WHAT a year it’s been for Japanese racing on the world stage, from Almond Eye’s win in the Dubai Turf in March to Lys Gracieux taking the Cox Plate in November in Australia and the successes in three of the four Group 1s on the Longines International meeting in Hong Kong this month.
The Arima Kinen (6.25am Sunday) is named in memory of Yoriyasu Arima, the second president of the Japan Racing Association, who had suggested the idea before his death in 1957. The Arima Kinen is unique because Japanese racing fans are given an opportunity to vote for the runners who will run.
Eight of the fans’ top 10 choices are among the race’s 19 nominees, 11 among them Grade 1 winners.
Champion Almond Eye’s season did not go to plan from her Dubai win and plans for the Arc were scrapped mid season.
She was beaten into third after a bad start on her return race in Japan in June but returned to win the Group 1 Tenno Sho impressively. That was to set up a trip to Hong Kong but she developed a fever and missed the international races.
The daughter of Lord Kanaloa only missed one day of work and reports have it that she is well prepared for this. Almond Eye has eight wins, six of them Grade 1 races, including her victory in the Dubai Turf this spring. She also holds the current race record for the Japan Cup, set last year.
Lys Gracieux has finished in the top three in 18 of her 21 career starts. Following a second-place finish in the Hong Kong Vase last year, she added the Group 1 Takarazuka Kinen by three lengths in June and went on to win the Group 1 Cox Plate in November. It will be the first time at Nakayama for Australian jockey Damian Lane, who rode her last two races.
Suave Richard is again the mount of Oisin Murphy and they captured the Japan Cup last time, giving him his second Group 1 win following the 2018 Osaka Hai.
Suave Richard would be the first horse to add this to the Japan Cup since Deep Impact in 2006 and only the fifth horse in JRA history.
Leading three-year-old Saturnalia won the Satsuki Sho (2000 Guineas) in the spring and will go to the gate with two wins at Nakayama. Christophe Soumillon rides.
Returning from a bid for the Arc, Fierement won the Group 1 Tenno Sho (Spring) on only the sixth start of his career. Kenichi Ikezoe, currently with the most wins of the Arima Kinen, is set to ride Fierement for the first time.
Three-year-old World Premiere, by Deep Impact, has three wins and not been out of the top three in his six starts. Missing the spring classics, he returned to capture the Kikuka Sho in October, his first top-level bid. Veteran rider Yutaka Take is on board.
Others not to be dismissed include Cheval Grand, back from a spell in Britain. A regular Arima participant with two third places, he could still easily make the money, as could Kiseki, returning from a seventh-place finish in the Arc, while Rey De Oro won last year’s Group 1 Tenno Sho (Autumn).
SELECTION: ALMOND EYE
Next best: World Premiere