Japan's most successful dressage rider, Mieko Yagi, has passed away on 24 November 2015. The 65-year old lost her hard fought battle against lung cancer.
Yagi was based in Tokyo, Japan, and ran the real estate company Taiso, which she took over from her father. Riding was her life long passion and she was a true lady in and out of the saddle, standing out with her kindness and discipline in life and her fairness towards horses.
She was the figurehead of Japanese dressage winning the national championships eleven times, the last time in 2013 on Emma Youngman's former ride Rasputin.
Yagi began her international dressage career with as first highlight the 1995 Open European Dressage Championships in Mondorf-Les-Bains, Luxembourg, where she rode Apollo, which she had taken over from Leida Strijk.
Yagi was the first and only Japanese to ever compete in a World Cup Final. Aboard Taiso Ramon (previously shown by Kirsten Heek) she contested the 1998 World Cup in Gothenburg and the 1998 World Equestrian Games in Rome.
Her major goal had always been the Olympic Games and in 2007 she acquired the former PSI horse Dow Jones (by Don Primero x Raimondo) from Christina Boos. She discovered the dark bay at Hubertus Schmidt's yard and began training with the German. She competed at the 2008 Olympics in Hong Kong, where she finished 42nd. At the 2010 World Equestrian Games she was 59th.
In 2012 she leased the Rhinelander stallion Charming (by Champus x Lancer II) from Dirk Haese to qualify for the London Games but missed out on an individual place. Throughout the years Yagi mainted close contact with British Ferdi Eilberg with whom she also trained for years.
In 2013 Yagi acquired Michelle Hagman's Trakehner Rudi's Memory as her 2014 WEG and 2016 Rio hopeful but her illness forced Yago to put riding on the back burner. She never competed Rudi's Memory and sold the horse again last spring.
Yagi leaves behind two children, a son and a daughter.
Photos © Astrid Appels
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