The prestigious Queen Elizabeth II Cup at Kyoto Racecourse for fillies and mares pitts young talent against the experienced. We bring you a round up of the top four horses in the field.
Mozu Katchan: The Gr.1 winning Mozu Katchan hasn't placed first in her last three runs. However she came a very close third in the Sapporo Kinen (G2, 2,000 meters) no time difference between her and winner Sungrazer, a 4-year-old colt who went on to finish second.
Lys Gracieux: The daughter of Heart’s Cry has placed impressively in the top 3 in 12 of her last 15 runs of which the 4YO has notched three wins. This would be a well deserved crowining victory
Cantabile: A daughter of Deep Impact, the 3-year-old Cantabile has only missed the money once in her seven career starts. She jumped from her maiden to a Grade 3, aced that and took on the Yushun Himba (Japanese Oaks). That was a bust, but she followed it up with a win of the Grade 2 Rose Stakes in mid September.
Normcore: A Harbinger-sired 3-year-old, the Miho-based Normcore has three wins and two thirds in her short 5-start career taking on two graded-stakes races – the Flower Cup (G3, 1,800 meters) and the Floral Stakes (G2, 2,000 meters) – finished third in both.
Red Genova: A 4-year-old by Symboli Kris S, Red Genova has proven highly consistent, with five wins in 14 starts and only four of them out of the top three spots. Showing great improvement this year, she has moved slowly up in class and this will be her first Grade 1 bid.
Other interesting candidates are Admire Lead, being given more distance and is expected to improve after her performance in the Fuchu Himba Stakes. Frontier Queen, who was third in the same race.
The Ritto-based Crocosmia was runner-up here last year and though her best in her four starts since then was a fifth last out in the Fuchu Himba Stakes, a return to Kyoto is surely a plus.
1st Queen's Milagro (Kota Fujioka, Masamichi Wada), 2nd Happy Yunibansu (Kenichi Ikezoe, Osamu Hirata), 3rd Tosen Victory (Andrea Atzeni, Katsuhiko Sumii), 4th Crocosmia (Ryuji Wada, Katsuichi Nishiura), 5th Mozu Katchan (Mirco Demuro, Ippo Sameshima), 6th Lys Gracieux (Yuichi Fukunaga, Yoshito Yahagi), 7th Queens Ring (Cristian Demuro, Keiji Yoshimura), 8th Touching Speech (Kohei Matsuyama, Sei Ishizaka), 9th Denko Ange (Masayoshi Ebina, Yoshiyuki Arakawa), 10th Mikki Queen (Suguru Hamanaka, Yasutoshi Ikee)
Distance: 2200 meters,(About 11 furlongs / 1 3⁄8 miles), Surface: Turf, Track: Right-handed, Qualification: 3-y-o & Up, Fillies & Mares only, Thoroughbreds,Weight: 3-y-o 54 kg \ 4-y-o & up 56 kg, Purse: ¥ 200,480,000 (as of 2017),1st: ¥ 93,000,000
Credit: Ritesh Jamkhedkar ritesh.jamkhedkar@secretariatsworld.com