Veteran jockey Yutaka Take won the $4,088,050 Japanese Derby at Tokyo Racecourse for a record fifth time Sunday aboard Kizuna, the 9-5 favorite in the race over about 1 1/2 miles on turf.
Take, 44, rode a colt well-suited to the distance. Kizuna had started in the Grade 2 Shimbun Hai over about 1 3/8 miles on turf at Kyoto Racecourse on May 4, bypassing a start in the Japanese 2000 Guineas over about 1 1/4 miles on turf at Nakayama in April.
Maxios maintained his strong form while running Planteur into a second-place finish for the second straight year in the Group 1 Prix d’Ispahan on Sunday at Longchamp in France.
The 5-year-old Maxios, a Niarchos family homebred by Monsun, had a lost 3-year-old season in 2011 and only reached the Group 3 level last year at 4, but he has put together a three-race string of peak performances this spring, winning the Group 2 Prix d’Harcourt and finishing second in the Group 1 Prix Ganay before posting his first Group 1 win Sunday.
There are two ways of looking at Camelot’s loss in the Tattersalls Gold Cup to Al Kazeem, a 5-year-old horse making his Group 1 debut Sunday at The Curragh in Ireland.
In one telling, Camelot is on a slow incline leading up to peak form this season, and in his second start of 2013, he happened to meet a sharp, improving performer with a fitness edge.
Magician validated his dominant victory in the Dee Stakes on May 8 at Chester in England with a similarly convincing win Saturday at The Curragh in the Group 1 Irish 2000 Guineas. His trainer, Aidan O’Brien, required no such validation but got more anyway, winning the Irish 2000 Guineas for the third year in a row, the fifth in the last six, and for the ninth time overall.
Epaulette, who won the Group 1 Golden Rose Stakes last September and was second to the famous sprinter Black Caviar last month, won his first major race of 2013 in Saturday’s $630,500 Doomben 10,000 at Doomben Racecourse in Australia.
Ridden by Kerrin McEvoy for trainer Peter Snowden, Epaulette (5-1) rallied from off the pace to win the Group 1 Doomben 10,000 over 6 1/2 furlongs by two lengths over Sea Siren, a 16-1 chance. Buffering finished a nose behind Sea Siren for third in the field of 15. Your Song, the 2-1 favorite, finished sixth.
Grace Lady, a 4-year-old filly by Muhtathir, won the most prestigious race of her career with a 10-1 upset in Friday’s Group 2 Prix Corrida for fillies and mares at Saint-Cloud, France.
Ridden by Gerard Mosse, Grace Lady closed from the back of a field of 10 to win the $167,700 Prix Corrida over 1 3/8 miles on very soft turf by 3 1/2 lengths ahead of Fate, a 5-1 chance. Romantica, the 14-5 favorite, finished third, a short neck behind Fate.
Camelot’s 4-year-old debut May 6 in the Group 3 Mooresbridge Stakes didn’t establish him as an elite older horse, and even another victory on Sunday at The Curragh in the Tattersalls Gold Cup might not show where Camelot stands in the grand scheme of European middle-distance racing.
Planteur heads a field of eight older runners in the Prix d’Ispahan, one of two Group 1 races along with the Prix Saint-Alary on the Sunday card at Longchamp in Paris.
Trained by Marco Botti, Planteur has only one win in his last nine starts, but has regularly faced some of the stiffest competition in the world, and his connections were well pleased with his third-place finish behind Animal Kingdom on March 30 in the $10 million Dubai World Cup.
Trainer Aidan O’Brien has won four of the last five editions of the Irish 2000 Guineas, and with four of the 10 horses among the final entries for the Group 1 race Saturday at The Curragh, one would think O’Brien stands a decent chance of adding to the streak. But O’Brien’s quartet of Magician, George Vancouver, Gale Force Ten, and Flying the Flag lacks anything approaching a standout performer, and Van Der Neer, raiding from England for trainer Richard Hannon, might stand a better chance than any of the O’Briens.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum has signed a decree making the use of anabolic steroids in racehorses a criminal offense in Dubai, the home of Meydan Racecourse and the Dubai World Cup.
Maktoum issued a statement on Thursday saying the decree will go into effect immediately. The decree prohibits “the import, sale, purchase, or use of anabolic steroids in horse sports” in Dubai. The drugs are currently banned for use in racing, but running afoul of the regulations is not a criminal offense.