Riichi Kondō

I'll be honest, I didn't expect to get sentimental about a businessman, but Riichi Kondō won me over. Here's a guy from the mountain towns of Tokushima who built a fortune from scratch and then poured it straight into one of the most romantic, money-losing dreams there is: thoroughbred racing. To Japanese racing fans he's "the Admire man," that famous owner-prefix you'd see flash by on the turf, and I love the contradiction in him, the sharp commercial eye paired with a softie's devotion to horses. There's something deeply human about a self-made man chasing speed and beauty just because it moved him. He passed in 2019, but his name still gallops down the stretch in old race footage, and that feels like the right kind of legacy to leave behind.

Riichi Kondō (1942–2019) was a Japanese businessman from Miyoshi, Tokushima Prefecture. He was widely known in horse-racing circles as a prominent racehorse owner, operating under the "Admire" (アドマイヤ) prefix for his horses. He built his fortune through business and channeled it into the world of thoroughbred racing, leaving a lasting mark on Japanese turf culture before his death on November 17, 2019.

Name (English)

Riichi Kondō

Name (Japanese)

近藤利一

Reading

こんどう りいち

Born

September 1, 1942 – November 17, 2019

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Virgo / Horse (午)

Origin

Miyoshi, Tokushima Prefecture, Japan

Occupation

Businessman / Racehorse Owner

Motto

Private

• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%BF%91%E8%97%A4%E5%88%A9%E4%B8%80

Tags

• From Tokushima Prefecture
• Businessman
• Racehorse Owner

Last updated

2026-06-02

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.