Goliath, Fantastic Moon and Pradaria will chase Group One Japan Cup (2,400m) riches at Tokyo on Sunday before hopefully turning their attention to next month’s Longines Hong Kong International Races (HKIR).
All three feature among the field for the Group One Hong Kong Vase (2,400m), although when releasing the HKIR line ups on Wednesday, the Jockey Club’s head of racing product, Greg Carpenter, confirmed that “the status and race for Goliath, Fantastic Moon and Pradaria will be reviewed following the Japan Cup”.
France’s Goliath and Germany’s Fantastic Moon feature among a three-pronged international attack on the Japan Cup, with Ireland’s Auguste Rodin rounding out the raiders.
On Wednesday morning, Aidan O’Brien watched Auguste Rodin, the seventh horse to be fielded by the Ballydoyle trainer in a Japan Cup, go through his final paces.
O’Brien, who has yet to win the race, is attending the Japan Cup for the first time.
A foreign-trained horse has not won the Japan Cup in association with Longines (G1) since 2005. Goliath, Auguste Rodin, and Fantastic Moon will all try to change that on Sunday.@JRA_WorldRacing | @resracingky | @coolmorestud | @DeutscherGalopp pic.twitter.com/DhEb7fnaKb
— IFHA's Longines World's Best Racehorse Rankings (@worldsbesthorse) November 21, 2024
The four-year-old Deep Impact colt breezed over the Tokyo turf, impressing O’Brien.
“He has speed and class, long strides and big action, and is great at the mile and a half,” O’Brien said. “I think the course here at Tokyo and the Japan Cup will suit him.”
The Japan Cup will be Auguste Rodin’s last race as he bids to add to his Group One wins in the Futurity Trophy (1,609m), the Epsom Derby (2,400m), the Irish Derby (2,400m), the Irish Champion Stakes (2,000m), the Breeders’ Cup Turf (2,400m) and the Prince of Wales’s Stakes (1,993m).
The home team is packed with talent headlined by four-time Group One winner Do Deuce, who is coming off a win in the Group One Tenno Sho Autumn (2,000m).
Three-year-old filly Cervinia returns from acing the Group One Shuka Sho (2,000m) on October 13, her second win of a fillies’ Classic.
Another son of Deep Impact, five-year-old Justin Palace, winner of the 2023 Group One Tenno Sho Spring (3,200m), finished just two lengths behind Do Deuce with a fourth-placed finish in the autumn version.
Stars On Earth was last year’s Japan Cup third-placed finisher behind Equinox and Liberty Island. She won two of the fillies’ Classics in 2022 and has never missed the top three in her 12 starts in Japan, seven of them at the top level.
There’s also the globetrotting French-bred Shin Emperor, returning for his second time over the Tokyo 2,400m, where he finished third in the Group One Japanese Derby (2,400m) on May 26 before jetting abroad.
Defending the home turf is something Japan’s horsemen don’t take lightly, something illustrated in a surprise visit by O’Brien and Ryan Moore to Miho Training Centre on Wednesday.
They stopped in at the barn of Tomohito Ozeki, whose Japan Cup hopeful is last year’s Group One Kikuka Sho (3,000m) winner Durezza, who finished fifth behind O’Brien’s City Of Troy in August’s Group One International Stakes (2,051m) at York.
“I never thought I’d see [O’Brien] at Miho,” said Ozeki. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m going to be doing my best to not lose on home turf.”
Win or lose, Auguste Rodin is going out a champion. He is set to be recognised in a first for an overseas-based horse with a retirement ceremony at Tokyo following the Japan Cup this Sunday.
