, including Ray Fleming’s filly Savvy Donna (NZ) (Savabeel) in the Gr.2 Windsor Park Stud Soliloquy Stakes (1400m), The Trendsetter (NZ) (Proisir) in the Kingmakers Syndication 1400, Gentian Blue (NZ) (Reliable Man) in the Horizon By SkyCity 1600, and Sasperella in the Trackside.co.nz 1200.
Asano is looking forward to getting out on the StrathAyr surface at Ellerslie, having only ridden on the track a handful of times before going overseas.
“They had only just done the StrathAyr track when I was leaving, and at the time, they said that the more they used it, the better it would get,” he said. “It seems that way, so it’ll be interesting to have a good headquarters-type of track for New Zealand racing.
“Savvy Donna is a maiden but she goes really well, so her trainer is hoping she can finish in the top five and get in the money. We’ll see what we can do.
“I rode Gentian Blue for Maxim van Lierde in a Group One in 2023, where she went very well even though we were flashed out wide. She’s a seven-year-old mare now, fresh-up and trialled up well. She’s running in 75 grade, so hopefully we can show some results to bring on to the next one.”
“I feel pretty privileged to get four rides on a day like this, hopefully I can bring some good results.”