Hashizume takes family time after breakout season

Despite a run of form that has catapulted him into the top 10 on the jockeys’ premiership, Masa Hashizume has opted to take time out from his burgeoning career to return home to Japan for the next month.
On Monday, fresh from a stakes double at Rotorua, Hashizume returned to Japan with his wife Sayaka and their infant son Kaito to be with family, and most of all his ailing grandmother.
“My grandmother is very sick, so we have to go home to see her,” Hashizume told RaceForm before boarding a flight on Monday evening. “I know I have had a very good season with many people supporting me, but it is what I must do.”
Against a background of 113 wins across his first first five seasons and attaining a personal best 25th premiership placing with 30 wins in 2021-22, Hashizume has excelled this season, his first as a senior jockey.
Over the past nine months he has eclipsed all previous figures with 53 wins for 10th equal on the jockeys’ table, while his mounts’ stakes total of $2,546,549 is the eighth best on the jockeys’ table. Likewise, his seven black-type wins this season have dwarfed the two he rode during his apprentice years.
Those statistics tell a story of a jockey whose graphic improvement has taken many by surprise, but more importantly they underline the 28-year-old’s determination to succeed against the odds.
“In the last year of my apprenticeship when I was claiming only one kilogram, I was struggling to get good rides and I wondered if I should continue,” Hashizume recalls. “Then once I was a senior jockey I started to ride work for Roger James and Robert Wellwood – they gave me the encouragement and the raceday rides, and it’s gone from there with other leading trainers putting me on also.”
Pukekohe-based Hashizume has gone a long way to repaying that support, his wins this season for Kingsclere Stables including the Gr. 3 Wellington Stakes on Zabmanzor (who he also partnered in a photo-finish second in the Gr. 1 Levin Classic), and an autumn double on Apostrophe in the Gr. 3 Manawatu Breeders’ Stakes and Gr. 2 Travis Stakes.
“Initially what I noted most about Masa was his work ethic and his overall enthusiasm for racing,” James said. “He left the same impression on stable clients through meeting them and spending time with them at the sales and that all added to him getting the chance to prove himself.
“He’s the right sort of person to have in the industry, and you like seeing good young people succeed.”
Hashizume’s most financially rewarding win came on the Lance Noble-trained Jaarffi in the inaugural $350,000 Rangitoto Classic, part of a treble on Ellerslie’s New Zealand Derby card when he also recorded his 150th career win for Andrew Forsman on Positivity in the Gr. 3 Sunline Vase.
Last Saturday at Rotorua was the first time that he has won two black-type races on the same day, beginning with the Listed Campbell Infrastructure Rotorua Cup on the Moira and Kieran Murdoch-trained Bella Waters and completed by Karman Line, trained by Lance O’Sullivan and Andrew Scott, in the Gr. 3 ITM Rotorua Stakes.
Bella Waters, who carries the same colours of Cambridge Stud owners Brendan and Jo Lindsay as Jaarffi, lined up in the 2200-metre Rotorua Cup off the back off a Rating 65 win and Rating 75 placing. The ambitious call to shoot for black type in what was the four-year-old’s ninth start was well justified with a half-length win over 2022 New Zealand Cup winner Aljay, thanks in no small part to an inspired ride from her jockey.
“I walked the track before race one and it looked very well prepared, so I thought I could ride on the inside instead of going wide,” Hashizume said.
That ground-saving approach worked well on Bella Waters, riding her conservatively midfield, one off the fence, before edging forward and bringing her between runners for a convincing win. Similar tactics two races later were crucial to Karman Line’s narrow victory over the hot favourite La Crique in the Rotorua Stakes.
“I thought if I came around the field we wouldn’t beat La Crique, so I decided I would have to ride for luck along the inside and see if the gaps would come. Talking to Scotty in the birdcage, he said the same, that was the only way we could win – it was beautiful to be on the same page!”
From the time Karman Line jumped and eased across to the inside rail, Hashizume was tracking La Crique. He then opted to stay in and hope for the right run, which duly came and Karman Line was through, taking the lead and holding out the favourite by a head.
That’s a far cry from the tactics – or lack thereof – that were Hashizume’s modus in his early days. “When I started I knew how to ride a horse but not how to ride a race. I wanted to know if I was on a horse what I should do to help it, but it wasn’t until I transferred to Grant Cooksley at Byerley Park that I started to learn. He always had an answer and even now if I have a question, I call him and he helps me out.”
Hashizume isn’t alone in this country as a Japanese national forging a career a long way from home, with compatriots including Cambridge-based colleague Kozzi Asano, who is headed for his fifth consecutive top-10 premiership finish on a current tally of 56 wins.
There’s someone missing from that cohort, however, close friend Taiki Yanagida, whose career was cut tragically short by fatal injuries suffered in a race fall in August 2022.
“I lived with Taiki when I was in Matamata during my early apprenticeship and we became good friends who shared a lot. He was actually the first person who taught what you have to do with exercise and all the things that will make you a good jockey. He was so strict, he taught me so much, and I will never forget him.
“I have Taiki’s photo at home and every morning before I leave to do my job, I talk to him and tell him I will try and do my best.”
Hashizume plans to return in good time for the new season, with a focus already to build on his breakout season.
“My ambition was to get onto the top 10 on the premiership. Even though I will probably lose that while I am away, I’m very happy with what I have done and I want to be ready to do even better next season.”