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BREEDERS' CUP WORLD THOROUGHBRED CHAMPIONSHIPSNovember 4, 2011Corey NakataniCHURCHILL DOWNS, KENTUCKY THE MODERATOR: We're now going to be joined by Corey Nakatani, the winning rider of My Miss Aurelia, winner of the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies. Corey, any time you're ready. Thank you very much for coming down and meeting with us. Corey has a hungry partner with him right now. Corey, congratulations. Great win by My Miss Aurelia in the Juvenile Fillies. Before we get into it, tell us about the pretty girl who's with you. COREY NAKATANI: This is my little one. Want to say hi? Want to go to mommy? Mommy, want to come get her? THE MODERATOR: What's her name, Corey? COREY NAKATANI: Lila, Lila Marie. THE MODERATOR: How old is she? COREY NAKATANI: She's 2 1/2. Stage fright. She loves Dancing With the Stars. THE MODERATOR: She'll enjoy that you brought her up in a couple of years. COREY NAKATANI: She just needs a little music. THE MODERATOR: Corey, congratulations. Just a great win by your filly. Talk about your trip around the track. COREY NAKATANI: I talked to Steven about it. He said, you ride her wherever she's comfortable. I had a game plan of getting her in the position she's in. I didn't want to give up anything that came easy to her. I had a feeling that Martin was going to send on the inside with Baffert's filly. I just said, you know what, I rated her in the morning at Belmont Park. I went out and worked her for Steve. I was very, very happy and enthused with the way I got her to settle off of the horse. I had no doubt she doesn't have to be on a lead. So I was very confident where I was at. What more can you say about Steve and My Miss Aurelia and Scott Blasi? That team, they're true horsemen, and it's a pleasure to be a part of them. THE MODERATOR: At one point, Corey, it looked like Grace Hall was making a run at you. Obviously, you held her safe. You won by three lengths. Did you sense Grace Hall coming, and did your filly kind of kick in at that point further? COREY NAKATANI: My filly turning for home was actually just in hand. They're 2-year-olds, so you really want to try to get their attention and set them down. That's why I showed the stick to her and just got her attention and got her to level off and win the race. She basically, when I got her at the half mile pole, she kind of dropped back and relaxed for me to where I wasn't having to slow her down or anything. She just got in that nice comfortable stride. I was stoked turning for home because she had her ears pricked and just galloping along. Once I sat her down, she exploded and ran away from him and won the race pretty much at hand. THE MODERATOR: Incidentally, this is Breeders' Cup victory number eight for Corey. The last coming at Churchill Downs in 2006 with the long shot winner of the Sprint, Thor's Echo. Questions from either upstairs or here in the media center? Q. Mr. Nakatani, you went on a kind of a slide, and there was talk that you were thinking of retirement. And this year, especially after your visit to Arlington this summer, there has been a resurgence. Talk about it and tell us what your immediate future plans are. COREY NAKATANI: Well, retirement's not in the works yet, but when you get a chance to compete at the top level, especially in worldwide racing, whether it's Japan or Europe, the Breeders' Cup has always been one of my goals to try to put yourself in position to ride horses and win these races. I went to Arlington. My buddy Jay over there handles the book for Junior Alvarado, and he got hurt. So I was in California just going through the motions. He asked me to go there, so I went there to Chicago. From Chicago, I said, I'm going to go to Saratoga for the summer. Got a chance to talk to a few agents and got Fred to handle my book up there. We didn't get a lot of the choice mounts, but we got lucky and got into a few barns. Nick Zito, Wayne Lukas was giving us some horses to ride. We got lucky. We won the Grade 1 over there. It just kind of snowballed. Belmont came around, and I hired Ron Anderson. Things just kind of snowballed, and we got a lot of opportunities to ride for Steve. We're very lucky, obviously, riding Nehro in the Kentucky Derby earlier in the year. It feels good. I'm healthy again. Obviously, you know, if you've had any injuries, you have to overcome those. Once you're healthy, you come back. I don't like to lose, and I don't like to be in the position where you're hurting when you're not comfortable out there on the track. So thank God that I'm healthy again, and I'm looking forward to trying to compete for the -- you know, obviously, the money title and not too far away from 3,500 wins and $200 million in purses, I believe. Hopefully, I can keep that goal of striving to get to the top of that list with Pat Day and Jerry Bailey up there and McCarron and Stevens. Those are the goals you've got to set for yourself. They're within reach, and hopefully I can have that opportunity to ride a lot of horses like My Miss Aurelia and get back into the top outfits and ride nice horses. So hopefully, that will take us back up to here and winning more races. THE MODERATOR: Corey, you're certainly justifying the confidence that those top outfits are showing in you. Congratulations on yet another outstanding ride and an outstanding filly in My Miss Aurelia. Thanks for coming down here today. Good luck tomorrow. COREY NAKATANI: Thank you very much. There's no doubt she's a champion. Like I told Steve, I've got the ultimate ride of the race, and I really appreciated that. Thank you guys. Hopefully, we've got many more. THE MODERATOR: Congratulations. Well done, Corey. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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