G1 Guide And Selections: 2025 Shuka Sho

2025 Shuka Sho

Race Information

History

A change to the JRA race programme in 1996 saw the Queen Elizabeth II Cup move out of its slot as the last leg of the fillies’ Triple Crow, the Triple Tiara, and become an open age contest: in its place, the Shuka Sho was born, a 2000m contest limited to three-year-old fillies.

The only Triple Tiara winner prior to that change was Mejiro Ramonu but since 1996 six more fillies have completed the trio of the G1 Oka Sho, G1 Yushun Himba and G1 Shuka Sho, including the great mares Almond Eye and Gentildonna. The latest to complete the Triple Tiara was the brilliant but ill-fated and much missed Liberty Island.

There is no Triple Tiara on the line this time. Instead, the race brings together the winners of the Oka Sho and the Yushun Himba, Embroidery and Kamunyak, in a battle to claim outright supremacy in the division.

Statistics

Fillies that contested the two fillies’ classics all must be taken seriously but the 2400m Yushun Himba, Japan’s Oaks, just has the edge over the 1600m Oka Sho, the 1,000 Guineas. 

Including the six Triple Tiara heroines, nine Yushun Himba winners have gone on to win the Shuka Sho compared to eight Oka Sho winners, while, 11 fillies beaten in the Yushun Himba have won the Shuka Sho compared to eight that were beaten in the Oka Sho. 

Three Oka Sho winners have won the Shuka Sho having been beaten in the Yushun Himba – T M Ocean, Phaleanopsis and Mejiro Dober – but the most recent was in 2001. However, 10 other Oka Sho winners beaten in the Oaks have attempted to win the Shuka Sho and all have failed. Either way, though, fillies coming out of both races should be respected.   

It is also worth noting the role the two main lead-up races, the G2 Rose Stakes and G2 Shion Stakes, play. The G2 Rose Stakes has produced 10 winners of the Shuka Sho, with four of those having won the lead-up and then the Shuka Sho, but the most recent to complete the double was Daiwa Scarlet in 2007. The last horse beaten in the Rose Stakes to win the Shuka Sho was the 2015 Yushun Himba heroine Mikki Queen who was second in the trial race.

The Shion Stakes has seen more recent success: the 2022 winner Stunning Rose is one of two fillies to have won the trial en route to Shuka Sho glory, the other being Deirdre in 2017. Meanwhile, Vivlos in 2016 and Shonan Pandora in 2014 placed second in the Shion before winning the Shuka Sho.

Michael Cox

Angle: Fresh and classy

History shows Oka Sho winners can rebound in the Shuka Sho, even after disappointing in the Oaks. 

It’s easy to forget how dominant Embroidery looked in the spring. Her Oka Sho win was full of class and control, and though she didn’t stay the full 2400m of the Oaks, the stats suggest that’s no death sentence heading into Kyoto’s 2000m. In fact eight Oka Sho winners have won the Shuka Sho, and three of them did so after being beaten in the Yushun Himba – the same path Embroidery is on.

History also leans toward fillies coming off a top-five finish in their previous start or returning straight from the Oaks. Across the last decade, Oaks runners have produced six Shuka Sho winners, the strongest yield of any prep, and most were highly favoured on the day – exactly where Embroidery sits in the early market.

Her layoff shouldn’t deter punters either: the race has consistently rewarded quality fresh performers rather than volume runners and every Kyoto winner since 2015 has returned sub-7.0 odds, so Embroidery fits that profile perfectly.

She’s had time to recover from hoof issues, she’s training forwardly at Ritto and she reunites with three-time Shuka Sho winner Christophe Lemaire.

Selections: #11 Embroidery, #17 Kamunyak, #13 Sena Style, #3 Jocelyn

David Morgan

Angle: Oaks form counts

There’s no whacky take here, it’s pretty straightforward: Kamunyak is the best three-year-old filly in Japan on the evidence we’ve seen so far. She is blossoming into an impressive filly and would not look out of place against the colts judged by the way she won the Rose Stakes last time, a performance that showed she had come back stronger for her summer spell.

The Rose Stakes win over 1800m flicked away any fear off the back of her Yushun Himba victory at 2400m that the daughter of Black Tide was a stayer lacking the toe she might need to win over 2000m. The way she overcame bumping at the top of the straight, lengthened her gallop and powered home over the shorter trip in the Rose suggested the Shuka Sho’s 2000m distance will not be a problem for her. As mentioned above, Yushun Himba winners have a strong record in the Shuka Sho and Kamunyak can live up to that trend. 

But there could be some value to be had around about the likely odds-on favourite, with Sena Style catching the eye just behind her in the Rose Stakes. A daughter of the top-class Oaks winner and Shuka Sho second Nuovo Record, she raced well back in the field, was shifted this way and that by Yasunari Iwata in the home run and rattled late when the gaps came her way to place third. It was a remarkable run. Against her is inexperience, with only three runs on the board, but she can only improve so expect her to be right there in the place-money again.

Selections: #17 Kamunyak, #13 Sena Style, #11 Embroidery, #3 Jocelyn 

Masanobu Takahashi

Angle: The late maturer

In June of last year, Danon Fair Lady emerged as the brightest star of her generation when she won the season’s first two-year-old Newcomer at the JRA. Her two Listed starts in the spring following a fracture were disappointing, but when she returned in the summer, she looked to have rediscovered her brilliance.

Her physique has developed considerably, with her body weight increasing by more than 40 kilograms since her debut, when she weighed just 438 kilograms. The scenario of a filly who was too weak to compete in the spring classics maturing over the summer and capturing the Shuka Sho in the autumn recalls Vivlos, the 2016 winner.

That said, since Vivlos’s victory in 2016, every Shuka Sho winner for the past eight years has finished within the top four in the Yushun Himba, making it clear that fillies with proven spring classic form tend to dominate this race. Kamunyak deserves respect as a formidable rival, but Danon Fair Lady is a filly capable of exploiting any weakness in the favourite.

Selections: #1 Danon Fair Lady, #17 Kamunyak, #3 Jocelyn, #18 Paradis Reine

Selections