Japan: Five-year-old son of Triple Crown hero American Pharoah completed back-to-back successes in G1 February Stakes – while Godolphin's Combustion won the latest leg of Japan Road to the Kentucky Derby.
Tokyo: February Stakes G1 ¥259m ($2.25m/£1.66m) 1m, dirt, 4yo+
Cafe Pharoah (Noriyuki Hori/Yuichi Fukunaga)
After last year’s historic Breeders’ Cup double at Del Mar, Japanese thoughts may well have been turning towards the 2022 edition after dirt star Cafe Pharoah became the first horse to earn a guaranteed spot in the Classic at Keeneland in November.
The five-year-old was completing back-to-back successes in the G1 contest at Tokyo racecourse – the first Japanese race to feature in this year’s Breeders’ Cup Challenge offering a fees-paid berth in the $6m Classic.
If Cafe Pharoah were to take up that option, he would be bidding to emulate his illustrious sire American Pharoah, who completed a ‘grand slam’ with victory in America’s most prestigious race at Keeneland after his Triple Crown sweep in 2015.
A major race in its own right, the February Stakes is also renowned as the main Japanese stepping stone towards the Dubai World Cup.
Out of sorts in recent races, Cafe Pharoah loves the mile at Tokyo, and he duly took his record to four out of four over course and distance with a solid performance to match the stakes record in 1m33.8s under Yuichi Fukunaga.
A muddy track proved no hindrance as he challenged three wide into the stretch before powering to a 2½-length victory over front-running T M South Dan with Sodashi, the hugely popular all-white ‘unicorn’ horse, posting a sound effort in third.
“Mr. Hori and I went over the tactics before the race and everything went as planned,” reported Fukunaga, only recently recovered from the back injury sustained in the Hong Kong Sprint pile-up.
“Cafe Pharoah’s start wasn’t that sharp but he recovered well and we were able to sit in a good position in third, where he didn’t have too much sand in his face, which was what I was hoping for. After that I just tried to keep him focused, especially after taking over the lead in the final stages.”
The winner was returned just over 4-1 second favourite, market leader Red Le Zele only sixth.
Combustion in front on ‘Japan Road to KY Derby’
Tokyo: Hyacinth Stakes (Listed) 1,600 metres (1m), dirt, 3yo
Combustion (Keizo Ito/Yuga Kawada)
Godolphin’s Japanese branch claimed Japan’s most important early-season contest of three-year-olds on dirt as Combustion quickened through a gap on the rail and stayed on under pressure to score by a neck from Geraldo Barows at a muddy Tokyo racecourse.
It could be significant in US terms, as the Hyacinth Stakes is the penultimate leg in the four-race Japanese ‘Road to the Kentucky Derby’ series.
However, while Combustion jumped to the top of the leaderboard with 30 points accrued for his victory, the son of Cigar Mile winner Discreet Cat – who now has thee wins and two seconds from five starts – is not yet nominated for the US Triple Crown and would have to be added at the supplementary entry stage. On the other hand, runner-up Geraldo Barows is Triple Crown-nominated.
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