This is a tangent that grew out of hand, so I decided to take it to its own post instead. I implore you to read the last post if you haven’t before reading this one for it to make more sense.
Masato Shibata was Winning Ticket’s main jockey, and while his career both before and after is expansive, I do wanna focus specifically in the lead-up to and victory at the Nihon Derby with Winning Ticket. But to understand him properly I do have to go over his biography real quick.
Like many jockeys, Shibata was born in farm-adjacent circumstances and in fact he was friends with Takemi Sasaki, a jockey that, while none of his horses are in the game, got the nickname “The Iron man of Kawasaki”, he’s another fascinating man that actually had the WORLD RECORD for most jockey victories at 505 over 2384 races back in 1966 (this record was then broken by Hiroyuki Uchida, Eishin Flash’s jockey in 2006).
Back to Shibata, however, shockingly his parents were against this because they were worried that Shibata would suffer injuries. This is something that Shibata would actually keep in mind moving forwards and that would prove… prescient.
Shibata was part of Bajikoen’s 15th class. Bajikoen being one of the JRA’s old jockey schools (before those duties transferred to the JRA’s KEiba Gakkou in 1982), and 15th class referring to it being the 15th group of graduates. This class specifically is famous because from it came out Yoichi Fukunaga (not to be confused with Yuichi Fukunaga, his son and a name relevant for later) known in his heyday as a “genius jockey”, Yukio Okabe who was Symboli Rudolf‘s jockey, Masanori Ito who would be the first of said class to win a G1 race, Nagayoshi Take (cousin of Yutaka Take), and many others.
In short, as instructor Yoshie Kimura put it, in a generation of naturally great jockeys, Shibata was a good jockey that improved through hard work.
…Shibata actually failed his first license test before earning it the year after.
I think you can see where I’m going with all of this by now, but let’s continue.
One of Shibata’s first rides was a horse named Arrow Express, but the stable always seemed to switch him in with a different jockey called Takemi Kaga when Arrow Express would go into a G1 race.
There’s actually a story about how, when Shibata learned he wouldn’t ride Arrow Express to the Satsuki Sho, he got drunk and confronted his teacher and trainer Santa Takamatsu crying, demanding to tell him if he made any mistakes that stopped him from being in the Satsuki Sho.
While Shibata was expecting to be punched and dismissed, Takamatsu ALSO started crying and explained that HE wanted Shibata to ride Arrow Express, but neither the owners nor the fans let him. That Arrow Express had the potential to be number one and so was assigned the best jockey in Japan, and that if this made him upset then Shibata should aim to surpass Takemi Kaga.
Sidenote, Takemi Kaga was known as “Kaga The Breaker” (nickname he apparently didn’t like BUT COME ON MAN) and actually rode Mejiro Asama (McQueen’s real life grandma) at one point. His career is actually super interesting but that’s the one point of reference I found to cling onto game-wise.
The Arrow Express situation was indicative of how hard Shibata had it to find work, so in 1973 Takamatsu helped him find horses to ride. Eventually more people entrusted Takamatsu with horses to train which resulted then in Shibata having more races to run becoming a leading jockey. It eventually took Shibata 12 years to get his first victory in one of the eight major races, specifically the 1978 Satsuki Sho with Fantast.
1978 is also the year Sakura Shouri won the Nihon Derby by the way, something that wouldn’t be repeated by the Sakura Gundan until Sakura Chiyono Oh.
Sadly Takamatsu died of liver cancer in 1979 and Shibata eventually transferred with Takamatsu’s son Kunio Takamatsu.
By the end of the 70s his parents’ concerns were proving to be true as, in no particular order: Yoichi Fukunaga fell off the horse Mary Joey in 1979 ending his career as a jockey, Masayoshi Ishii (another graduation mate) fell on his head in 1969 killing him at just 22 years old, and Masao Sato (another graduation mate) fell with his horse and got kicked by the horse behind him in 1977 killing him at age 28.
Now in the 1980s, Shibata won the Autumn Tenno Sho with a mare called Pretty Cast and then another Autumn Tenno Sho victory in 1983 with Kyoei Promise. He would also be the first Japanese jockey to end up top two in the Japan Cup (which was recent back then and infamously dominated by foreign horses at the start). This would actually be followed the next year by Katsuragi Ace’s victory (first victory in the Japan Cup by a Japanese horse) and the year after that by Symboli Rudolf’s.
The end of 1983 was when the injuries finally hit Shibata, as he basically lost his pinky and ring toes in a racing accident (though the pinky was able to be sown back in). There were concerns that the loss would affect him as a jockey but he managed to adapt.
In 1985 Shibata rode Miho Shinzan to a victory in both Satsuki Sho and Kikuka Sho. Shibata actually said during Miho Shinzan’s retirement “From now on, please call me Shibata, the Miho Shinzan Jockey” indicating just how much he grew to like the horse.
Slowly but surely, Shibata through hard work and consistency made a name for himself.
Hopefully you get the mental image. Shibata during his career was a very principled man (no implication he wasn’t still so after it, mind you), someone that would rather ride a less-than-perfect horse because a friend or a previous commitment compelled him to; there was even a joke by commentator Shugoro Isaku when celebrating his 1700th victory that “if you were a meaner person we’d be celebrating 2500 victories by now”. He even took over as chairman of the Jockey Association for couple of years and decided to put an emphasis on safety because… yeah, so many of his classmates got injured or died and that’s just highlighting his classmates specifically instead of the industry as a whole.
This even reflected in his racing career. Jumping ahead a little bit, after winning the Nihon Derby he had the distinction of having gone for 616 races that year with no penalties of any kind. And I need you to understand how notorious that is, penalties and foul play are 99% of the time accidents in the heat of the moment, so if you hear for example about Super Creek or Kawakami Princess being disqualified for obstruction and such that’s not really deliberate malice in the race but just… things that happen. To have gone so long without that is amazing. UNESCO-acknowledgement-level even.
He got an award that hadn’t been received in 39 years. The last recipient was Yuji Nodaira, jockey for Speed Symboli, manager for Symboli Rudolf, and a man that only retired as a trainer because he was too old and law required him to retire… after which he died one year later.
By now you get the lead-up to Winning Ticket’s Nihon Derby. Shibata has been running for 20+ years, working hard in the process, and despite all of his victories the Nihon Derby specifically always eluded him.
…so let’s jump back to Shibata’s childhood for a moment.
There’s a horse called Shinzan that was dominant in his heyday, to the point that until Symboli Rudolf came the ultimate goal in horseracing was to “Surpass Shinzan” meaning that for 20 years many aimed to surpass him and failed. Shibata fell in love with the idea of winning a Nihon Derby when he saw Shinzan win the 1964 Nihon Derby as a kid.
Jump to 1985, Shibata is actually racing with Shinzan’s own offspring Miho Shinzan and chasing the Triple Crown… only for the Nihon Derby to be the only one to escape him (Miho Shinzan didn’t even get to participate, mind you).
By the way, the 1985 Nihon Derby was won by Sirius Symboli.
So 1993 rolls in, Shibata has another chance with Winning Ticket. And Winning Ticket was having a good showing, even beating Narita Taishin in the Yayoi Sho leading up to the Satsuki Sho… which Narita Taishin took personally, cut to Winning Ticket ending 4th in the Satsuki Sho.
The road to the Nihon Derby wasn’t smooth either. Shibata finally had a chance at the Derby and despite the results he felt like he did pretty good all in all in the Satsuki Sho… but critics and reporters were of a different mind, criticizing a lot of errors and even pestering him by calling at his own home. But Shibata was confident and kept to himself, being polite and not disclosing what his strategy would be.
I’m not gonna do a play by play of the race itself but I wanna highlight three specific points.
The first is that when Narita Taishin and Biwa Hayahide were closing in during the final stretch Shibata was constantly yelling “DON’T LET UP, KEEP IT UP” at Winning Ticket. In his own words he’d never shouted so much at a horse before.
The second was that just like with Ines Fujin’s victory, the stadium broke into chants of “MASATO!” after Shibata won.
And finally, his speech after the race. When asked to whom he dedicated this victory he said…
“To all the horsemen of the world, I’m Shibata, winner of the 60th Derby“.
That last quote was important because by then Shibata had done quite a bit of overseas racing (even advising/encouraging other jockeys to do so if the chance arose) and they always asked him if he had run in the Derby, which he hadn’t. So this was his declaration to those that asked before that not only he had finally participated, but won.
Since Winning Ticket’s performance kinda fell down after this and Shibata retired not too long after, many comment that Winning Ticket was born specifically to give Masato Shibata a Nihon Derby victory. And you can see that “born to run the Derby” element in her character.
And it’s funny to consider how now thanks to the game, Winning Ticket in the game also exists to expose people to his legacy as a jockey. In fact, it’s uncanny how well Ticket fits as a microcosm of Shibata’s career, down to, for example, how Winning Ticket had to run their debut race twice just like how Shibata had to take the license exam twice.
This is a fortuitous tangent because the ultimate point of this batch of posts is how the game conveys the story of jockeys, but let’s get back in track with the next chapter in next post.