Sunday's running of the G1 Shuka Sho, the final leg of the Japanese fillies' Triple Crown, will see the winners of the first two legs of that series, Mikki Queen (Jpn) (Deep Impact {Jpn}) and Let's Go Donki (Jpn) (King Kamehameha {Jpn}), once again do battle. Mizuki Noda's Mikki Queen rates atop her generation, having never finished worse than second in six career outings. She took the G1 Yushun Himba (Japanese Oaks) in her fourth start in May, but has something to prove again after being beaten by Touching Speed (Jpn) (Deep Impact {Jpn}) on seasonal return in the G2 Sho Rose S. Sept. 20. Trainer Yasutoshi Ikee chalked that defeat down to the drop back in distance–1800 meters from the 2400-meter Yushun Himba–and indeed Mikki Queen propelled herself from last on the turn to just miss victory on the line.
Touching Queen is one that has improved dramatically as the calendar pages have turned. Off the board in stakes and allowance company at Hanshin in the spring, she returned from a summer holiday to take a Sapporo allowance over this trip Aug. 8 before her career-best win in the Sho Rose.
Let's Go Donki has won two of eight career outings, and one of those victories came in the G1 Oka Sho (Japanese 1000 Guineas), when she obliterated the opposition by four lengths. She could manage only 10th, however, behind Mikki Queen in the Yushun Himba, casting doubt over her stamina. She was fourth behind the aforementioned pair in the Sho Rose.
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