Yumeno Honoo’s journey to Seoul, South Korea in April to contest the G3 YTN Cup was barely a footnote in the story of Japanese horses travelling to compete on foreign shores this year, but the Kochi Racecourse champion’s offshore raid exemplified the quietly growing confidence among horsemen from Japan’s second-tier National Association of Racing (NAR).
While the big names from the Japan Racing Association (JRA) are hitting the major world events like the Breeders’ Cup, Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, Saudi Cup and Dubai World Cup meetings with regular success, the NAR horses are very much in the shadows by comparison. But Oi-based Mandarin Hero’s close second in the G1 Santa Anita Derby Stateside in 2023 emphasised that the NAR should not be underestimated.
So it was that Yumeno Honoo’s owner Yasuyuki Suda decided it was time for trainer Mamoru Tanaka to test the credentials of Kochi’s quirky champion far from home for the first time, even though no horse from provincial Kochi in western Japan had ever ventured so far before.
The five-year-old made his debut in Kochi in July 2022 and won five of seven juvenile starts. But as a three-year-old, Yumeno Honoo was teamed with Hiroto Yoshihara, the ace jockey of the NAR, and rattled off an unbroken nine win sequence.
They took the Kuroshio Satsuki Sho, the Kochi Yushun (Kuroshio Derby), and the Kuroshio Kikka Sho, becoming the fourth horse in history to win the Kochi Triple Crown. The horse also won the Kochi Ken Chiji Sho, a grand prix race at the end of the year, for two consecutive years, and now has a very consistent record of 19 wins and 3 second-place finishes from 25 starts.
His handler, Tanaka, became a trainer in Kochi in 2002 after working as a jockey. At the end of last year, he achieved his 3,000th win in NAR, and this year, his horse Jugemuun won the Kochi Futurity and Derby, making his stable one of the most powerful in Kochi.
Tanaka told Idol Horse that Suda was the one who prompted Yumeno Honoo to take on a new challenge.
“(The owner) said, ‘I want to go to this race,’ so I said, ‘If you want it that much,’ and applied for it. But I wasn’t sure if we would get in, but the application was accepted, and they told us we were going. I wondered what would happen,” said Tanaka.
The trainer, who laughed wryly, was only “half-convinced” about the unprecedented overseas trip for a Kochi racecourse galloper. This is not surprising: since Adjudi Mitsuo of Funabashi challenged the G1 Dubai World Cup in 2005, most of the overseas trips by NAR horses have been by horses, like Mandarin Hero, from the South Kanto region. There have been no other examples from western Japan except for Igniter from Hyogo.
For Yumeno Honoo, who had never experienced a long-distance trip before, the long journey of more than 10 hours just to get to the NAR Racing Training Center in Tochigi Prefecture for quarantine was a trial. Tanaka said he had a hard time getting the entire on and off the unfamiliar horse van, which he had no chance to ride except during his rest periods.
“At first, he wouldn’t get on the horse van or go into a narrow space, so he was the only one in the wide stall at the back,” the trainer said. “He didn’t ride the horse van to Narita much either. When we put him on the plane, we had to back him in and put him in a large container. When he got off the plane, he got on the horse van normally for some reason. Maybe he gave up, thinking, ‘If they’ve done this much, they’ll definitely get me on, and it’s useless to resist.”
Tanaka also mentioned that there were unique difficulties after arriving in Korea.
“The groom (Nobuyoshi Yamagashira, who accompanied the horse) couldn’t stay in the stable,” he continued. “He had to go back and forth between the hotel. So the horse was alone without the groom. He was used to having someone around all the time. He didn’t even meet any other horses from Tochigi to Korea. That was also a first for the horse.”
Yumeno Honoo was the second favorite in the YTN Cup. He overcame the challenge of the start and settled in second place. He bravely took the lead temporarily after the fourth corner, but ultimately finished third, succumbing to the powerful late kick of Global Hit from the outside.
However, the trainer said that Yumeno Honoo came back with something bigger than the result.
“He doesn’t look tired at all. On the contrary, he came back having grown up. It’s almost as if he won,” Tanaka said.
“He’s become a little more mature because he’s been to various places. He doesn’t make unnecessary gestures anymore. Before, he was a mischievous type, and he would stand up and do various things during training, but now he settles down from the first lap of training. He doesn’t lose body weight.”
As Tanaka said, Yumeno Honoo was known as one of the most difficult horses at Kochi Racecourse. In the Kochi Yushun and Kuroshio Kikka Sho as a three-year-old, he was badly left at the post, but he won both races with a powerful late kick from behind.
“I was so worried about the Derby. I thought, ‘Did he start?’ and then they said, ‘Oh, he just started,’ and I thought, ‘Oh no, this is the worst, I’m definitely going to lose.’ That’s what I thought at the time. He was so far behind. Everyone was in front, and then they said, ‘He just started.’ But he still won and took the Triple Crown and even went overseas.”
Regarding the future prospects of his horse, who won the Mimase Tokubetsu in his first race back in Japan, Tanaka said, “I still have a lot of expectations for him.”
“The horse has finally come into his own, so with that feeling, he might be able to go to other tracks. I think the fans will be happy when Yumeno Honoo comes. It’s hot in the fall, but I hope he can race in good condition and get good results.” ∎
