The rise and Australian rise of the Japanese thoroughbred

Cover image courtesy of Eclipse Sportswire

Last weekend on the American west coast, where the ‘turf meets the surf’ at Del Mar racecourse, the Breeders’ Cup meeting gave Japan a sizeable excuse to cheer. For the first time in the meeting’s 38-year history, Japanese horses were among its winners.

The magnitude of the achievement hung on decades of history. But it also hung on a grassroots passion among the Japanese people for racing horses, plus a national commitment to elite breeding.

When Loves Only You (Jpn) (Deep Impact {Jpn}) won the G1 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf last weekend, and Marche Lorraine (Jpn) (Orfevre {Jpn}) the G1 Breeders’ Cup Distaff, it was the product of decades of breed improvement by the Japanese thoroughbred industry and, as such, its world-stage ambition.

In Tokyo, Naohiro Goda was on a live broadcast of the meeting. Goda is a highly respected journalist and television commentator, a preeminent voice when it comes to racing in Japan.

He was there when Delta Blues (Jpn) and Pop Rock (Jpn) ran one-two in the 2006 Melbourne Cup, and he was there when Orfevre (Jpn) ran an agonising second in the 2013 G1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. He’s been there or thereabouts for almost every significant Japanese turf victory around the world.

“The post-time for the Filly and Mare Turf was 5.40am in the morning here in Japan,” Goda said, speaking to TDN AusNZ this week. “It was very early, but still I understand that more than three million Japanese watched the live coverage.

"The Japanese pool on those Breeders’ Cup races were very big amounts, and on Monday morning, many of the newspapers, including the nationwide quality newspapers, reported on the two wins on their front pages.”

The Japanese sent a total of seven horses to Del Mar for six races across the Breeders’ Cup meeting. It wasn’t the first time the nation had sent horses, but it was the largest delegation it had ever sent.

Loves Only You and Marche Lorraine joined a long scroll of globe-trotting Japanese horses that have now won on the world stage, a list that includes Almond Eye (Jpn) (Lord Kanaloa {Jpn}), Gentildonna (Jpn) (Deep Impact {Jpn}), Maurice (Jpn), Lys Gracieux (Jpn) (Heart’s Cry {Jpn}) and Deirdre (Jpn) (Harbinger {GB}), among others.

Arrowfield’s foresight

Arrowfield Stud’s John Messara was among the first to recognise the upswing in Japanese breeding.

His alliance with Japan is decades old now, and it’s well-documented, but this does prove just how correct he was in recognising that the Japanese thoroughbred would be important to Australia.

Messara began the association by sending a number of mares to Japan to breed with Sunday Silence (USA) on Southern Hemisphere time, and that pattern later evolved into co-standing stallions, among them Mikki Isle (Jpn), the latest star Maurice, and the new addition this season in Admire Mars (Jpn).

Speaking in the 2017 documentary Global Impact: The Rise of the Japanese Thoroughbred, Messara said he recognised the brilliance of Sunday Silence very early on.

“His strike-rate of elite horses to number of runners was very high by world standards,” Messara said. “Of course, you’ve got to understand that in Japan, the number of stakes races in relation to the number of races run is very low, and so to get the sorts of figures he was getting indicated to me that he was going to be a very dominant stallion.”

Arrowfield’s alliance with Japan was incredibly far-sighted, and a number of weeks ago it resulted in the G1 VRC Derby winner Hitotsu, who emerged from the first crop of Arrowfield shuttler Maurice.

In 2017, Messara said the Japanese thoroughbred would have an important place in the evolution of the Australian thoroughbred in years to come, and it seems he wasn’t wrong.

“The impact of Japanese breeding on the Australian industry has only deepened over the last four years,” he told TDN AusNZ this week. “This spring, it feels as if what we began with the Sunday Silence project has well and truly blossomed. We’ve seen Deep Impact’s son Profondo win the Spring Champion S., Maurice’s son Hitotsu win the Derby, and Real Impact’s son Count De Rupee become a million-dollar earner.”

What is interesting is that all three of these winners were bred from Redoute’s Choice mares.

“That’s most exciting to me,” Messara said. “It confirms our research and intuition that Japanese genetics could provide a really dynamic outcross for the Danehill line.”

It should work on two continents

Messara’s investment into Japanese breeding, along with the staggering success of Japan’s horses internationally, has seen a slow creep of Japanese bloodlines through Australian breeding.

This year, the first son of Lord Kanaloa (Jpn) to stand in Australia entered stud duties, with G1 Blue Diamond winner Tagaloa standing at Yulong for a debut fee of $33,000 (inc GST). Tagaloa was bred by Arrowfield and Jungle Pocket in partnership from the Japanese mare Vasilissa (Jpn) (Heart’s Cry {Jpn}).

Gallery: Japanese sire sons standing for Australia in 2021

Deep Impact, meanwhile, who passed away in July 2019, has three sons standing in Australia. Fierce Impact (Jpn) is at Leneva Park, Tosen Stardom (Jpn) is at Woodside Park Stud, and Saxon Warrior (Jpn) is shuttling in and out of Coolmore.

“We’ve been very glad to see our stallions, like Lord Kanaloa and Maurice, getting Group 1 winners in Australia,” said Naohiro Goda. “I think racing in Australia and racing in Japan is quite similar. They’re conducted on flat tracks where there aren’t many undulations, unlike in Europe, so that means the same pedigrees should work on two continents.”

Goda said Maurice was doing well in both nations, while Lord Kanaloa was expected to be a legacy sire in Japan in the wake of Deep Impact.

“I’m not surprised to see these stallions do well in Australia,” he said.

Interestingly, Goda said there were certain characteristics about the Japanese breed that were resonating around the world.

Turn of foot was one of them, that closing kick that worked so well for Loves Only You in Del Mar last weekend. Goda cited Sunday Silence as being responsible for much of that, but he added that the tighter-turning tracks of Japan, America and Australia gave Japan’s horses an edge. When running on similar, they do well, and Goda said this was why Del Mar suited the contingent this year.

“Since Sunday Silence was introduced in the late 1980s, his progeny had that acceleration, including Deep Impact,” he said. “And now, progeny of Deep Impact have a very, very good turn of foot, so the background of the Japanese pedigree suggests that yes, many of them will have that great acceleration.”

Colonial influence

Naohiro Goda is unashamedly proud of everything that Japan’s breeding industry has managed to achieve in a handful of decades. He speaks deliberately about it but with an almost fatherly affection, and he can recite Japan’s achievements and near-achievements without any prompt or paperwork.

He remembers the filly Cesario (Jpn) (Special Week {Jpn}), who in 2005 became Japan’s first winner of a Grade 1 race in the United States. Cesario won the G1 American Oaks at Hollywood Park before a dazzling broodmare career at Northern Farm. She produced three Group 1 winners, including Japan Cup winner Epiphaneia (Jpn) and Satsuko Sho (2000 Guineas) winner Saturnalia (Jpn).

Goda also remembers Seeking The Pearl (USA) (Seeking The Gold {USA}), who was the first Japanese-based horse to win a European race. The filly won six stakes races in Japan before sensationally winning the G1 Prix Maurice de Gheest in 1998.

Equally, Goda knows there is an Australian connection to the Distaff winner Marche Lorraine, who hails from a very old family in Japan. This family is locally entrenched until the mare’s ninth dam, the Australian-bred Shrilly (Treclare {Ire}), who was exported from Sydney to Japan in 1930.

In those days, the trade of horses to Japan was a twice-yearly order, generally with the Pastoral and General Trading Co., which sourced about 40 Australian mares at a time, all of 'good breeding, thoroughly sound, not over six years of age and not under 15.1 hands in height’.

Shrilly had raced for Sydney trainer Bailey Payten, and she hadn’t been anything special as a racehorse, but she was lightly raced and, on pedigree, she was notable.

Her fourth dam (Marche Lorraine’s 13th dam) was the Goldsborough mare Crossfire, who won the 1886 AJC Oaks and Doncaster H. Crossfire herself got four stakes-winners in her later years at stud, among them the VRC Derby winner Alawa (Maltster).