Author: News

Lemon Pop Defies Doubters, History In Champions Cup

In the G1 Champions Cup, one of two elite-level races on dirt on the JRA circuit, wide barriers are almost always the kiss of death.

Drawn 15 of 15 for Sunday's 1800-metre event, Godolphin's Lemon Pop (Lemon Drop Kid) not only had that to overcome, but also lingering questions as to his ability to stay a trip this far. After all, his trainer Hiroyasu Tanaka needed some convincing by the Godolphin braintrust to try him in the G1 February S., a 1600-metre affair, which he duly won with something in the locker.

A trip to Dubai was ultimately decided upon, the G1 Golden Shaheen (1200m) versus the G2 Godolphin Mile. Lemon Pop was ultimately no factor, but even as many as eight months ago, Godolphin Japan President Harry Sweeney mentioned the Champions Cup as a potential target in a Q&A with this reporter ahead of World Cup night. That brand of outside-the-box thinking paid off handsomely Sunday afternoon at Chukyo Racecourse, as Lemon Pop became the fourth horse to win both JRA Group 1 dirt races in the same calendar year.

Favoured–albeit midly so at $3.80 (14-5)–Lemon Pop broke a bit to his right, but very alertly, and managed to show enough speed to come across the entire field and lead out from this year's G2 UAE Derby runner-up Dura Erede (Jpn) (Duramente {Jpn}) with 2021 winner T O Keynes (Jpn) (Sinister Minister) enjoying the gun run from third.

Lemon Pop had done some work to get there, having clocked :23.5 for the opening 400 metres, but he came back to Ryusei Sakai and got the opening 800m in :48.8, with Dura Erede keeping him honest. Traveling nicely within himself with his jockey sitting against him–similar to his win in the February–Lemon Pop was clear into the straight, pinched what appeared to be a winning break and was home comfortably first as Wilson Tesoro (Jpn) (Kitasan Black {Jpn}) jumped out of the ground for second at rough odds. Dura Erede settled for a creditable third. Multiple international group winner Crown Pride (Jpn) (Reach the Crown {Jpn}) was disappointing in 11th with a bit of a wide trip, while the previously unbeaten Seraphic Call (Jpn) (Henny Hughes) finished 10th.

“Christmas has come early for us in Japan! And indeed if Santa Claus doesn't turn up in three weeks' time, we won't be too upset,” Sweeney said on the Godolphin website. “Lemon Pop was awesome today–there can be no denying that. No horse drawn in the outside three stalls has even made the frame in the last decade, so Lemon Pop needed to overcome the obstacle of the widest draw of all. Also, doing it from the front is probably not the easiest way to win a Group 1, but he had little alternative because of the draw and it was another excellent ride for Ryusei Sakai. In truth, he looked all over the winner when turning in–he was still traveling very well while everyone else was hard at work.”

In the aforementioned Q&A, Sweeney spoke of the honour of bringing a Godolphin-owned Japanese-based runner to Dubai to race before His Highness Sheikh Mohammed. A similar plan was in the works in 2021, when Lemon Pop was an intended runner in the UAE Derby, having won the 2020 Cattleya Sho on the Japan Road to the Kentucky Derby. But the injury bug bit, dashing those plans. His victory Sunday opens a few more doors as the calendar turns to 2024.

“Though five years old, he is relatively lightly raced and over four seasons has only run a total of 14 times,” Sweeney said. “As he is in great form, we are hoping to keep him in training for another year and will be considering the G1 Saudi Cup before hopefully going back to Dubai in March.”

A horse that has passed every test that's been set for him, Lemon Drop would have to be considered a major player in Riyadh and/or at Meydan.

 

Pedigree Notes:

On behalf of former Darley executive Olly Tait and his wife, Blandford Bloodstock went to 165,000gns for Unreachable from the Juddmonte draft at the 2012 Tattersalls December Mares Sale. Unreachable is a daughter of Harpia, a full-sister to the highly influential Danehill as well as Eagle Eyed and Shibboleth, etc., and is a half-sister to the stakes-placed First Word (Chester House) and Redesdale (Speightstown). This is also the family of Dundonnell (First Defence), a Group 3 winner in England, a listed winner in Hong Kong and Group 3-placed in Dubai.

Unreachable was offered in foal to Good Magic at the 2020 Keeneland January Sale and was led out unsold on a bid of $55,000, but Chad Schumer acquired the mare privately for $50,000 on behalf of Jay and Christine Hayden's Saintsbury Farms. Schumer also purchased Redesdale for $18,000 at the 2016 January Sale and he now stands at McMahon of Saratoga Thoroughbreds in the state of New York. The colt Unreachable was carrying at the time of her acquisition–an Ontario-bred 3-year-old now named Equivoque–would go on to fetch $325,000 from China Horse Club/Gandharvi at the 2021 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Sale and CHC bought out the partnership for $240,000 at the 2022 Keeneland November Horses of Racing Age Sale. Equivoque, an impressive debut winner at Keeneland this past April and an allowance second at Churchill on Derby Day May 6, has recently returned to training at Todd Pletcher's South Florida base at Palm Beach Downs after spending some time at WinStar Farm .

Unreachable is also the dam of the 2-year-old colt Magic Rush (Good Magic) and a yearling colt by Maclean's Music that sold for $310,000 to Powerstown Stud at this year's Keeneland September sale. Unreachable, now 14 years of age, did not produce a foal this year and was bred back to Curlin.

Sunday, Chukyo, Japan
CHAMPIONS CUP-G1, ¥232,740,000, Chukyo, 12-3, 3yo/up, 1800m, 1:50.60, ft.
1–LEMON POP, 128, h, 5, by Lemon Drop Kid
1st Dam: Unreachable, by Giant's Causeway
2nd Dam: Harpia, by Danzig
3rd Dam: Razyana, by His Majesty
($70,000 Wlg '18 KEENOV). O-Godolphin; B-Mr & Mrs Oliver S Tait (KY); T-Hiroyasu Tanaka; J-Ryusei Sakai; ¥123,318,000. Lifetime Record: 14-10-3-0, ¥481,756,000. Werk Nick Rating: A+++ *Triple Plus* Click for the eNicks report & 5-cross pedigree. Click for the free Equineline.com catalogue-style pedigree.
2–Wilson Tesoro (Jpn), 128, c, 4, Kitasan Black (Jpn)–Chesutoke Rose, by Uncle Mo. O-Kenji Ryotokuji Holdings; B-Ryoken Farm; ¥48,948,000.
3–Dura Erede (Jpn), 126, c, 3, Duramente (Jpn)–Marchesa (Jpn), by Orfevre (Jpn). (¥100,000,000 Ylg '21 JRHAJUL). O-Three H Racing; B-Northern Farm; ¥30,474,000.
Margins: 1 1/4, NK, NK. Odds: 2.80, 91.00, 30.20.
Also Ran: T O Keynes (Jpn), Meisho Hario (Jpn), Hagino Alegrias (Jpn), Make a Leap (Jpn), Notturno (Jpn), Ater Astrea (Jpn), Seraphic Call (Jpn), Crown Pride (Jpn), Keiai Shelby (Jpn), Gloria Mundi (Jpn), Icon Tailor (Jpn), Geoglyph (Jpn). Click for the JRA chart and VIDEO.

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Turfway/Claiborne Farm Collaboration ‘Make Your Mare’ Series Continues With My Charmer

Augustin Stable's Ellis Park Turf Stakes winner Mouffy is set to make her debut at Turfway Park, where she'll face nine fillies and mares in next Saturday's 35th running of the $125,000 My Charmer Stakes.

Run at 1 1/16 miles, the My Charmer Stakes will go as Race 7 on the nine-race program with a post time of 8:55 p.m. (ET). First post is 5:55 p.m.

In collaboration with Claiborne Farm, the My Charmer Stakes is the second of a three-race 'Make Your Mare' series, which will award fillies and mares credits toward a future stallion paring upon their retirement. The Top 3 finishers will receive $10,000, $5,000 and $2,500 in credits, applicable until the end of the 2025 breeding season. Claiborne Credits are exclusive to the top 3 and can be transferred with the horse in case of an ownership change.

The ultra-consistent Mouffy recorded her lone stakes victory two starts ago when she defeated eight rivals in the Ellis Park Turf Stakes. Six weeks later trainer Jonathan Thomas shipped the daughter of Uncle Mo to Canada where she was made the 2-1 favorite in the Ontario Matron Stakes (G3) at Woodbine but finished fourth, beaten just a length, to Millie Girl. Jockey Tyler Conner will ride the four-time winner from post No. 8.

Another accomplished filly that entered the My Charmer is Scott Mawaka's Grade 3-placed Catiche. Trained by Mike Stidham, Catiche ran one of her best efforts on her 10-race resume at Turfway Park when she finished in a dead heat for second in the 2022 Bourbonette Oaks behind longshot winner Candy Raid. Jockey Gerardo Corrales will pilot Catiche in the My Charmer out of post 3.

The first race in the Make Your Mare series was the Holiday Inaugural, won by favorite Marissa's Lady, a multiple stakes-winning daughter of Violence. B G Warrior was second, and Bling was third.

Following is the complete field for the My Charmer in order of post position (with jockey, trainer):

1. Amazon Queen (Declan Cannon, Arnaud Delacour)

2. Malloy (Orlando Mojica, Wayne Catalano)

3. Catiche (Corrales, Stidham)

4. Community Adjusted (Abel Cedillo, Arnaud Delacour)

5. Tap Dancing Lady (Joe Ramos, Hugo Andrade)

6. Thisnameisokay (Joe Rocco Jr., Steve Cooper)

7. Lexa (Luan Machado, Whit Beckman)

8. Mouffy (Conner, Thomas)

9. Traffic Song (Colby Hernandez, Sarah Hamilton)

10. Bali Belle (Gavin Ashton, Rusty Arnold)

For more information about the Turfway Park Holiday Meet, visit www.turfway.com. For more information about Claiborne Farm, visit https://claibornefarm.com.

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Inoperable Cancer Claims Old Friends Resident Sun King

Old Friends, the Thoroughbred retirement facility in Georgetown, Ky., is saddened to report that Sun King, a multiple graded stakes winning millionaire, was euthanized at Rood and Riddle on Saturday, Dec. 2, due to inoperable cancer. He was 21.

The dark bay stallion has been at Old Friends for six years thanks to his owner, Tracy Farmer, a longtime supporter of the farm.

Foaled by Cambridge Farm and James Daniel Conway, Sun King, who was by 1999 Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner, Charismatic, out of the Clever Trick mare, Clever But Costly, was foaled in Kentucky on Jan. 31, 2002.

Trained by Nick Zito his entire career for owner Tracy Farmer, Sun King began his racing career as a 2-year old in 2004. Farmer purchased Sun King for $400,000 at the Keeneland 2003 January Horses of All Ages Sale.

Sun King won his first race in his second start in a maiden special weight race at Belmont Park on Sept. 17. He was moved up into stakes company for his next two races, and finished third in both, the Champagne Stakes (G1) at Belmont Park and the Bessemer Trust Breeders' Cup Juvenile (G1) at Lone Star.

In 2005 as a 3-year old, he opened his season with two wins, an allowance race at Gulfstream Park, and the Tampa Bay Derby (G3) at Tampa Bay Downs for his first graded stakes victory.

He did participate in two of the Classics that year, finishing 15th in the Kentucky Derby (G1) and fourth in the Preakness Stakes (G1) at Pimlico.

Following those races, he won the Leonard Richards Stakes (G3) at Delaware Park, and the Pennsylvania Derby (G2) at Philadelphia Park. He also finished second in the Haskell Invitational Handicap (G1) at Monmouth Park, and third in the Jockey Club Gold Cup (G1) at Belmont Park. He ended the year with a ninth-place finish in the Breeders' Cup Classic Powered by Dodge (G1) at Belmont Park.

In 2006, in his third start as a 4-year old, he won the Commonwealth Breeders' Cup Stakes (G2) at Keeneland. He then scored three consecutive second-place finishes, the first two at Belmont Park, in the Metropolitan Handicap (G1) and the Albert the Great Stakes (Black Type), followed by the Whitney Handicap (G1) at Saratoga.

In his next race, he was third in the Woodward Stakes (G1) at Saratoga, and then closed out his year with a 10th in the Breeders' Cup Classic Powered by Dodge (G1) at Churchill Downs.

He returned in 2007 as a 5-year old, but did not win any races. However, he did finish second in the Westchester Handicap (G3) at Belmont Park, the Woodward Stakes (G1) at Saratoga, and the Ack Ack Handicap (G3) at Churchill Downs on Nov. 3, which was the final race of his career.

Sun King retired with six wins, seven seconds, five thirds, and $2,240,008 in earnings in 28 career starts.

He began his stud career at Darby Dan in Kentucky in 2008, and moved to Elite Thoroughbreds in Louisiana in 2013. Then, in 2016, he was pensioned due to declining infertility and sent to Farmer's farm.

In 2017, Farmer decided to donate Sun King to Old Friends. He arrived at the farm on Feb. 25, 2017.

“Sun King was one of our best retirees,” said Michael Blowen, President and founder of Old Friends. “A great son of Charismatic, he attracted many fans, including Nick and Kim Zito who came by often to see him. All of our retirees are missed when they die, but no one will be missed more than the King.”

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Equinox, the Champion Who Turned Races into Processions

Crossing the line as Equinox sauntered home in the Japan Cup, Christophe Lemaire gave a little shake of his head and beamed as he tried unconvincingly to pat the horse's neck. Lemaire's disbelief was such that he went floppy with delight.

Championship races are not meant to be processions. Even legendary horses aren't supposed to be so superior to their contemporaries. While others bobbed and heaved with effort, Equinox arrived at the front in his races on the bridle, with Lemaire perched as if for a portrait painter. Then he would slip into a groove of precise, majestic speed, and kill the race.

Superiority on the scale Equinox displayed it contradicts everything we think about how competitive elite breeding and racing are. A Japan Cup or Dubai Sheema Classic is hard enough to win by half a length. But his wins in those races were outlandish.

Equinox's final outing before he was retired to stud bore a distinctly Japanese flavour: 85,000 spectators in Tokyo, a rolling surf of noise from the gate to the line, the local rituals of reverence and respect. But it would be wrong to call him merely Big in Japan. The safest measure of his status as the world's best racehorse was on the one occasion he left his country – then left everything else in the Sheema Classic for dead.

If you could take one Equinox victory to a desert island it would surely be the one in Dubai, which had the racecourse commentator calling him “the titan of the world's Turf.” The Sheema Classic was the highest expression of his brilliance. It added global fame to his notoriety in Japan and lustre to his stallion career in a country quietly building a bloodstock empire.

In Cheltenham Festival season, in March, the TV screen lit up with a performance of astonishing beauty. The Meydan replays never lose their power. On the turn into the stretch we see Equinox up the ante, and Mostahdaf, who has him in his sights, starts to run through tar. While he bobs and heaves under his jockey's urgings, Equinox merely organises himself into a smooth surge that takes him away from a top-class field.

The kind of horse that makes you want to tell non-racing
friends – stop what you're doing, and just watch this.

When a genius comes along in other sports we say they are playing a different game to everyone else. Equinox ran in different races – his own – much as Constitution Hill does in National Hunt racing. In the Sheema Classic, Lemaire merely nudges him down the reins into his full imperious velocity. Every sheikh in the house must have winced with envy.

Discarded in his wake that night were the subsequent Arc runner-up Westover, the Grosser Preis von Baden winner Zagrey and of course Mostahdaf, who won the Prince of Wales's Stakes and Juddmonte International. From that moment Equinox's admirers (and his owners) were on safe ground. Yes, the desire took hold to see him tackle the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, and confront Ace Impact; but that became a dream match-up only after Ace Impact had won so impressively, not before.

Nobody dodged Equinox on his final appearance. For a moment the doomed optimism of the 2022 Dubai Turf winner Panthalassa in blasting 10 lengths clear at the final turn made the race look like a test for Japan's champion. Nor was he alone in possessing a top-class cv. The Japanese fillies' Triple Crown winner Liberty Island made the first move on Panthalassa but Equinox swept past her as if she were a pensioner hurrying for a bus.

Even Lemaire was taken aback – hence the shake of the head as they pulled up. “When we got into the final straight, the horse just reacted to the point that even I was surprised,” he said. “His acceleration was incredible. He's truly a super horse, smart, powerful and gentle, like a pony.”

That nobility shines through. His dark bay coat and white blaze are other distinguishing features, along with his work ethic, his eagerness to quicken. It's this desire that most fascinates me about the best horses. They want to do it – though Equinox 'did it' so easily he left you bemused by the apparent lack of exertion.

Now his owners have decided he's exerted himself enough and will join his sire Kitasan Black at Shadai Stallion Station. It's our loss, but he is four years old, and has won six top races in a row.

Boxing reporters used to like tracking down the first or last fighter to beat a great champion, because the search often led to a nightclub doorman or shelf stacker. Do Deuce has the distinction of being the last horse to beat Equinox, in the 2022 Tokyo Yushun (Japanese Derby). Since then Do Deuce has finished 19th in the Arc (42 lengths behind Alpinista) and eight and a half and five and three quarter lengths behind Equinox in the Tenno Shun (Autumn) and Japan Cup respectively (his record since his neck win over Equinox is one victory in five).

Do Deuce was merely good. Equinox turned out to be supernatural: not only big in Japan but monstrous in Meydan: the kind of horse that makes you want to tell non-racing friends – stop what you're doing, and just watch this.

 

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