Japan’s autumn Group 1 season continues this Sunday when the fillies and mares take centre stage in the Queen Elizabeth II Cup, bringing together the last three winners of Japan’s Oaks, the G1 Yushun Himba, but don’t expect many Hong Kong clues.
The Queen Elizabeth II Cup has at times been a good guide for Hong Kong’s big shindig in December, the notables being the great British mare Snow Fairy famously winning the race en route to Hong Kong Cup glory in 2010, Win Marilyn taking the 2022 Hong Kong Vase after her second at Hanshin four weeks earlier, and Normcore in 2020 bouncing to Cup glory at Sha Tin after running 16th in the Queen Elizabeth.
But Japan’s only entries for the Hong Kong International Races (HKIR) this year with an engagement in Sunday’s 2200m feature are Lavanda and Kelly Fled Ask.
We’re much more likely to get Hong Kong pointers out of Friday’s first Group 1 running of the Bahrain International Trophy this year than we are the Queen Elizabeth II Cup.
Instead, Japan’s star fillies with HKIR options, the past two Guineas winners Star Anise and Embroidery, are taking a different route than the Kyoto test. Embroidery was 11th in last year’s Hong Kong Mile, but connections saw that journey as a learning experience for the future and she is unbeaten in two races since, including the G1 Victoria Mile in May. Star Anise dropped to 1200m for fourth in the G1 Sprinters Stakes last time as she looks at races up to a mile after failing to stay in the Oaks.
But the HKIR is not the centre of everyone’s end-of-year plans, the Queen Elizabeth II Cup is an important race in its own right, not a prep for Sha Tin, and Juryoku Pierrot has a chance to show that she wasn’t just a spring classic one-hit wonder.
The Idol Horse Global Blackbooker enabled Seina Imamura to make history as the first Japanese woman to ride a Group 1 winner back in May, and is also Japan’s ‘rags to riches’ story of the year. She started off racing on dirt and went via lowly Mombetsu before switching to the turf and nailing a hat-trick of wins that climaxed with the Oaks. She hasn’t been seen since her classic win due to sickness ruling her out of the G1 Shuka Sho last month, and if the projected betting market is any indication, there seems to be a sense of doubt that she has what it takes to defeat last year’s Oaks heroine, Kamunyak.
But trainer Ryo Terashima doesn’t seem worried: “Her tension level is still quite high, but in a good way, she’s on her game. I think the conditions this time will work well for (Juryoku Pierrot),” he said about the daughter of the brilliant but quirky Orfevre, while also noting she has been calm around the stables and that the outer track at Kyoto should suit her long stride.
Meanwhile, Kamunyak has proven her merits this year with two second-place efforts in the spring over a mile, a distance short of her optimum, and a first-up autumn win in the G2 Ireland Trophy over 1800 metres. But only two previous Oaks heroines have won this race as a four-year-old.
Kamunyak’s gate manners have not been the best in the past, but she has the in-form Yuga Kawada in the saddle for the ninth time.
“She has matured a lot mentally,” said trainer Yasuo Tomomichi.
The third of the Oaks winners in the field, Cervinia, the 2024 Yushun Himba star, has been below her best level since she was fourth in that year’s G1 Japan Cup, but this year’s Yushun Himba third Laughterlines is a younger rival about which there are high expectations.
There are no mares in action in Bahrain where the big race will pitch a group of seasoned geldings and emerging colts against each other as a stepping-stone, perhaps, to the Hong Kong International Races at Sha Tin in December.
There’s a lot of European-trained interest, with George Scott’s tough and talented four-year-old Wimbledon Hawkeye engaged in the Hong Kong Cup and the Hong Kong Vase.
Scott told Idol Horse at Keeneland pre-Breeders’ Cup that the intention was to take Wimbledon Hawkeye to Hong Kong if invited, but only if the horse performs in Bahrain and comes out of the race in good order.
Hugo Palmer’s exciting three-year-old Glacius also has an entry in the Hong Kong Cup, as does Zaydann from the Francis-Henri Graffard stable, and then there’s the Aidan O’Brien-trained Lambourn, although that colt has failed to live up to his status as a dual-Derby winner. Joseph O’Brien’s Galen is in the Vase, and so is the Dubai challenger in Bahrain, Sallaal.
And with that the big autumn races will roll into the Group 2 Jockey Club races at Sha Tin the following Sunday where Ka Ying Rising will be the standout draw; Hong Kong’s milers will posse for pole position in their division; and the weakest Jockey Club Cup in recent memory will need something special to happen if Hong Kong is to have any hope of a say in the Hong Kong Cup or Hong Kong Vase a month from now.
This Week In Horse Racing History
The first Breeders’ Cup was held at Hollywood Park on November 10, 1984. Europe’s only win at what was then a superior, select seven-race event was Lashkari, a 53-1 longshot in the Breeders’ Cup Turf, trained by Alain de Royer-Dupre. Wild Again won the Classic in a mighty three-way battle with Gate Dancer and Slew O’ Gold. And Englishman John Gosden won the Mile with Royal Heroine, albeit out of his California base at the time.
The great Eddie Arcaro, Hall of Fame jockey, passed away on November 14, 1997 at age 81. Arcaro was born in Cincinnati and won the U.S. Triple Crown on Whirlaway in 1941 and Citation in 1948: he won the Kentucky Derby five times, the Preakness six times and the Belmont six times; he was U.S. champion jockey by earnings six times and retired in 1962 with 4,779 wins and more than US$30 million in earnings.
Global Blackbook
Hullabaloo Ray Ray couldn’t do any more than win as he did as the 1 to 9 favourite against three rivals in an allowance optional claimer over a mile at Belmont Park last Sunday. He had them cooked turning for home as he rolled past the hard-at-work leader, with the other two out with the washing.
The Tom Proctor-trained juvenile lengthened away down the home stretch to win by an easy nine and a half lengths under Jose Lezcano: his second win on the bounce at his third career start.
Hullabaloo Ray Ray started out with second place at Saratoga in September, and followed with a four and a quarter-length maiden win second-up. His latest success tees him up for a likely tilt at the G2 Remsen Stakes back at Belmont on December 5, and while that will be a lot tougher than his soft assignment last weekend, he’s showing some of the hallmarks of high-class potential.
The youngster’s lightly-raced dam, Applauding, won her first three starts before her career ended at start four with defeat in a Grade 3 contest. She has produced the Listed stakes winner Laughing Boy and is from the family of G1 Santa Anita Derby second and Breeders’ Cup Sprint third Crafty C T. His sire is the speedy multiple Grade 1 winner Jackie’s Warrior.
All eyes on the favorite, 𝗛𝗨𝗟𝗟𝗔𝗕𝗔𝗟𝗢𝗢 𝗥𝗔𝗬 𝗥𝗔𝗬! 🌟 The 2y/o colt wins the opener at Belmont Park with jockey Jose Lezcano aboard for trainer @TProctorRacing. https://t.co/BhVv8ncIQX
— TwinSpires Racing 🏇 (@TwinSpires) November 8, 2026
What’s Coming Up
C. F. Orr Stakes Day
Sandown, Australia, November 14
Eight horses are set to line up for the 1400m Group 1 feature on Saturday, with James McDonald booked to partner Godolphin’s Beiwacht for trainer Chris Waller, off the back of the Group 1 winner’s third in the recent Golden Eagle. Waller also has this season’s G1 Sir Rupert Clarke Stakes winner Angel Capital. Trainer of the moment Ciaron Maher has last year’s winner Jimmysstar who will break from gate 1, while Pericles, who defeated Jimmysstar in the G2 Russell Balding Stakes last time, is outside all in gate eight. War Machine, Desert Lightning, Splashback and Shadhavar complete the field. ∎
