2025 NHK Mile Cup: Group 1 Preview
Venue: Tokyo Racecourse
Distance: 1600m
Value: ¥283,100,000 (US$1,973,159)
The G1 NHK Mile Cup (1600m) is Japan’s premier test for three-year-olds at a mile. Given their 2000 Guineas, the G1 Satsuki Sho, is run over 2000m, this is a test for those speedier types who are unlikely to get over ground – although some have stretched out to 2400m for the G1 Tokyo Yushun (2400m) three weeks later.
Being run for the 30th time in 2025, past winners have included Japanese Derby winners King Kamehameha and Deep Sky and international Group 1 winners El Condor Pasa and Admire Mars. Last year, top colt Jantar Mantar beat champion filly Ascoli Piceno to win the feature.
The horse to beat: Admire Zoom
Admire Zoom stamped himself as the top miler of his generation as a juvenile, defeating eventual Satsuki Sho winner Museum Mile by a widening two and a half lengths. He was beaten by Immigrant Song after a wide run in a traditional lead-up to this race, the G2 New Zealand Trophy (1600m), but is still set to start as favourite here for his spring target.
Trainer Yasuo Tomomichi, who won the NHK Mile Cup with Clarity Sky (2015) and Admire Mars (2019), hopes to follow a similar path with Admire Zoom by taking him to the Hong Kong Mile at the end of the year. Jockey Yuga Kawada, who has won two of the last three NHK Mile Cups on Danon Scorpion (2022) and Jantar Mantar (2024), takes the ride on the son of Maurice.
The fairytale: Immigrant Song
Trainer Tetsuhide Tsuji will saddle up his first ever JRA Group 1 runner on the flat when Immigrant Song runs on Sunday. The 45-year-old is set for a big few weeks as another of his three-year-olds, Fandom, is a leading Tokyo Yushun contender. However, it is Immigrant Song who is his leading chance to get a first G1 winner after his fighting defeat of Admire Zoom last month.
Christophe Lemaire, a two-time NHK Mile Cup winner, will take his first ride aboard Immigrant Song.
The young gun: Lance Of Chaos
Emerging jockey Seinosuke Yoshimura will attempt to break Yutaka Take’s 37-year record by becoming the youngest rider to ever win a JRA Group 1 race aboard Lance Of Chaos on Sunday. Take was aged 19 years and 236 days when he won the 1988 Kikuka Sho on Super Creek; Yoshimura will be aged 19 years and 127 days on Sunday. It will be his second Group 1 ride after he partnered Lance Of Chaos to finish third to Admire Zoom in December’s Asahi Hai Futurity.
Yutaka Okumura-trained Lance Of Chaos won one of the premier lead-ups, the G3 Churchill Downs Cup (1600m) at Hanshin last month defeating one of his major rivals here, Arte Veloce.
The Classic contender: Magic Sands
Horses coming out of the Satsuki Sho have a great record dropping in trip for this race, even if it is a fairly quick turnaround. Magic Sands is the only runner out of the Satsuki Sho this year, finishing sixth to Museum Mile at Nakayama three weeks ago.
He has never raced below 1800m but his sister Kona Coast was runner-up (by only three-quarters of a length) to Liberty Island in the G1 Oka Sho (1600m) two years ago and perhaps a mile might be more to his liking.
Legendary jockey Yutaka Take will take the ride for top trainer Naosuke Sugai. They have a total of 143 G1 wins between them (including domestic Grade 1 wins and victories overseas) but they have never combined for a Group 1 success.
The huge opportunity: Cerbiatto
If Normcore had not won the G1 Victoria Mile (1600m) in 2019, Damian Lane may never have received the support in Japan that has now become such a major part of his story.
While Lane partners Satono Carnaval here for Noriyuki Hori, it is his Melbourne rival Michael Dee who gets the opportunity to follow in his footsteps with his first ride in a Japanese Group 1.
Dee rides Cerbiatto, who is likely to go off at a big price after she finished sixth to Embroidery in the G1 Oka Sho (1600m). She has only won one of her six starts, a Kokura maiden, but if Dee can get the Lord Kanaloa filly to outperform her odds, it may open up further opportunities for him in the weeks, months and years ahead. ∎
