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Fine Needle captured this year’s Sprinters Stakes to become the fifth horse in history to claim both JRA-G1 sprint races in the same year.
Takamatsunomiya Kinen champion Fine Needle captured this year’s Sprinters Stakes to become the fifth horse in history to claim both JRA-G1 sprint races in the same year—the first since Lord Kanaloa in 2013. The Admire Moon horse was 12th in last year’s Sprinters Stakes after claiming the Centaur Stakes but demonstrated a very prosperous five-year-old campaign with four wins out of five starts—he was fourth in the Chairman’s Sprint Prize in Hong Kong in his first overseas endeavor. This is the first G1 win since the Takamatsunomiya Kinen for both trainer Yoshitada Takahashi and jockey Yuga Kawada, second overall for Takahashi and 12th for Kawada.
With a huge typhoon closing in, the race broke in the rain on a track condition rated good. Once in a Moon gunned for the lead and set the pace. Fine Needle broke from a middle stall and was settled in mid-field and three-wide. Shifting farther out in the last turn to avoid traffic, the five-year-old bay unleashed his trademark turn of foot all the way to the wire while picking off his rivals one by one and finally catching Love Kampf in the final strides to win by a neck.
Sent off 11th favorite, Love Kampf broke sharply and chased the pace in second. Hitting the straight still in second and two-wide, the three-year-old filly took over the lead from the pacesetter while shaking off second favorite Nac Venus 100 meters out and dug in gamely but was pinned by the winner at the wire.
Favored 13th, Rhein Spirit saved ground in third to fourth, struggled for room behind the battling front runners in the stretch, but broke through chasing Love Kampf in the final 50 meters, stretching his neck in front of Daimei Princess to grab third.
Lucky Bubbles broke smoothly under Brett Prebble and was tracking the eventual winner in mid-division and three wide but suddenly broke away from the field approaching the final turn and pulled up with a ruptured suspensory ligament in his left foreleg.
“We were going smoothly and following the winner and felt I was going to have every conceivable chance then I heard something pop which wasn’t a nice thing to hear,” commented Brett Prebble.
Post race interview of winning connections :
Trainer : Yoshitada Takahashi
“I am relieved to have been able to come up with the best results as the race favorite. I knew by the look of Fine Needle’s eyes at the saddling area that he had switched into racing mode. He was positioned exactly where I had imagined and I was a little concerned when the jockey was urging the horse on at the third corner, but the horse got into gear and then geared up again once entering the stretch so from there I was just hoping with all my heart that he would reach the leader in time. Fine Needle is such a professional, he seems to know exactly what it takes and executes it at the right time. He was 12th in the Sprinters Stakes last year, and coming off his break during the winter, he came back to the stables a different horse-so strong-and he’s shown that since his first time up in the Silk Road Stakes. We’ve used him over a mile before but the sprint is what he’s best at, so we’ll be sticking to 1,200 meters or 1,400 meters at the most. I’ll have to see how he pulls up from this race to determine his future starts including a choice to run in the Hong Kong Sprint, but if we do I hope to show the fans there (in Hong Kong) how much stronger he’s become.”
Jockey : Yuga Kawada
“He wasn’t as sharp in the first half of the race and we had to race further out than we’d hoped, but despite the unideal trip, he really made up for it with his legs at the straight and we just managed to clinch our victory at the wire. He sure validated his win in the Takamatsunomiya Kinen with this JRA-sprint-G1 double and two other grade-race victories which undoubtedly places him as the top sprinter in Japan.”
