🔒 🔒 Ichikawa finds his place on the other side in a move with a potential Golden lining

Once a jockey grinding his way around the less-celebrated NSW racetracks, Yusuke Ichikawa now operates among Australia’s elite bloodstock, learning from industry heavyweights while helping manage million-dollar yearlings. 

A relative newcomer to the bloodstock agent scene, Ichikawa is learning his trade from Guy Mulcaster while keeping himself at racing’s coalface as a trackwork rider attached to Chris Waller’s juggernaut stable.

It means Ichikawa now has a close-up view of some of Australia’s most valuable young thoroughbreds.

His responsibilities also extend to Rising Sun Syndications, which has become increasingly active in the yearling market, while he remains a translator and interpreter for Japanese trainers and owners with horses visiting Sydney during the major carnivals.

In a race typically featuring the heavy hitters of the Australian thoroughbred industry, Ichikawa will have a peripheral role to play in the Group 1 Golden Rose at Rosehill on Saturday.

As racing manager for Meridian Bloodstock, Ichikawa will focus on the richly bred Snitzel colt St Gotthard, a $2.7 million yearling and brother to Switzerland, as well as Central Europe, a son of Frankel.

Meridian is part of a Coolmore colts syndication arm that has counted Coolmore Stud Stakes winner Switzerland and Caulfield Guineas hero Private Life as recent Group 1 success stories.

And so far, it’s a promising second act for a jockey who rode 135 winners before deciding he wanted a different future in racing.

“I wasn’t the best jockey but, you know, I had winners every fortnight on the provincial and country tracks,” Ichikawa told The Straight.

He began his career as an apprentice in Sydney but retired when the long hours on the road, toiling away at bush meetings, prompted him to consider what another decade in the saddle might look like.

“I was already riding 11 years. And I had success. Not impressive success, but I had a good riding career,” he said.

His father’s death around the same time added another dimension to that thinking, and Ichikawa decided that staying in racing did not necessarily mean he had to be a jockey forever.

Ichikawa had already joined Waller’s stable and was becoming interested in the bloodstock side of the business, where his access to high-class horses gave him an opportunity to learn from people operating at the top of the industry.

“If you’re working for Chris, you get to see the best horses in Australia coming through every season,” he said.

Ichikawa’s final day of riding came at Kembla Grange in December 2020, when Waller put him on a $21 winner, allowing him to leave the saddle on a memorable note.

But rather than quit racing, Ichikawa simply reinvented himself within it.

He continued riding trackwork for Waller, where he has now been for close to nine years, while gradually building experience in bloodstock and syndication.

The relationship with Mulcaster has been especially important.

It started with an opportunity to accompany the renowned agent to the Japanese sales before Ichikawa was later invited to join him at inspections at Easter, the Classic and Magic Millions.

The education was largely observational, with Ichikawa absorbing how Mulcaster assessed young horses and occasionally being challenged to justify his own conclusions.

“He’ll give me a quiz every now and then,” Ichikawa said.

“He’ll tell you sometimes why he doesn’t like this horse and why he likes another horse.

“I’ll ask him questions and he’ll answer them for me. Every year we go around the sales, I’ll always pick up little things.”

That experience was complemented by watching Waller assess the yearlings he ultimately trained, giving Ichikawa exposure to two different perspectives.

“Sometimes Guy likes the horse, but Chris doesn’t like the horse or Chris likes the horse, but Guy didn’t like the horse,” he said.

For Ichikawa, the differences were as instructive as the agreement.

“I can see Chris’s thoughts as well when he’s looking at a horse … how to find a good horse and how to manage a good horse. I can learn every day,” he said.

His work with Rising Sun has added another dimension. The Victorian-based syndication business has strong Japanese links and has invested more in well-bred yearlings over the past three seasons, with Ichikawa helping to identify horses capable of delivering for its owners.

“It’s a lot of work and, you know, we need a lot of results,” he said.

The Japanese connection has provided yet another strand to a career that now stretches well beyond the role of a traditional racing manager.

Ichikawa has spent about seven years assisting Japanese connections as an interpreter when horses travel to Australia, working principally in Sydney.

Away from that involvement, he has barely a spare moment. His day starts at Waller’s stable, where he rides trackwork six days a week, before he turns his attention to Rising Sun and his other bloodstock responsibilities.

“If Rising Sun gets bigger, I would like to reduce track work a little bit less than six days,” he said.

For now, though, Ichikawa is happy to be immersed in several parts of the industry, with lessons learned from Waller and Mulcaster shaping a career that has taken him far from the provincial tracks where he once rode.

“I’m just kind of lucky enough to be in the team, actually,” he said.

It’s a silver lining to a career that could deliver a golden result in Saturday’s Group 1, a race whose outcome increasingly carries a lasting significance for the Australian breeding industry.