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The second betting choice to--finally--build on a championship season in 2021 and a Classic-winning campaign last season, Do Deuce (Jpn) (Heart's Cry {Jpn}) was produced wide into the Nakayama straight by the ageless Yutaka Take and outbattled the positively ridden 4-year-old filly Stars on Earth (Jpn) (Duramente {Jpn}) to take out Sunday's G1 Arima Kinen, the fan-voted 'Grand Prix' of Japan. Titleholder (Jpn) (Duramente {Jpn}) made the majority of the running, but where he weakened out to finish down the field 12 months ago, held courageously for third in his...

Having given the race a pass in 2022 after taking a thrilling renewal of the G1 Tenno Sho (Autumn), Silk Racing Co. Ltd.'s world's top-rated racehorse Equinox (Jpn) (Kitasan Black {Jpn}) looks to complete that particular double--most recently accomplished by the syndicate's two-time Horse of the Year Almond Eye (Jpn) (Lord Kanaloa {Jpn}) in 2020--as the warm favourite in Sunday's G1 Japan Cup at Tokyo Racecourse. It has been a meticulously managed preparation for the 4-year-old colt with the broad blaze, as his abilities were on display for all to...

Japanese horses have readily left their marks at racetracks in the Middle East over the first three months of 2023, and accordingly, the nation is now home to the top-rated gallopers in the world on both turf and dirt according to the latest edition of the Longines World's Best Racehorse Rankings (WBRR) that was made public Thursday. On the strength of his mesmerising front-running victory in the G1 Longines Dubai Sheema Classic at Meydan Mar. 25, Silk Racing's Equinox (Jpn) (Kitasan Black {Jpn}) has been assigned a rating of 129,...

Sunday's G1 Arima Kinen offers fans of international racing the ultimate Christmas gift, as a field of 16--largely selected by the public--will face the starter in one of the world's most valuable Group 1 races not held in a desert environment. Titleholder (Jpn) (Duramente {Jpn}) was the leading votegetter and looks to atone for his speed-and-fade 11th-place effort in that boggy-ground renewal of the G1 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe at ParisLongchamp Oct. 2. He'd earned the right to contest Europe's weight-for-age championship, having defeated fellow Arc runner Deep Bond...

Hanshin Racecourse is the site of Sunday's fan-voted G1 Takarazuka Kinen over the metric 11-furlong trip, with the winner earning a fees-paid berth in the GI Longines Breeders' Cup Turf at Keeneland Race Course the first weekend of November. And with scarcely an exception, 18 of Japan's best middle-distance horses--with formlines from all over the world--are set to face the starter. A logical case can be made for perhaps as many as nine runners Sunday afternoon, including reigning Horse of the Year Efforia (Jpn) (Epiphaneia {Jpn}), who looks to bounce...

The Japanese Triple Crown concludes Sunday afternoon with the running of the G1 Kikuka Sho (Japanese St Leger) over a metric mile and seven furlongs at Hanshin Racecourse. With G1 Satsuki Sho (Japanese 2000 Guineas) hero Efforia (Jpn) (Epiphaneia {Jpn}) pointing towards next weekend's G1 Tenno Sho (Autumn) and G1 Tokyo Yushun victor Shahryar (Jpn) (Deep Impact {Jpn}) also giving the race a miss, the Kikuka Sho is really anybody's horse race. Stella Veloce (Jpn) (Bago {Fr}) is liable to jump as the race favourite as he goes second-up since...

Duramente (Jpn) (King Kamehameha {Jpn}--Admire Groove {Jpn}, by Sunday Silence), Japan's champion 3-year-old colt of 2015 and the country's leading first-crop sire in 2020, passed away Tuesday after being struck by a case of acute colitis. He was just nine years old. Duramente, whose dam was Japan's champion older mare of 2004 and whose granddam Air Groove (Jpn) (Tony Bin {Ire}) took home Horse of the Year honours in 1997, never finished outside the top two in nine career starts, winning five of those, including the 2015 G1 Satsuki Sho...

Perfect in four career attempts to this point, including a facile success in the G1 Satsuki Sho (Japanese 2000 Guineas) (2000mT) last month, Carrot Farm's Efforia (Jpn) (Epiphaneia {Jpn}) will jump a warm favourite to take his winning streak to five in Sunday's G1 Tokyo Yushun (Japanese Derby) at the Fuchu Racecourse in the Japanese capitol. Blessed with excellent tactical speed, Efforia has managed to be a forward factor in each of his races to date, sitting fairly handy to the pace when besting Victipharus (Jpn) (Heart's Cry {Jpn}) by...