JRA jockey Hiroyuki Uchida will take part in the Hermes Gallop, an international jockeys competition to be held at Deauville Racecourse in France on Saturday, Aug. 14.
Twelve top-class jockeys, including five French riders and seven riders from around the world, will compete in the third edition of the Hermes Gallop, a series of three races comprising the fifth, sixth and seventh races on the Aug. 14 card. Each jockey will participate in two or three races and the winner will be decided according to a system of points allocated according to finishing order. Jockeys participating in all three races are awarded points for their top two finishes. The first race is a 1,600-meter event over turf, followed by two race on fibersand, the first at 1,900 meters and the second over 2,400 meters.
Five points will be assigned to the winner with four for the runnerup and on down to one point for the fifth-place finisher. Each race comes with a prize money of 35,000 euros. The maximum number of horses is 12 for each race.
This year's lineup of French jockeys include Maxime Guyon, Gerald Mosse, Stephane Pasquier, Olivier Peslier and Christophe Soumillon.
Pasquier was the 2007 recipient of the Cravache d'Or, or Golden Whip, the trophy awarded France's leading race-winner. Peslier is a four-time winner of the Golden Whip -- 1996, 1997, 1999 and 2000. Soumillon took the prize in 2003, 2005 and 2006.
The other six riders in addition to Japan's Uchida featured in the invitational event are: Patrick Smullen from Ireland, Kevin Shea of South Africa, Australia's Corey Brown, Mirco Demuro for Italy, Bruno Reis from Brazil and Germany's Andrasch Starke.
Uchida is set to ride in the first and second races of the series. He is paired with the Brazilian-bred 4-year-old colt Uncle Tom in the Hermes Gallop first race and the French-bred 4-year-old colt Good Bye My Friend in the second race. He will sit out the third race. The first of the three races gets under way at 3:45 p.m. local time. The last race has a 4:55 p.m. post time.
The 40-year-old Uchida, who hails from NAR municipal racing, was champion JRA jockey for 2009 and currently ranks third for wins amongst all JRA riders. This year thus far, he has notched 64 wins out of 454 rides. Those wins include the Tokyo Yushun (Japanese Derby) aboard Eishin Flash in May. Uchida has bagged wins at the highest level each year for the past four years straight. The Fukuoka Prefecture native received his JRA license in 2008 after transferring from the NAR Ohi Racetrack. He rides for the Miho Training Center trainer Jun Shimada.
Deauville Racecourse, officially known as the Hippodrome Deauville-La Touques, is located in France's main horse-breeding region, Basse-Normandie, about 200 km west of Paris. Originally called Hippodrome de la Touques, the racecourse was named for the Touques River that separates the city of Deauville from Trouville-sur-Mer. It was constructed in 1862 by Charles Auguste Louis Joseph, duc de Morny, the half brother of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte. The course is known for its summer international meeting.
The Hermes Gallop was won in its inaugural year by French rider Gerald Mosse and again by a French native, Christophe Lemaire, in 2009.Yutaka Take represented Japan in both 2008 and 2009. Yasunari Iwata also participated for Japan in 2008.
* Please visit the following website for more information.
France Galop: http://www3.france-galop.com/index.php?id=1&L=1
* France takes third straight Hermes Gallop; Japan’s Uchida comes up empty-handed
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