Soul Stirring, racing in Japan's Oka Sho, hopes to reach 5-5 record

Soul Stirring, the first Grade or Group 1 winner sired by the great racehorse Frankel, will try to run her career record to 5-5 on Sunday at Hanshin in the Group 1, $1.92 million Oka Sho, the Japanese 1000 Guineas.

Soul Stirring won all three of her starts last year at age 2, capturing the Group 1 Hanshin Juvenile Fillies on Dec. 11 going this same 1600-meter trip at Hanshin. Soul Stirring, trained by Kazuo Fujisawa and to be ridden by French transplant Christophe Lemaire on Sunday, made her 3-year-old debut March 4 in the Group 3 Tulip Sho, another one-mile race at Hanshin, and won by two lengths.

Soul Stirring is the second foal to race produced by the mare Stacelita, who won the 2009 French Oaks under Lemaire and went on to win the Beverly D. and the Flower Bowl after being purchased by Martin Schwartz, brought to the U.S., and turned over to trainer Chad Brown.
The Oka Sho was oversubscribed and will go with a full gate of 18, but Soul Stirring still has been heavily favored in ante-post betting on the Oka Sho.

Admire Miyabi is the general second-favorite for the Oka Sho, but though she has won three straight races since finishing second in her debut, her record to date can’t match Soul Stirring’s.

Another Frankel filly, Mi Suerte, was a second-start Group 3 winner at seven furlongs last year before capping her campaign finishing fourth of 18 over one mile in the Group 1 Asahi Hai Futurity, also at Hanshin. Mi Suerte hails from an American family; her dam, Mi Sueno, won the 2009 Del Mar Debutante, and her second dam, Madcap Escapade, won the 2004 Ashland Stakes and was third in the Kentucky Oaks.
Lys Gracieux was second to Soul Stirring last year in the Hanshin Juvenile and third to her in the Tulip Sho. She’s a good filly in her own right – but not as good as Soul Stirring.

Post time for the Oka Sho is 2:20 a.m. Eastern.