Delta Blues (Jpn), who made history by becoming the first Japanese horse to win the Melbourne Cup, has died at the age of 24. Old Friends Japan, where the gelding had lived out his later years of retirement, announced on Wednesday that he had “died due to complications from laminitis”.
The Northern Farm-bred son of Dance In The Dark (Jpn) was trained by Katsuhiko Sumii and landed his first major win in his home country in the G1 Kikuka Sho (Japanese St Leger) of 2004. He was also third behind Zenno Rob Roy (Jpn) that year in the G1 Japan Cup.
It was as a five-year-old that he left Japan for the first time and, in his first start in Australia, he was third in the G1 Caulfield Cup in what transpired to be the perfect prep for the 'race that stops a nation'.
The 2006 Melbourne Cup proved to be a banner renewal for Japan, with Delta Blues being chased right to the wire by his stable-mate Pop Rock (Jpn), who finished second by a short-head. The pair had drawn more than four lengths clear of the remainder of the 23-strong field.
Delta Blues remains the only Japanese-trained horse to have won Australia's great staying race, though Admire Rakti (Jpn) has subsequently landed the 2014 Caulfield Cup, and Lys Gracieux (Jpn) won the G1 Cox Plate of 2019.
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