Star Graduates Point to Hot Trade at JRHA 

HOKKAIDO, Japan–Things are hotting up in the Northern Horse Park, literally and figuratively. As the mercury nudged 30 degrees on Saturday, the English and Irish in town for the JRHA Select Sale swooned and wilted while the many attendants showing the horses, mostly clad in jackets, went manfully and womanfully about their hot and tiring work without so much as a whimper.

Both they and the young horses in their care are well prepared for the two inspection days ahead, despite having only arrived on the sales ground that morning. For months now, the Japanese trainers and agents have been doing the rounds of the farms on Hokkaido and will have their lists, long and short, ready for refinement. Visitors only now arriving in Japan need not fear, however, as this is almost certainly the best organised sale they are ever likely to attend. 

Reams of staff are on hand at each consignment, with the next horse waiting patiently alongside the viewer's allotted runway for the one in front of him to finish. Crib sheets are available, detailing weights and heights, and, perhaps most usefully, their reserve prices. One can only imagine the hullabaloo that would break out were this system to be suggested for use at European sales, but really it would save an awful lot of faffing and faking.

Katsumi Yoshida, whose Northern Farm bred the world's top-rated horse Equinox (Jpn) (Kitasan Black {Jpn}), is very much the man at the helm of Japan's biggest bloodstock auction. It is, after all, held in his vast park, which is both a tourist destination and competition ground for all manner of equines, from ponies to showjumpers. Extraordinarily, in the midst of it all, one of the most celebrated broodmares in Japan lives here in her dotage. Wind In Her Hair (Ire) (Alzao), a granddaughter of Queen Elizabeth II's dual Classic winner Highclere (GB), is now 32 and has outlived her most famous son, Deep Impact (Ire), while another, Black Tide (Jpn), and many of their descendants, continue to feature prominently in the pedigrees of the young stock to be offered for sale on Monday and Tuesday. 

The days of Deep Impact's stock dominating this auction are now long gone, with the dual Derby winner Auguste Rodin (Ire) one of the members of his small final crop. There has been another sad farewell in the Japanese stallion ranks for Duramente (Jpn), a former winner of the first two legs of the Japanese Triple Crown who died two years ago at the age of nine, just as his offspring were starting to show real promise. 

This season, his daughter Liberty Island (Jpn) has carried the flag forward by securing the first two stages of the Triple Tiara, with just the Shuka Sho left to come on October 15. Her sire's final batch of yearlings on offer at the Select Sale numbers 14 and includes a half-sister to a filly who has already been adorned with the Triple Tiara and so much more. Offered as lot 94, the Duramente filly is the penultimate offspring of the Scottish-born Donna Blini (GB) (Bertolini), winner of the G1 Cheveley Park S. when trained by Brian Meehan and then bought by Katsumi Yohisda as a broodmare prospect for Northern Farm. And what a signing she turned out to be. Most celebrated of her offspring is her daughter Gentildonna (Jpn) (Deep Impact {Jpn}), twice Horse of the Year in Japan and now a Group 1 producer herself, while her full-sister Donau Blue (Jpn) is a Grade 3 winner and stakes producer. What a family, and there are two chances to buy Donna Blini's offspring this week as her final foal, a Drefong filly, will enter the ring alongside her mother on Tuesday as lot 321.

This is another unusual feature of the Select Sale. Given the time of year, most of the 240 foals for sale are not yet weaned from their dams, and they appear as pairs on the morning of the sale during a viewing session of several hours before trade begins. They later return to their home farm, usually under new ownership, for weaning to take place eventually. 

Ready for action at the Northern Farm draft | Emma Berry

Before that, there are around 220 yearlings to go under the gavel on Monday. There are a few by European-based stallions, notably a full-brother to the Breeders' Cup and Prix Jean Romanet heroine Audarya (Fr), who does a very passing impression of his Coolmore sire Wootton Bassett (GB) and is catalogued in the Shadai draft as lot 102. Similarly eye-catching is his draft-mate, lot 158, a colt from the second crop of the American champion turf horse Bricks And Mortar, who appears to be stamping his stock pretty well. 

Those stallions with first-crop yearlings on offer include Classic winner Saturnalia (Jpn), whose average price at last year's foal session was almost 15 times his stud fee and who is represented by 13 yearlings and 17 foals this time around. The latter group includes a filly out of the Golden Slipper winner She Will Reign (Aus) (Manhattan Rain {Aus}) as lot 345.

Two-year-old champion and Hong Kong Mile winner Admire Mars (Jpn) also has his first yearlings at Northern Horse Park, as does Juddmonte's Irish 2,000 Guineas winner Siskin, who is now at Shadai Stallion Station. The GI Arkansas Derby winner Nadal, who has developed into an imposing animal, is also in that category, along with the Scat Daddy horse and Japanese Grade 1 winner Mr Melody, who stands at Yushun Stallion Station. 

Hotly anticipated, especially by their sire's owner Teruya Yoshida, are the first foals of Triple Crown winner Contrail (Jpn). One or more of his 21 youngsters may well steal the limelight during the second session, in which four foals from the first crop of Classic winner Poetic Flare (Ire) also feature.

It is the first year since the pandemic struck that visitors have been able to travel easily to Japan, and this comes at a time when Japanese horses have been riding high across world racing. The Dubai World Cup winner Ushba Tesoro (Jpn) (Orfevre {Jpn}) graduated from this sale as a foal back in 2017 for ¥25,000,000 (£137,000/€160,000). His fellow winner at Meydan, the G2 UAE Derby hero Derma Sotogake (Jpn) (Mind Your Biscuits), hailed from the yearling session of 2021, bought for ¥18,000,000 (£98,000/€115,000). 

Their success, along with the likes of Saudi Cup winner Panthalassa (Jpn) (Lord Kanaloa {Jpn}) and another Dubai World Cup night winner, the aforementioned Equinox, all point to this being yet another blockbuster auction for the JRHA.