Japan's G1 Tenno Sho Spring is one of the showpiece races on the country's spring racing calendar, and gives stayers the opportunity to sort out their pecking order over two laps of the Kyoto turf.
Saturday could prove a red-letter day for emerging Japanese sire Screen Hero (Jpn) (Grass Wonder), who is represented by favoured Gold Actor (Jpn) here and who also has champion miler Maurice (Jpn) contesting Hong Kong's G1 Champion's Mile on the same day. Like Maurice, Gold Actor is riding a significant win streak, having not lost in his last five outings, including a first Group 1 score in the Arima Kinen Dec. 27 and win in the G2 Nikkei Sho Mar. 26, a race for which connections described Gold Actor as only at “70% to 80%” of his best. Both those wins came at the expense of Sounds Of Earth (Jpn) (Neo Universe {Jpn}), who has finished second in six group events and was unable to turn the tables on Gold Actor last out despite carrying two kilos fewer.
Kitasan Black (Jpn) (Black Tide {Jpn}) rattled off a pair of feature wins last year when taking the G2 Asahi Hai St. Lite Kinen followed by the G1 Kikuka Sho (Japanese St. Leger) over 3000 metres in October, but had to settle for third in the Arima Kinen and second first-up in the 2000-metre G2 Sankei Osaka Hai Apr. 3. Another 4-year-old, Cheval Grand (Jpn) (Heart's Cry {Jpn}), has lost just once in his last five starts and comes into this off a win in the G2 Hanshin Daishoten over 3000 metres Mar. 20. He tries Group 1 company for the first time.
Fame Game (Jpn) (Heart's Cry {Jpn}) showed his ability to stay the distance when winning last year's 3400-metre G3 Diamond S. before finishing second in this. The 6-year-old was off the board in Australia's G1 Caulfield Cup and G1 Melbourne Cup later in the year, but showed signs of rebounding when second to Twinkle (Jpn) (Stay Gold {Jpn}) in this year's Diamond S. Feb. 20.
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