KITASAN Black was named the Champion Horse of 2016 by the Japanese Racing Association last week. The yearly results are decided by a vote of racing journalists from various streams of racing media.

The champion horse award is the highest accolade awarded out of the 11 prize categories. It is based on their performances throughout the 2016 season by JRA registered horses and, realistically, there were only three horses in the running for the title: Kitasan Black, Maurice and Satono Diamond.

The eventual voting tally returned Kitasan Black as the winner, accruing 134 out of the possible 291 votes, with Maurice and Satono Diamond receiving 90 and 66 respectively. Inevitably, Kitasan Black also picked up the leading older colt award.

He was successful in three of his six starts in 2016, which included wins in both the Japan Cup and the Tenno Sho (Spring). The Hisashi Shimizu-trained four-year-old earned 711,930,000 Yen (€7,700,000) in 2016, helped in no small part by an imperious win over a field that lacked strength in depth in Japan’s most prestigious race, the Japan Cup.

As per Japanese norm, Kitasan Black will stay in training as a five-year-old and it has been muted that his long term target will be the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.

Not to be left empty-handed, Satono Diamond won the best three-year-old colt award and Maurice picked up a special recognition award.

DIFFICULT

Undoubtedly, Kitasan Black enjoyed a highly successful year on the track and quite rightly deserved to be in the mix for leading horse. However, once compared to his two main rivals for the title of 2016 champion, it is difficult to comprehend why the results of the voting were so resounding.

If it were to be strictly based on Group 1 victories, Maurice would lead the trio with three Group 1 wins in 2016.

He twice advertised the Japanese brand of thoroughbred to emphatic effect on international shores with successful trips to Hong Kong for the Champions Mile and the Hong Kong Cup.

Three Group 1 wins in 2015, including one in Hong Kong, cemented Maurice as the champion horse for that year.

If the main criteria for the award was consistency at the highest level, three-year-old Satono Diamond would have been crowned the champion. A winner of four of his six starts in 2016, a classic winner and placed in both the Derby and the 2000 Guineas.

Satono Diamond finished his year in the best possible fashion when taking on older horses in the season’s Group 1 finale, the Arima Kinen. In doing so he successfully lowered the colours of Kitasan Black in the process.

As a spectacle for racing fans, Satono Diamond was directly involved in two of the most gripping and exhilarating races of the year, finishing a nose second to Makahiki in the Tokyo Yushun (Japanese Derby) and a winner by a head of the Arima Kinen in a titanic duel with Kitasan Black.

All of this, as well as his performance when demolishing the field in the Kikuka Sho (Japanese St Leger), makes it difficult to envisage how he received less than half the amount of votes to that of Kitasan Black.

Crowning of the juvenile champions

WITH just one Group 1 for each sex of juveniles on the racing calendar, the winners of this category are determined by the results of the Hanshin Juvenile Fillies and the Asahi Hai Futurity Stakes (colts).

Satono Ares (Deep Impact), winner of the colt’s showpiece was crowned champion with 280 out of 291 possible votes.

Soul Stirring (Frankel), became her sire’s first Group 1 winner in the Hanshin Juvenile Fillies and was crowned Champion Filly with 290 out of the 291 votes.

Clear winners

OF the 11 titles on offer, Deep Impact (Sunday Silence) was responsible for siring five of the category winners. Furthermore, champion horse and champion older colt Kitasan Black is by Black Tide (Sunday Silence), a full brother to Deep Impact.

Their dam, Wind In Her Hair can take plaudits for producing the sires of seven of the 11 categories.

The Japanese breed and racing industry relies almost exclusively on the bloodlines of Sunday Silence.

Of the 11 titles on offer, Sunday Silence was the grandsire of eight of the title winners.