Japan's top female jockey quits after suspension over smartphone use

In our free part of the world, everyone can freely use personal things anywhere

Breathtaking naivety. 

There are countless professions where using cellphones during work is expressly banned - for various valid reasons. For a professional sportsperson the reasons are very obvious.

Exactly.

I bet they can find ten other people ready to take her spot in a second, who are also ready to follow the rules. Absolutely nothing special about her. Good riddance.

Of course there was something special about her. She was a trailblazer. Not the first female JRA jockey, there was a bunch starting in the late 90es, but she was the first that really got a decent number of rides, and backed that up with a decent number of wins. Her career stagnated a bit after a fall a few years back, but it wasn't the wins that made her special, but how she broke down the barriers. Became a jockey, as a female, without any family connections to horse racing. After her retirement there's 6 female jockeys left. All of them inspired or at the very least encouraged by her success.

The case and retirement are a bit strange, although not for any reason mentioned here. Seems the JRA took up her case from 2023 again, when a bunch of other young jockeys were suspended for a relatively short time, 1 month. Seems at the time Fujita admitted to phone use as well (with her boyfriend, now husband, JRA employee) but got away with a warning. Now taking up the same case again it seems, media pressure according to her stable master. Her suspension most likely would have been rather short though, the other guys at the time got 1 month, would have been weird to give her a longer suspension, over a year after she admitted the infraction. But can get longer ones, another jockey this year got 9 months for the same thing, smartphone use during the jockey's Friday to Sunday "lockdown", another one again is in the same situation Fujita was, suspended indefinitely until they decide on the length. Wait for the length, then retire if she feels treated unfairly would have been less surprising than this immediate retirement.

Pure speculation, of course, but I sense that the smartphone suspension was just an excuse. A rival was probably jealous of her success and stabbed her in the back; so typical of workplace pettiness...

@DanteKH

They didn't ban her. She retired. She was going to be temporarily suspended, not banned.

The word "ban" is used to describe no cell phones allowed in the race preparation area.

"...flog her like a dead horse."

I see what you have done there!

Sven Asai -

In our free part of the world, everyone can freely use personal things anywhere

Breathtaking naivety.

There are countless professions where using cellphones during work is expressly banned - for various valid reasons. For a professional sportsperson the reasons are very obvious.

Being caught and warned for doing this - multiple times - certainly did not help this jockeys case.

All they need to do is examine her internet history. But no. Instead let's flog her like a dead horse. Typical.

but can they prove she comunicated to bookies for tips regarding the races?

It would be very difficult to obtain a sub-poena to prove something. And they don't need to - that's why the rule is in place.

Why the ban?

I bet they can find ten other people ready to take her spot in a second, who are also ready to follow the rules. Absolutely nothing special about her. Good riddance.

I know is a rule, but can they prove she comunicated to bookies for tips regarding the races? What the extreme ban from the sport? A heafty fine should be enough, not ruin her entire career and life.

Sounds like North Korea or even worse, because North Koreans probably can use their own phone if they ever should have one. In our free part of the world, everyone can freely use personal things anywhere , as long no one else is hurt, killed or financially damaged, which is not the case here when using a smartphone. Those little wannabe dictators should quickly return to school for some democracy lessons.

I love the joke about the "integrity of the sport", which is followed immediately and in the same sentence by, "which allows betting on races". haha.

Anyway, if it was restricted and she had committed repeat offenses, not a lot you can do about it. It's a little more serious than just being banned for "smartphone use", which is a bit misleading, though technically correct.

Is it jockeys that win the race or the horses?

Horse-racing is already murky and crooked enough without having jockeys take and use phones when they should not. Just as footballers cannot use cellphones during the game, it makes sense to ban jockeys from doing the same.

Fujita sounds as sleazy as anything - and if she were truly innocent of anything serious, she would have challenged or accepted the suspension.