Island Fashion off to Japan

Island Fashion will leap across the Pacific Ocean for a bold assault on the $1.6 million Yasuda Kinen at Tokyo Racecourse on June 6.

Trainer Marcelo Polanco and owner Jeff Nielsen of Everest Stables made the decision to ship Island Fashion, a 4-year-old daughter of Petionville, to Japan for the Grade 1 mile against colts at the urging of her rider, Kent Desormeaux.

"Kent has ridden a number of times in Tokyo and thinks that Island Fashion would do well in the Yasuda Kinen," Polanco said. "She'll leave Los Angeles on Wednesday night, May 26, and arrive in Tokyo on the morning of May 28."

Second in the Santa Anita Handicap and a three-time Grade 1 winner on dirt, Island Fashion will be making her second turf start in Tokyo, her first having come when she was a close fourth to Heat Haze in the Matriarch Stakes at the Yasuda Kinen distance of a mile.

Desormeaux will ride Island Fashion in the Yasuda Kinen, which will draw a full field of 18, among them Sunday's Keio Hai Spring Cup winner, Win Radius, as well as a second foreign invader, Self Flit from Hong Kong.