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Lovely Day leads the assault as Japan targets fourth AP QEII Cup

21/04/2016

It has been four years since Japan’s Rulership claimed the Audemars Piguet Queen Elizabeth II Cup title and the time could well be ripe for a fourth Japanese victory in the HK$20 million Group 1 race.  On Sunday three Japanese contenders will go to post and in Lovely Day, Nuovo Record and Satono Crown, Japan has its strongest ever hand.

Nuovo Record is a Classic winner, no less; Satono Crown, a leading three-year-old last year when third to the dual classic winner Duramente in the Japanese Derby, impressed in taking the G2 Kyoto Kinen first-up this term; and Lovely Day rose to stardom last term with G1 wins in the Takarazuka Kinen and Tenno Sho Autumn.  All three Japanese runners have sound claims.

Lovely Day, the highest-rated of the three is now aiming at his first G1 success abroad.  The King Kamehameha six-year-old was awarded the Japan Racing Association’s champion older colt/horse title in 2015.

A maiden winner on debut in August 2012, Lovely Day raced 17 times up to the conclusion of the 2014 season and failed to score at Pattern race level.  That all changed in 2015, dramatically so. A seasonal debut victory in that year’s G3 Nakayama Kim Pai was followed by success in the G2 Kyoto Kinen.  From that point on, Lovely Day came of age and emerged as one of his nation’s standouts. He rounded out four straight Graded wins in style, taking two of Japan’s most coveted championship contests, the G1 Takarazuka Kinen and the G1 Tenno Sho Autumn.

Lovely Day was sent off the overwhelming favourite for Japan’s premier international event, the G1 Japan Cup (2400m), but after hitting the front above the 300-metre mark at Tokyo, he began to taper and was beaten into third, just a half-length behind the winner, Shonan Pandora. He ended a long campaign with a fifth-place in the G1 Arima Kinen over 2500m. Both of those contests were at distances beyond his optimum. 

The entire began this season back at 2000m in the G2 Sankei Osaka Hai in April and produced  an eye-catching fourth-place finish behind the talented galloper Ambitious, passing the post with, seemingly, plenty still in the tank. Lovely Day is trained at the Ritto Training Centre under the watch of Yasutoshi Ikee, whose father,  Yasuo Ikee prepared Japanese super star, Deep Impact. The younger Ikee accomplished a sweep of the Japanese Triple Crown with Orfevre in 2011 and is, like his father, a very internationally-minded trainer.

Ikee worked as assistant trainer under his father and was part of the team that brought Stay Gold to Sha Tin for victory in the 2001 Hong Kong Vase. At that time there was one more person involved in taking care of Stay Gold, his groom, Shigeharu Yamamoto.

Yamamoto has a son, named Joji Yamamoto, and Joji is here in Hong Kong riding and taking care of Lovely Day for Ikee. The younger Yamamoto was a very good equestrian rider and followed in his father’s footsteps to work in the horseracing industry.

Lovely Day put in a smart gallop at Sha Tin Thursday morning (21 April), clocking 49.6s for 800m (26.4, 23.2).

“He moved nicely and the horse is in good condition,” said Yamamoto.

On Sunday, Joao Moreira has been booked to partner Lovely Day.

“My agent in Japan contacted me and asked me if I was interested in riding Lovely Day,” said the Brazilian. Then after seeing all the replays of Lovely Day, I said ‘yes’ immediately to my agent.

“Lovely Day gave me the best impression I could have as he won some big races in Japan and showed he has a lot of pace with a great turn of foot, which is very important in these kinds of international races.  Some of the horses behind him actually won or placed at the international races in Hong Kong afterwards.

“I think Lovely Day will have a big chance; he must be in the first four.”

Moreira thinks the main danger to the three Japanese raiders will be Designs On Rome, a horse he knows well, having ridden the former Hong Kong Horse of the Year eight times for G1 wins in the 2014 Hong Kong Cup and 2015 Hong Kong Gold Cup, both at the course and distance.

“I will need to talk to the connections and trainer first to know how they want me to ride Lovely Day,” Moreira said.

Trainer Ikee did not have Lovely Day fully primed for his first-up run last month but still expected a bold showing from his charge.

“Lovely Day was not 100 per cent fit in his last start but I was not pessimistic going into that race,” he said.

Ikee is optimistic about this next test and is pleased to have the assistance of Moreira, Hong Kong’s record-breaking champion jockey.

“Joao claimed last year’s World All-Star Jockeys title at Sapporo, but I watched his successes even when he was in Singapore, and I also gave him an offer to ride my horse in the G2 UAE Derby at Meydan last year, so I knew Joao very well and knew how good he was,” he said.

“I cannot talk about tactics for Sunday’s race but Lovely Day was not tired at all after the last race and it was a good preparation for the QEII Cup,” he continued. “He is moving to a high gear and now is back to the same top level as last season.”

Lovely Day gallops on the turf course this morning under exercise rider Joji Yamamoto.
Photo 1:
Lovely Day gallops on the turf course this morning under exercise rider Joji Yamamoto.

 

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