Takarazuka Kinen (Group 1)

11 furlongs 7.40am

EQUINOX, over to you. The world’s highest-rated horse returns to action tomorrow after his form received a huge boost by Mostahdaf, who finished fourth to him in the Sheema Classic, and went on to win the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot this week.

But the Japanese don’t play pass the parcel in taking on their good horses and it is a field full of hometown class among the 18 runners. There are six Group 1 winners in opposition.

The Takarazuka Kinen at Hanshin tomorrow is one of two races on the calendar (the Arima Kinen is the other) where racing fans get to cast votes for the horses they want to see in the big race line up. It was no surprise that the winner of the ballot this time was Equinox.

The winner receives an automatic entry to the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Turf in America and Australia’s Grade 1 Cox Plate (won by Lys Gracieux in 2019).

Favourites have fared quite poorly in the Takarazuka Kinen in the last 10 years, with just two winning, and five-year-olds have been particularly dominant in the past decade, with seven wins. A record time for the race was set just last year by Titleholder.

Equinox has won three Group 1s in a row since he was beaten a neck in last year’s Japanese Derby and he dominated the Group 1 Dubai Sheema Classic in March, when he dictated and was never at any point challenged. The four-year-old by Kitasan Black will again be ridden by Christophe Lemaire.

Of his rivals, Justin Palace won the Grade 1 Tenno Sho (Spring) over 3,200m in April at Kyoto and proved that the four-year-old by Deep Impact is improving all the time and has won at Hanshin.

The six-year-old Deep Bond has his 12th start in a Group 1 race, and he’s even travelled to France, winning the Group 2 Prix Foy, a couple of times in his quest to win one.

Deep Bond had to settle for second in the Grade 1 Tenno Sho (Spring) in April for the third time.

Two starts

The five-year-old mare Geraldina, winner of last year’s Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Cup in Japan, has had two starts this year and has finished sixth in both. Her latest race was Hong Kong’s Grade 1 QEII Cup in April, when things didn’t quite work out for her. Yutaka Take will ride Geraldina for the first time.

Ask Victor More, another Deep Impact, is last year’s Grade 1 Kikuka Sho (Japanese St. Leger) winner but has been beaten in his two starts as a four-year-old including in the Grade 1 Tenno Sho (Spring) in April, where he was impeded by an injured horse going back through the field.

Vela Azul won last year’s Grade 1 Japan Cup but was disappointing in the Dubai World Cup in March.

Four-year-old Geoglyph, a stablemate of Equinox, hasn’t raced in Japan since last autumn’s Tenno Sho (Autumn) at Tokyo last October, and despite drawing a blank in his three races overseas since last December, the 2022 Grade 1 Satsuki Sho (Japanese 2000 Guineas) winner, where he beat Equinox a length, is still one to keep in mind

Last year’s Grade 1 Hopeful Stakes winner, Dura Erede, is the only three-year-old in the lineup, and hopes for better luck having lost his rider just after the start of the Grade 1 Tokyo Yushun (Japanese Derby).

It’s Equinox’s to lose, he has a good draw in five, but it won’t be a cakewalk.