Venue: Tokyo
Distance: 1600m
Value: ¥390,600,000
The Yasuda Kinen is Japan’s premier mile race for the spring season and is one of only two open age and gender Group 1 mile races the Japan Racing Association (JRA) holds during the year, the other being the Mile Championship at Kyoto in November.
A whole array of champions have been successful in the race since it was inaugurated in 1951, most notably Oguri Cap, Taiki Shuttle, Lord Kanaloa, Maurice and Gran Alegria, as well as the Hong Kong raiders Fairy King Prawn, Bullish Luck and Romantic Warrior.
Godolphin’s Heart Lake won the race back in 1995 to become the first non-Japanese-trained winner, but European raiders are rare. This year’s race is an all-domestic affair.
Zoom’s Unfulfilled Potential
The blue sawtooth silks of Junko Kondo have been carried to Yasuda Kinen victory once before when the late Riichi Kondo’s Admire Cozzene triumphed in 2002. Now Admire Zoom has his chance to prove he’s a real deal star miler following his bounce-back win in the G2 Yomiuri Milers Cup last month.
Admire Zoom had the world at his feet when he won Japan’s top juvenile race, the G1 Asahii Hai Futurity in December 2024. Connections opted to go the mile route at three, starting with second place in the G2 New Zealand trophy and on to the G1 NHK Mile Cup for which he was favourite. He trailed home in 14th. He returned last autumn in the G2 Swan Stakes but was only sixth and was not seen again until his Yomiuri Milers Cup win.
Now we’ll find out if he really is the star miler in the making he’s long been considered. If he is, he will give the legendary Yutaka Take his fourth win in the Yasuda Kinen. Take’s previous wins were all notable: the great Oguri Cap in 1990, the foreign raider Heart Lake in 1995, and the crack mare Vodka’s second win in 2009.
Be Wary Of The Milers’ Cup
If Admire Zoom is to win, he will have to buck a trend that counts against Yomiuri Milers Cup winners. The race is considered a key lead-up to the Yasuda Kinen but in reality, it has become something of a hex for the horses that win the trial.
You have to go back 32 years to North Flight in 1994 to find the last time a Yomiuri Milers Cup winner went on to win the Yasuda Kinen that same spring. And in the entire history of the Milers Cup, the double has only been done twice, the first being Nihon Pillow Winner in 1985.
Gaia Force Goes Again
You don’t have to be a champion to be popular among racing fans and Gaia Force is evidence of this truism. His grey coat is a win, but add to that his consistency, versatility, longevity and his ‘nearly horse’ status and it’s obvious why plenty of folks will be cheering for him to gain his first top level win on Sunday at the age of seven.
Haruki Sugiyama’s charge has been around the block since winning the G2 St Lite Kinen at three: he’s been stretched out in distance and even tried his hand on the dirt, including when second in the G1 February Stakes in 2024. And he has had three consecutive shots at the Yasuda Kinen: fourth, fourth and then second last year.
That second behind Jantar Mantar represented an uplift at age six as he went on to win the G2 Fuji Stakes from that same rival and was then second again to the champion miler in the G1 Mile Championship. With Jantar Mantar absent, Gaia Force might yet get that major win his fans crave.
Mile Better For Panja Tower?
Panja Tower looked like a star on the rise when he won the G1 NHK Mile Cup last year and then backed it up next start in the G2 Keeneland Cup over 1200m. But the colt is now on a retrieval mission after three straight defeats.
To be fair, he was handed a couple of tough assignments. After the Keeneland Cup he was shipped to Sydney for the Golden Eagle over 1500m, where he ran a sound race to be fifth of 16 behind the champion filly Autumn Glow. Next up, he found himself in Saudi Arabia, was too keen early in the 1400m contest, but ran a fair race for fifth again against top-class international rivals.
With those experiences behind him, Panja Tower was pitched into the G1 Takamatsunomiya Kinen over 1200m in March with his trainer Shinsuke Hashiguchi telling the media he believed his horse was a more natural sprinter. Panja Tower was fourth behind Satono Reve. So back to a mile it is and he will attempt to emulate Jantar Mantar, who ended a long losing run for NHK Mile Cup winners in the Yasuda Kinen with last year’s success.
Stellenbosch Revival?
Stellenbosch’s first eight races marked her as one who might carry on Japan’s fantastic legacy of classic calibre fillies emerging as top mares on the world stage, the next Loves Only You or Lys Gracieux, perhaps. She won the G1 Oka Sho, the first fillies’ classic, in 2024 and was then second in the Oaks, the G1 Yushun Himba, and she rounded out her three-year-old season with a sound third in the G1 Hong Kong Vase over 2400m.
But her four-year-old campaign was a write-off. Her five races saw her finish 13th, 8th, 15th, and 10th, and then a pretty woeful seventh in the G3 Nakayama Himba. She looked a shadow of her younger self, not even close to those exalted mares who carried Japan’s hopes to famous wins internationally.
Yet she heads into the G1 Yasuda Kinen with a glimmer of hope after a much-improved effort first up this term, when second, beaten a nose in the G3 Epsom Cup over 1800m. The horse that beat her, Trovatore, is a five-year-old with a solid profile of eight wins from 16 starts, albeit his only previous top level attempt saw him finish 17th in last year’s Yasuda Kinen. Trovatore has won his last two, though, and is likely to be single figure odds.
If Stellenbosch really is back on an upward curve, her innate ability could see her right there in the mix in a race that has gone to a mare three times this decade. ∎
