Kizuna Emulates Sire Deep Impact with First Championship

Kizuna at Shadai Stallion Station | Emma Berry 

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It was inevitable really. Kizuna (Jpn), the Tokyo Yushun (Japanese Derby) winner of 2013 and champion first-season sire in 2019, has now followed the example set by his feted sire Deep Impact (Jpn) to become Japan's champion sire for the first time. The Shadai stallion had finished in the top four in the championship in the three previous years and took the laurels this time from 2023 champion, the late Duramente (Jpn). He in turn had finally ended the 11-year domination of Deep Impact, who was also the champion freshman sire back in 2010.

Justin Milano (Jpn) was the star performer for Kizuna during 2024, winning the G1 Satsuki Sho (Japanese 2,000 Guineas) and finishing runner-up to Danon Decile (Jpn) in the Japanese Derby. His dam is well known to readers in Europe as she is the 2011 Nunthorpe Stakes winner Margot Did (Ire), who provides another feather in the cap for Exceed And Excel (Aus) as a broodmare sire. His daughter Believe'N'Succeed (Aus) is the dam of the ill-fated Derby winner Anthony Van Dyck (Ire).

Kizuna, who also won the G2 Prix Niel before finishing fourth in the Arc behind Treve (Fr), is out of the Storm Cat mare Catequil, which means that he is bred on the same cross as one of the rising stars of the European sires' ranks, the Lanwades resident Study Of Man (Ire).

Catequil, a daughter of the GI Delaware Oaks winner Pacific Princess, was placed twice for Sheikh Mohammed when trained in England by James Fanshawe. She proved to be a gem of a broodmare and was also the dam of G1 Oka Sho (Japanese 1,000 Guineas) winner Phalaenopsis (Jpn) (Brian's Time) as well as the G1 Belmont Stakes-placed Sunday Break (Jpn) (Forty Niner), who stood at stud in both Kentucky and France. 

Kizuna's offspring won 211 races in 2024, and he was represented by 24 juvenile winners, which was down from his personal record tally in the sector of 33 in 2023. His three-year-olds of 2024 emanated from his largest crop to date after he covered 242 mares in 2020. That figure has dropped in subsequent years to below the 200-mark. His 14 stakes winners in 2024 included the Grade 2 winners Queen's Walk (Jpn), Sixpence (Jpn) and June Take (Jpn).

Crack sprinter Lord Kanaloa (Jpn) has become the perennial bridesmaid in the Japanese sires' table since 2019 and the 17-year-old son of King Kamehameha was second again last season. Bellagio Opera (Jpn), winner of the Osaka Hai, took his tally of Group/Grade 1 winners to ten, including the brilliant former Horse of the Year, Almond Eye (Jpn). Her first foal, Aaron's Rod (Jpn) is now three and finished second in November in a Tokyo Maiden. Almond Eye has a two-year-old colt by Maurice (Jpn), a yearling filly by Kitasan Black (Jpn) and was covered by the latter's son Equinox in his first book in 2024.

 

Epiphaneia, the Japan Cup winner of 2014 | Emma Berry

 

Aaron's Rod is by Epiphaneia (Jpn), a striking-looking son of Symboli Kris S, who was runner-up to Kizuna in the Japanese Derby and won the following year's Japan Cup. He took third in the 2024 sires' table after a season highlighted by two Classic winners. The aforementioned Danon Decile won the Derby and Stellenbosch (Jpn) landed the Oka Sho. Four of Epiphaneia's seven individual Grade 1 winners came in 2024, and they included Takarazuka Kinen winner Blow The Horn (Jpn) and Victoria Mile winner Ten Happy Rose (Jpn).

The death of Duramente (Jpn) in March 2021 at the age of only nine must be considered a huge loss for the Japanese stallion ranks. A dual Classic winner in 2015, he was well supported in his four and a half seasons at Shadai Stallion Station, and had 191 and 203 reported foals in his first two crops. Members of his final abridged crop are three-year-olds this year. 

Duramente is already the sire of seven Grade 1 winners, with four Classic winners among them, including the brilliant Triple Tiara winner of 2023, Liberty Island (Jpn), who was the top-rated filly in the world that year.

With two St Leger winners to his name already in Japan, Duramente posthumously displayed some diversity in 2024 as the sire of the G1 Sprinters Stakes winner Lugal (Jpn), who not only has a Derby winner as his sire, but has another Derby winner from the other side of the world, New Approach (Ire), as his broodmare sire.

Completing the top five in Japan was Drefong, a former winner of the GI Breeders' Cup Sprint and GI Forego Stakes, who posted his highest-placed finish to date. 

Beyond Japan, his son Warp Speed (Jpn) was a close second in the G1 Melbourne Cup, and Drefong had a pair of Grade 3 winners among his four stakes winners at home.

Kitasan Black (Jpn), who now shares the honour of being the most expensive stallion in Japan with his son Equinox (Jpn) ended last season in tenth place but we can expect to see renewed interest in him, including from breeders outside Japan, thanks to the exploits of his aforementioned world champion.

First Set to Nadal in Freshman Championship

Nadal, who brings more coveted Hail To Reason/Roberto blood to the Japanese ranks through his Breeders' Cup Classic-winning sire Blame, was champion first-season sire in the country for 2024. 

 

GI Arkansas Derby winner Nadal | Emma Berry

 

Bought by Kerri Radcliffe for $700,000 as the Fasig-Tipton Florida Two-Year-Old Sale of 2019, the imposing Nadal ran just four times during five months of the following year but was unbeaten, his two Grade II wins in the San Vicente and Rebel Stakes setting up his victory in the GI Arkansas Derby. He was never seen again on the track after that, having fractured a foreleg in his preparation for the Kentucky Derby. 

His 32 first-crop winners in 2024 put him in pole position among the young stallions recruited to Japan in 2021. He had 103 foals in his first book.

Saturnalia (Jpn), like his sire Lord Kanaloa, had to settle for second. The Japanese 2,000 Guineas winner of 2019, he was also a Grade 1 winner at two, and he supplied 26 juvenile winners in 2024. 

Saturnalia is a half-brother to the hugely successful Epiphaneia and is a stallion to keep eye on as his first three-year-olds take to the track this year. 

 

Saturnalia, a Lord Kanaloa half-brother to Epiphaneia | Emma Berry

 

Le Vent Se Leve (Jpn), another Roberto-line stallion who shares his sire Symbol Kris S with Epiphaneia, was third in the table with 25 individual winners, including Listed winner Soldier Field (Jpn).

Gold Dream (Jpn), a Grade 1-winning dirt horse by Sunday Silence's son Gold Allure (Jpn), was fourth overall but had the highest tally of winners (33).

Look out for the first runners in 2025 by Triple Crown winner Contrail (Jpn), another sleek, near-black son of Deep Impact, who is the likely favourite to take this year's first-season sire championship.

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