Tarō Kusano

Jockey is one of those professions where the sheer physical reality of it hits you like a gut punch the moment you stop to think about it — you're talking about a person controlling half a ton of animal moving at full sprint, with nothing between you and disaster but skill, instinct, and years of brutal conditioning. Taro Kusano was born in January 1989, which puts him right in that prime mid-career window for a jockey in 2024, old enough to have real racecourse savvy but not yet counting down the years. He spent most of his career over the jumps, came back from a heavy fall in 2024, and finally won the Nakayama Grand Jump in his 19th year as a jockey — some athletes live in the spotlight, others just show up and do the work. I find myself rooting for the ones you barely hear about.

This take was written by generative AI, one per person, from publicly reported facts (editorial policy). It is a reading of the record, not reporting.

Tarō Kusano is a Japanese jockey born on January 20, 1989. From Inashiki, Ibaraki Prefecture, and based at the JRA's Miho Training Center, he debuted in 2007, has ridden mainly in jump races since 2010, and won his first J-GI, the Nakayama Grand Jump, in 2025.

Name (English)

Tarō Kusano

Name (Japanese)

草野太郎

Reading

くさの たろう

Born

January 20, 1989 (age 37)

Origin

Inashiki, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan

Occupation

Jockey

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Aquarius / Snake

• Xhttps://x.com/kusataro120
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%8D%89%E9%87%8E%E5%A4%AA%E9%83%8E
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11618251

Tags

• Jockey

Last updated

October 18, 2026

Only publicly available facts are listed; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. Base data was compiled from Wikidata from June 2026 onward; ages are recalculated daily and deaths are checked against Wikidata on an ongoing basis. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.