Kazuo Fujisawa

Japanese champion Gran Alegria (Jpn) (Deep Impact {Jpn}) signed off her career with her second consecutive G1 Mile Championship victory, her sixth top-level score, at Hanshin on Sunday. She is the first horse to win back-to-back Mile Championships since Daiwa Major (Jpn) (Sunday Silence) in 2006/07. Tabbed the heavy favourite at 70 cents on the dollar, the 5-year-old mare was content to race near the rear of the field as Ho O Amazon (Jpn) (King Kamehameha {Jpn}) sped through fractions of :23.70 and :47.60. Jockey Christophe Lemaire had a ton...

A carefully managed career comes to a close Sunday afternoon for three-times champion Gran Alegria (Jpn) (Deep Impact {Jpn}), who faces a crack group of Japanese milers in defence of her title in the G1 Mile Championship S. at Hanshin Racecourse. The daughter of the late multiple Grade I and Breeders' Cup winner Tapitsfly (Tapit) has finished outside the top three just twice in her 14 starts to date, including a fourth in the G1 Osaka Hai in April, contested in unsuitably wet ground and over a 2000-metre trip that...

By Alan Carasso With the possible exceptions of Loves Only You (Jpn) (Deep Impact {Jpn}), currently training in America towards the GI Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf, and the G1 Japan Cup-bound Shahryar (Jpn) (Deep Impact {Jpn}), this year's G1 Tokyo Yushun hero, Sunday's G1 Tenno Sho (Autumn) at Tokyo has attracted the creme of the crop in Japan, including Classic winners from each of the last three seasons. Contrail (Jpn) (Deep Impact {Jpn}) commences a two-race farewell tour back where he celebrated one of his finest hours in...

The 1600-metre Listed Hyacinth S., the third of four Japanese prep races for the GI Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve, was captured by the late-running La Perouse (Jpn) (Pelusa {Jpn}). His 1 1/2-length win granted him 30 points on the Japanese Road to the Kentucky Derby, with only the Fukuryu Sho yet to be run at Nakayama on Mar. 27. The Hyacinth carried 51 points total (30-12-6-3). Second choice on the board at 5-2 after 4-5 favourite Takeru Pegasus (Jpn) (Dunkirk), the dark bay did not leave the gate...

Godolphin homebred Tower of London (Jpn) (Raven's Pass) and Danon Smash (Jpn) (Lord Kanaloa {Jpn}), two of the best sprinters the country has to offer, go head-to-head for the third time in their last four appearances in Sunday's G1 Takamatsunomiya Kinen (1200m) at Chukyo Racecourse. Group 1-placed over a mile as a juvenile, Tower of London has amassed an imposing resume over 1200-1400m in the last year or so, having set course records when taking out the G2 Keio Hai Spring Cup (1400m in 1:19.4) and the G2 Centaur S....