Horse To Follow:
Ecoro Sieg
1st of 8, 2YO Open Class
1200m (Turf), Nakayama
Saturday September 21
Breaking a record that has stood for more than two decades speaks for itself, but Ecoro Sieg’s startling performance in the two-year-old Open Class Canna Stakes might be just the start for the Breeders’ Cup-bound speedster.
Ecoro Sieg’s runaway victory by two and a half lengths in 1:07.02 not only surpassed the 23-year-old course record for two-year-olds, but was also the fastest a two-year-old has ever covered 1200m in JRA history.
Although Ecoro Sieg slightly missed the break at the start, jockey Christophe Lemaire—who had also ridden him in his debut race—urged the colt forward, quickly accelerating to take the lead.
Entering the straight, Ecoro Sieg showed the rare ability to make multiple moves in a race as he pulled further ahead to make it two wins from two starts.
— Team Iwata (@JayRAye02) September 21, 2024
Ecoro Sieg is an American-bred colt sired by Twirling Candy. He was purchased for $250,000 at the OBS March Sale 2024 by his current trainer, Hideyuki Mori. His performance during the training sale was also impressive, recording a time of 9.4 seconds, which tied for the second-fastest among the horses that ran a furlong.
On debut at Niigata Racecourse on August 17, Ecoro Sieg’s overwhelming speed allowed him to take the lead, and he pulled away to win by five lengths. The winning time of 1:08.09 was just 0.2 seconds shy of the two-year-old course record.
Just a month later, he smashed the course record set by Saga Novel in 2001 by 0.6 seconds, and simultaneously surpassed the national record for two-year-olds set by Freed in 2020 by 0.3 seconds. On the same card a four-year-old horse won an allowance race in the same time, making Ecoro Sieg’s performance as a two-year-old comparable to that of older horses.
The race in which Saga Novel set the original Nakayama record was the G3 Fairy Stakes in December 2001, and she went on to win the G3 Crystal Cup in March of the following year. She was known as a fast filly, even challenging the G1 Sprinters Stakes as a three-year-old.
“He has good speed,” said Lemaire, who praised not only Ecoro Sieg’s raw talent, but the colt’s race sense. “It wasn’t an over-paced race; he was able to run at his own pace. I believe he has great ability.”
The next target is the Breeders’ Cup in the United States. The goal is to compete in the G1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint over 1000 meters on November 1.
Trainer Hideyuki Mori remarked that “his start is slow, but his acceleration is remarkable,” highlighting the colt’s explosive speed. The globetrotter Jasper Krone is another short-course specialist from the Mori stable armed with a powerful turn of foot, and Ecoro Sieg might develop into a similar type of sprinter.
Mori, known for his pioneering achievements in overseas racing—becoming the first to win a European Group 1 with a Japanese horse through Seeking the Pearl, and securing the first victory for a Japanese horse in Hong Kong with Fujiyama Kenzan—is now 65 years old, with only a few years remaining before his retirement. It is possible that this colt might bring one more great success to the twilight of his illustrious career.
Future Outlook: Early call, but Ecoro Sieg might just be the best of Japan’s two-year-old sprinting cohort.
