u/WANNFH

Midweek local racing time between the eight mares on dirt today - but we got the familiar faces this time.

The winning mare is 4 years old sired by Nadal Memoria Cafe, with Christoph Lemaire actually put very decent end closer strategy, and winning over a length from the favorite of the race - 5 years old sired by Thunder Snow Tenka Jo and her jockey Kohei Matsuyama.

3rd place goes over to another Nadal's 4-year-old, fifth favorite Reina de Arcilla, and her jockey Kanta Taguchi - and another Nadal 4-year-old mare, Promised Gene with Yutaka Take on the back, ended on 4th place.

Prior to Victoria Mile race weekend, here is Weekly Gallop coverage of the double winning mare of Victoria Mile and 3 G1 winner Straight Girl - who is currently being the broodmare at Ask Stud.

Toughest fight amongst the milers with camera footage finish deciding the winner yet again today - and the victory of best 3-year-old for mile racing goes to Katsumi Yoshida's family son of Saturnalia, 2nd place of New Zealand Trophy Rodeo Drive - and his jockey Damian Lane, winning over Churchill Downs Cup winner Ask Ikigomi, with Keita Tosaki on his back - with both of them started from near outermost gates (17th and 16th).

3rd place going to Admire Quads and Ryuusei Sakai - which makes it third time when he takes a bronze on the graded races since Asahi Hai Futurity Stakes.

For another big names - Diamond Knot (Y.Kawada) finished 5th, Thunderstruck (C.Lemaire) - 7th, Ecoro Alba (K.Yokoyama) - 9th, Asahi Hai Futurity Stakes winner Cavalerizzo (A.Nishimura) - 12th place, Gene King (A.Saito) - 13th.

The foal in question is Okada Stud Quick Mail '26 (filly, BMS: Taiki Shuttle).

Today fight in Tokyo between the older horses was pretty exciting with another solid, nearly dead heat situation between 2nd favorite of the race Sunday Racing Trovatore, 5-year-old son of Rey de Oro, with Christophe Lemaire on his back - and 24' Oaks winning mare, 5-year-old Stellenbosch, who was reunited today with Keita Tosaki, and was nose close to getting the victory after very bad performance in 2025.

On 3rd place ended another 5-year-old Sunday Racing horse - son of Lord Kanaloa Regalo del Cielo, with Yasunari Iwata riding him this race.

Well, seems like Contrailings maybe not grown too early, but now the stocks for the new Triple Crown are going back to good expectations.

Today winners are Silk Racing Congestus and Atsuya Nishimura, who took the impressive fight neck over with the favorite of the race - son of Epiphaneia and Chrono Genesis Bereshit, and his jockey Yuichi Kitamura - which making him the currently undefeated racer with 3/3 streak.

Third place was taken by Satono Alladin son Radiant Star, and his jockey Kenichi Ikezoe.

M's Begin, the 2nd favorite expensive racer of M's Racing, ended on 7th place. 3rd favorite, Aurum Ares, ended on 14th place out of 16.

Time for the local racing once more, and today it's dirt sprinting day amongst the promising three-year-olds.

Today, the track was dominated by two horses who got back on Japanese fields from the trip of Saudi Cup day from Saudi Derby - colt of Into Mischief family Satono Voyage with his main jockey Keita Tosaki, and Tokai Ma Cherrie - filly from Drefong with Katsuma Sameshima onboard, who were divided the placements by half of length.

2 lengths behind the 2nd place ended the local horse - 6th favorite Zelos, ridden by Tsubasa Sasagawa.

(Very basic rough translation of a blog article by Daiju Matsunami, Tokyo Sports Newspaper journalist)

The long story short: around March of this year, Matsunami-san went to interview trainer Koichi Shintani about two-year-olds under his stable. Word for word, and then it comes to this talk:

• “What do you think about this one?”
• “Hmm, dirt aptitude.”
• “What about the distance?”
• “1,000 meters.”
• “Will he run?”
• “He’ll make his debut early.”

Pretty normal talk, but then trainer Shintani pulled the pedigree of a two-year with the words "Matsunami-san, take a look at this".

At first, Matsunami really had no idea what was really special about it, and at the time this horse didn’t have a name - well, before looking up for it, but the name of the horse was “That’s Gold”.

His sire was no need to introduction for Triple Crown Orfevre, while his dam was L'Arche d'Or - so casual horse racing fans maybe have a little knowledge about her too, while L'Arche d'Or was sired by Symboli Kris S from Rose Stakes (G2) winning dam Les Clefs d'Or.

And then we brought to the dam of Les Clefs d'Or... Golden Sash. If you have a certain knowledge of the horses pedigree and that name made you go "HUH?!", you will be 100% right on your thinking.

His sire is Orfevre, right? So the grand sire of this colt is Stay Gold, right? That's how it supposed to work.

But wait, what about the parents of Les Clefs d'Or? It's Golden Sash and... SUNDAY SILENCE?! Which means it's Stay Gold's full sibling sister, right? Hold up, wait a minute...

That's some crazy story to cover, because we're looking at insane 2x2 cross of Stay Gold.

To put the situation simply - when it comes to the pedigrees of racehorses, full siblings are always treated with “the exact same bloodline equal to same horse” (this applies strictly to pedigrees - you can’t apply this logic to humans).

But the first that came to mind with seeing this was:

"Is the temperament of this colt is OK? You know about it, don't you?"

When it comes to breeding to Stay Gold family, having the horse rough temperament is a given thing that give the most concern. One thing is imagining a horse which is a mix of Orfevre with the Gold Ship big frame build… If that meant he had the ability to run, that would be great, but if it’s just the Gold's temperament… well, that's got to be a handful… (wry smile).

“It’s an extremely close inbreeding, so it’s bound to be a talking point, and he has a magnificent build. I’m looking forward to seeing what kind of results come from this kind of breeding. But it is a Stay Gold cross, after all. We’ll have to proceed carefully, closely assessing what he’s like, including his temperament.”

Trainer Shintani didn’t have his usual good vibe describing it; he seemed extremely cautious.

With that said, given Stay Gold’s pedigree, if it's a large horse — contrary to expectations — were to emerge, it might actually yield surprisingly good results. Of course there have been small horses with the crazy performance in the past, like Dream Journey, which resemble its sire, but there's also a feeling that horses with larger frames and more powerful jumps, like Gold Ship, are the ones capable of delivering extraordinary performances. And well, maybe it’s just that the dam, L'Arche d'Or, was pretty big horse, so colt simply inherited that trait.

In any case, That’s Gold isn’t just a simple inbreeding—there’s something interesting about the mix. Be sure to keep an eye on him.

Damn, Costa overslept the start of the race, and now he's on the way to be called the Rulership of dirt racing 🤣

Wilson Tesoro maybe have no luck with dirt G1 - but it doesn't mean that 7 years old first batch Kitasan Black son going to stop trying to fight the demons at his old age, especially when you put the guy against his rivals - double winner of February Stakes Costa Nova, silver of last Tokyo Daishoten Mikki Fight, and Double Dirt winner of last year Natural Rise.

And today he with his jockey Yuga Kawada won another big dirt race, neck over the Mikki Fight with Cristophe Lemaire on the back.

On 3rd place ended 6-year-old G3 winner sired by Lord Kanaloa Lord Fons and Kazuo Yokoyama, Costa Nova and Damian Lane started very late and could not catch up enough at time, and ended behind him on 4th place. Son of Smart Falcon Shamal, who finally reunited with his main jockey Haruhiko Kawasu after long recovery from trauma, ended on 6th place. Natural Rise (T. Yokoyama) meanwhile is still in the slump - on 8th place.