The dignity of finishing the race

“Park Tae-jong, at age 60, proved through his own life that Korean horse racing can be defined and remembered by a single name.”

Lee Shin-woo, the trainer who prepared Park’s retirement race alongside him, shared the tribute in a social media post. Park reached the mandatory retirement age after riding in the sixth race on Dec. 21 at Let’s Run Park Seoul in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province. Miracle Socks, the horse Park rode in his final appearance, led the race until the final turn before finishing second. Reflecting on the outcome, Lee wrote, “It would have been fitting if the final scene had ended in victory, like a movie. But life does not always follow a script. That is what made this result feel all the more real.”

The records Park leaves behind in Korean horse racing are staggering. Over his career, he competed in 16,016 races and recorded 2,249 victories. In the 103-year history of Korean horse racing, no jockey has amassed more wins. Even when measured against the previous record of 722 victories, Park’s total surpasses it by more than threefold. The scale and longevity of his achievements earned him a singular title within the sport, “the president of horse racing.”

His career, however, was far from smooth. With the exception of his head and arms, nearly every bone in his body was broken at least once. He underwent more than 10 long-term hospitalizations. In a 1999 fall, a horse stepped on his lower back, causing a spinal compression fracture that left him hospitalized for 10 months. In a 2017 interview with The Dong-A Ilbo, Park recalled with a laugh that visiting fans told him, “We assumed you had died and went to the morgue first. When you were not there, we came up to the hospital room.”

Park once dreamed not of riding horses but of operating an excavator. Born in Jincheon County, North Chungcheong Province, he moved to Seoul after graduating from high school and helped at a vegetable shop run by his aunt and uncle in Mapo District. After work, he attended a heavy equipment academy to learn how to operate excavators. He even traveled to Chuncheon, Gangwon Province, to take the excavator license exam, but returned without ever sitting in the driver’s seat. He was several months short of the minimum eligible age. Because his parents registered his birth a year late, his official age was younger than his actual age. With no alternative, he had to wait for another opportunity.

That was when his uncle noticed a recruitment notice for jockeys posted at the Mapo branch of the Korea Racing Authority and encouraged his nephew to apply. Standing under 150 centimeters tall, Park said, “I did not even know jockeying was a profession, but I was drawn to it because being short was considered an advantage.” After two attempts, he obtained his jockey’s license in 1987. For the next 39 years, he went to bed before 9 p.m. every night and woke up at 4:30 a.m. His workday always began at 5:30 a.m. That discipline earned him the nickname “Kant” within the racing community.

Park’s story is hardly unique. Life itself may be a process of doing things we never imagined in childhood, stumbling and falling along the way, enduring each day, and eventually yielding one’s place. Lucius Annaeus Seneca, the ancient Roman philosopher, said it takes a lifetime to learn how to live and a lifetime to learn how to die. Perhaps, then, simply finishing the race is the greatest record of all. To everyone reaching mandatory retirement this year, applause is in order. Truly, you have worked very hard.