Bad Day At The Office

Sophisticate had a mediocre run after a good start, and finished a disappointing 13th - the promise shown in his first outing failed to shine through when the final spurt for the line was asked for. As for 'Misto', there was a good deal of shenanigans at the gate, his tension rocketed, and that quickly put an end to any hopes of a decent result. An eighth is hardly worth writing home about! Indeed, it has to be said that there has been a distinct run of poor results on the Carrot Club horses recently, which makes me very dubious about sinking a lot of money into them next year...

PS. Dinner Bell was dreadful on Sunday (how can a horse not have enough stamina for a 1200m race?), so I really am starting to rethink next year's programme. Not winning is fair enough, as long as you can be competitive - to simply make up numbers is no fun whatsoever!

GP Update

Just heard from Ilka in Newmarket, which is always a pleasure. Looks like Godiva's Pride is slowly but surely transforming into a racehorse, with gate training and speed work on the agenda now that his muscle tone is reaching the required levels. It will be wonderful to see this handsome little fella in action, presumably early next year. I'll keep you informed of progress whenever something comes through...

Excitement Building

Three JRA runners confirmed for the weekend, with Mistoffelees and Sophisicate out tomorrow, and Dinner Bell competing on Sunday. Mephisto Waltz should be running in a 1800m dirt race at Hanshin on either the 30th or the 1st December, while Miracle Rouge will challenge a 2000m turf race at the Chukyo track in Nagoya.

In the meantime, it has been announced that Phosphorus will be taking his NAR race test on Christmas Eve. Yano-sensei was hoping he'd be ready for next week's one, but he's not, so the December test it is. I think I'll pop along for that if I can...

One final bit of news before I get some desperately needed beauty sleep. I've befriended a few racing folks in Australia over the last year, and I've decided to take the plunge on a horse Down Under. With luck, it looks like Raining Dollars from the JLH Racing equipe will be added to the bottom of the page soon.

Ganbatte, Kochi!

I've been meaning to put this up for a couple of days now, but time keeps flying away, and before you know where you are, another 24 hours have slipped by unnoticed. Anyway, Postman Pat kindly brought me a nice selection of goodies to commemorate the 'Ganbatte, Kochi!' race that I'd sponsored earlier in the month, including a selection of racing papers and a signed picture of Nakanishi-san at the winning post. I sincerely look
forward to doing something similar next year...

Haunted Mansions

For some reason, my lunchtime chat today got around to spooky feelings, and the strangest I've ever had was about 16 years ago when I first visited Yokohama. I got to a certain spot close to China Town, and had an extremely strong sense that I had been there before - this felt like home. I'd never had it before and never had it since, and rarely believe anything that science can't prove. But wouldn't it be amazing if such a thing as previous lives really do exist, and I was one of the people that brought horse racing to Japan? Enough weirdness for one day - back to the real world in the next entry, that's a promise!

Damage Report

They say bad news always comes in threes. Well, Divine Daughter is showing signs of very tired legs after her last race, so may be released from training for a while, Joyful Step has picked up a chipped bone, so will be released while the vets decide on whether to remove the suspect piece or not, and Pop Label has also damaged a front leg bone. He will be out of action for three months, meaning a three month delay on his trip to Funabashi...

Less Than Divine

Courtesy Sunday TC

It's taken me until now to read the race report on Divine Daughter - I simply couldn't face it before! Well, in a nutshell, it seems like she had a bad start, and never recovered. Both the trainer and jockey knew she needed to get out of the gates ahead of the pack to be in with a shout, so nothing was expected of her as soon as she tucked behind the bunch going into the first corner. It means more gate training will be needed, and then a bit of luck. She does look nice, though, as you can see in this picture...

Kawasaki Debut

Well, nothing amazing to report regarding Agua De Vida's debut at her new home - she started as third favourite, but finished fifth. But this wasn't a good race for any of the favourites, it has to be said, and Agua-chan still has to settle into her new home. In addition, Seiji-san has to get used to her, as she's a temperamental little beast that likes to have her own way on the race pace - this is something we found out when she was running in Hokkaido during the early part of her career...

In other news, Joyful Step has successfully passed her gate test, and Phosphorus (the magnificent creature pictured here, courtesy of the Shadai TC) is settling in nicely at Funabashi. Kota Motohashi, my daughter's favourite jockey, has been training with him, and Yano-sensei is aiming to put him through his test later this month. Whether he'll be ready for that monumental step remains to be seen. There's certainly no hurry at this end.

PS. In an additional report on Agua-chan, filed a little later, it states that she seems fit and full of life after the race, so should be out again in the next Kawasaki meeting in the middle of December. She showed great speed in the final straight, so the trainer has high expectations of her next time around.

Mission Accomplished

Although Divine Daughter ran awful in her race today, 'Jaguar' made a fine show-jumping debut winning a gold medal and the blue ribbon that comes with it, and Tenn-chan (Tempai) was magnificent in the gymkhana - first with Kumagai-san, and then myself. Having been out of any sort of competition for the best part of a year following his near-death experience (he had a severe case of colic that very nearly claimed his life), he was in high-tension mode being back in the arena. More than trying to ease him back into competition, today was more about creating a nice memory - that was certainly achieved, with the two blue ribbons he picked up being a real bonus. A more noble animal would be hard to find - a handsome Stakes winner (he won seven JRA races in his day), and a beautiful mover that reacts to the slightest input. Yes, my back hurts like hell. But I really don't care...

Leaping Horse

You will probably be well aware by now if you've been following the blog for any length of time that Mayano Time's nickname is Jaguar. When one thinks of the Jaguar brand, an image of a leaping cat will doubtless immediately spring to mind, but today, with Jaguar making his show-jumping debut, an image of a leaping horse was engraved in the grey matter - he jumped like his life depended on it, and you could almost sense his joy at being able to compete in this new discipline.

As usual, Jaguar gave an all or nothing performance, with today being an 'all' occasion. He cleared the fences at a ridiculous level, and I swear he'd have done the next three categories on the same day if Louis had have stayed in the saddle - he was ready to go, with fire in his eyes. I think we've found something that he really enjoys, and the gold medal was a real bonus as a result. It's hard to believe that this difficult horse has now won JRA races, dressage competitions, gymkhanas, and now a show-jumping event, too! It will be fascinating to see how far Jaguar can go with this latest of challenge...