Tetsuya Kimura is looking ahead to the return of his crack G1 Arima Kinen-winning filly Regaleira and the upcoming campaign could include an overseas assignment later in the year.
“After the Arima Kinen she had a minor foot issue so that meant I couldn’t bring her to Dubai as planned, but I’m not afraid of sending Regaleira overseas, and I strongly hope I can show her to the racing fans all over the world,” the trainer told Idol Horse last weekend at Meydan where his other top-class filly Cervinia was sixth behind Danon Decile in the G1 Dubai Sheema Classic.
Kimura said that Regaleira’s owner, the Northern Farm-affiliated Sunday Racing, had not yet confirmed a first-up run for the hugely-talented daughter of Suave Richard.
The JRA Group 1 programme has limited options for her this spring, with the Victoria Mile or the Yasuda Kinen being potential 1600m start-off points if she is ready in time, but that would be short of her optimum distance and another option domestically could be the G1 Takarazuka Kinen over 2200m in June.
Regaleira was the superstar-in-waiting this time last year. There was great anticipation following her December 2023 win against the colts in the G1 Hopeful Stakes, so much so that connections took the bold move of taking on the colts again in the classics, the G1 Satsuki Sho and the G1 Tokyo Yushun.
“Her win in the Hopeful Stakes was sensational,” Kimura said, “And I had Cervinia as well, so I let Cervinia go the fillies’ route (she won the last two legs of the fillies’ Triple Crown), and with the owners’ understanding, we took up the spirit of a good challenge and Regaleira ran in the Satsuki Sho and the Derby.”
That path did not work out as Regaleira placed sixth and then fifth. Her bubble seemed to have well and truly burst thereafter when she returned in the autumn with a fifth in the G2 Rose Stakes and fifth again in the G1 Queen Elizabeth II Cup. But she rose emphatically from the ashes with a brilliant Arima Kinen win, only the second by a three-year-old filly and first since the Yushun Himba heroine Star Roch beat her elders in 1960.
Regaleira took the fan-voted grand prix ahead of Shahryar and two of last weekend’s stars, the Sheema Classic hero Danon Decile and the G1 Osaka Hai winner Bellagio Opera.
That form would stack up anywhere in the world and Kimura is keen to continue testing himself and his horses on the world stage, having guided the great Equinox through a stellar career that included victory at Meydan in the 2023 Dubai Sheema Classic.
“Through Japanese horses running well in overseas races, I want to showcase that the Japanese training program is getting close to the world standard, if not already at that level. As a horseman from Japan, I send out my horses with that kind of responsibility in mind,” Kimura said.
“I had a lot of valuable and fantastic experiences with Equinox going to Dubai. I want to experience that kind of excitement again, and I also want to provide that excitement to our fans.”
Kimura, 52, cited British champion trainer John Gosden as a trainer he looks up to, particularly for his ability to succeed when training in the United States and in Britain, and stated that from Gosden’s example he had learned that, “If a trainer is creative enough, the trainer can succeed anywhere in the world.”
Training horses like Equinox and Regaleira, and boldness in campaigning them, can bring close scrutiny and out of that he said he knows his greatest weakness.
“I can come up with my weakness immediately. I’m really bad at pressure and easily get stressed out,” he said and admitted that he felt that pressure with Equinox. “I think my strength is that I am very lucky, I am really fortunate to have had all these opportunities.”
With Regaleira on the comeback trail towards a hoped for championship four-year-old campaign, with international ambitions, no less, that pressure will surely ramp up again in the coming months ∎
