Cheval Grand scores upset in Japan Cup

Cheval Grand, a 12-1 outsider, won his first Grade 1 in his 22nd start in Sunday’s $5,828 million Japan Cup at Tokyo Racecourse, improving on a third-place performance in 2016 for a career-defining win.

Cheval Grand, ridden by Australia-based Hugh Bowman, finished 1 1/4 lengths in front of Rey de Oro, the winner of the Japanese Derby earlier this year. Kitasan Black, the even-money favorite and 2016 Japanese Horse of the Year, could only finish third in the field of 17 after setting the pace. Kitasan Black won the 2016 Japan Cup.

Cheval Grand gave Bowman his first win in the Japan Cup. Bowman, 37, is well known as the regular rider of the Australian mare Winx, who has won 22 consecutive races.

Bowman had Cheval Grand in fifth early in the race at 1 1/2 miles on turf, stalking the horse the rider said he feared most.

“Everything went as I hoped it would,” Bowman told Japan Racing Association publicity. “I felt that the pace might have been quicker, but it didn’t concern me too much that it was a steady pace because I was able to sustain close to Kitasan Black.”

Bowman said the pace intensified with about three furlongs remaining. It was not until the final furlong that Bowman said he thought Cheval Grand could beat Kitasan Black.

“I knew that my horse still had power to give, and as we got to the 200-meter mark, it was very clear to me that we were certainly going to beat Kitasan Black,” he said. “Whether something was going to come from behind and beat me, I didn't know at that stage, but we had a lot of confidence in this horse’s stamina.”

A 5-year-old by Heart’s Cry, Cheval Grand races for Kazuhiro Sasaki and trainer Yasuo Tomomichi and has won 7 of 22 starts. A Grade 2 winner in 2016, Cheval Grand was second in the Grade 1 spring running of the Tenno Sho this year.

Tomomichi said Cheval Grand will be pointed for the Grade 1 Arima Kinen at Nakayama Racecourse on Dec. 24, the last major race of the year in Japan.

There were four foreign runners in the field. Idaho had the best result, finishing fifth. Trained by Aidan O’Brien, Idaho was eighth in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe at Chantilly, France, on Oct. 1 and fourth in the Canadian International at Woodbine on Oct. 15.

The German-based Guignol finished ninth, while Australia’s Boom Time finished in a dead heat for 12th. Iquitos, another German-based runner, finished 15th.

There has not been a foreign-based winner of the Japan Cup since Alkaseed for trainer Luca Cumani of England in 2005.