Hong Kong International Meeting: Japanese stars ready to shine

There was a time, though, before Japan had emerged as a major international racing power and that era could be said to have started in 1995 when Fujiyama Kenzan caused a 40/1 upset in what was then the Hong Kong International Cup, a Group 2 contest over nine furlongs. More than just Japan’s first winner at HKIR, Fujiyama Kenzan was the first major success for a Japanese horse overseas since the 1950’s, though judging from compatriot Midnight Bet’s win at similar odds in the same contest just three years later, Japanese form was still being underestimated overseas.

However, Group 1 wins in Europe started to grant Japanese runners more respect abroad around the millennium and Japan’s third winner of the Cup, Agnes Digital, came as much less of a shock in a contest which by then had become a Group 1 contest over a mile and a quarter. However, it’s really since 2015 that Japanese horses have dominated the HKIR’s most valuable event, winning five of the last seven runnings, and when Loves Only You followed up her Breeders’ Cup Filly And Mare Turf victory twelve months ago she became the third Japanese winner in a row.

Agnes Digital was one of three winners on a momentous day for Japan at Sha Tin in 2001, with Eishin Preston winning the Mile and Stay Gold the Vase, both contests which Japanese horses have now won four times. It took a bit longer for them to crack the Sprint, in which the locally-trained runners invariably hold a strong hand, but the breakthrough finally came in 2012 with Lord Kanaloa. Not only did he double his winning margin when following up by five lengths with a top-class effort twelve months later, he also went on to sire Japan’s subsequent Sprint winner Danon Smash in 2001.

So what of the Japanese challenge for Hong Kong’s big meeting this year? While there might not be a truly top-class contender among the 14, there are certainly several with form that gives them live chances. There are five bidding to extend Japan’s winning run in the Cup, with the fascinating sub-plot to this race being who will emerge best in the ongoing rivalry between the high-class pair Panthalassa and Jack d’Or, both of whom look worthy challengers to local favourite Romantic Warrior. Both, incidentally, are by sires who excelled themselves in HKIR races, with Panthalassa another by Lord Kanaloa while Jack d’Or is by the 2015 Hong Kong Mile winner Maurice.

This will be the third consecutive meeting between the two, with Jack d’Or emerging a neck to the good after a final-furlong scrap in the Group 2 Sapporo Kinen in August. Panthalassa is a confirmed front-runner but took those tactics to extremes when they next met in a remarkable running of the Tenno Sho (Autumn) at Tokyo at the end of October where Panthalassa established a huge lead and was still a long way clear early in the home straight. However, despite running on fumes in the final furlong, he still managed to hold on for second, collared only by the high-class three-year-old Equinox as Jack d’Or ran on in the closing pack for fourth. That looked a hard race for Panthalassa, though his trainer Yoshito Yahagi has said this week that he believes he’s in better condition now than he was then.

Proof that Panthalassa is a hard horse to peg back from the front had also come earlier in the year in the Dubai Duty Free where he was joined only on the line by Lord North who forced a dead heat. Meanwhile, Jack d’Or has made the running himself in the past and will have the assistance of Yutaka Take. After a five-year absence from the meeting, Japan’s veteran riding legend will bid for a third HKIR win after partnering Stay Gold to that Vase victory in 2001 and A Shin Hikari in the Cup in 2015.

As a flashy chestnut, Jack d’Or took the eye in this morning’s trackwork session at Sha Tin in front of the mainly Japanese observers strong turn-out from the Japanese media covering this year’s HKIR. Jack d’Or, incidentally, was also among several of the Japanese horses who not only stretched their legs on the track but were later also taken for a recce of Sha Tin’s partially roofed parade ring to accustom them to the preliminaries on Sunday. Identifying the various Japanese horses in their work is helped by some very colourful aids to identification. Jack d’Or’s bright yellow tack, for example, contrasts with Panthalassa’s red and white colour scheme with matching bandages, hood and even his rider’s face-mask.

Panthalassa’s trainer, successful with Loves Only You in last year’s Cup, has become known for his own stylish headgear thanks to his high-profile wins worldwide over the last year or so and Yahagi revealed at the subsequent press conference this morning that he’s brought two hats with him but hasn’t decided yet which colour one he’ll be wearing on Sunday.

Another of those given a school in the parade ring was Glory Vase, though he’s well acquainted with Sha Tin already as he bids for what would be a third win in the Hong Kong Vase in the last four years. Last year’s third Salios, the mount of Ryan Moore, along with Group 1 winners Danon Scorpion, with William Buick on board, and Schnell Meister, take on Hong Kong’s best horse Golden Sixty in the Hong Kong Mile while four Japanese horses tackle the Sprint.

Meikei Yell could be the most interesting of those despite finishing down the field behind Gendarme in the Sprinters Stakes on her latest start. Two Group 2 wins prior to that suggest she’s a more tractable filly now than in the past when liable to pull so hard as to prove almost uncontrollable and, with her regular rider injured, she’ll also have the assistance of James McDonald who reported Meikei Yell had given him an excellent feel in a gallop on Wednesday.

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