Epicharis is not the first Japanese horse to contest Saturday’s Belmont Stakes in America, and should the UAE Derby runner-up take his chance overnight it is hoped by many that he will not be the last.
Trainer Kiyoshi Hagiwara, jockey Christophe Lemaire and owners U Carrot Farm are hunting the US$1 million (Dh3.67m) bonus offered up to Japanese connections by the New York Racing Association (NYRA) in the final contest of the three-race Triple Crown series.
Epicharis follows in the hoofprints of Lani, the wild and recalcitrant 2016 UAE Derby winner, who blazed an unlikely trail through the Triple Crown last season finishing ninth in the Kentucky Derby, fifth in the Preakness Stakes and third at the New York racecourse. Epicharis’s bid seems perfectly timed, as Always Dreaming, the Kentucky Derby winner, and Cloud Computing, who won the Preakness Stakes are both absent, as is Classic Empire, the Preakness runner-up.
The participation of Epicharis is now in some doubt, after yesterday afternoon the Japanese raider skipped a leg-stretch at Belmont Park due to continued lameness in his right-front leg for the third day in succession.
The Japanese-bred colt was fit enough to walk along the shed row yesterday morning, first without a rider and later with one.
Hagiwara and Lemaire, who were happy to talk to media earlier in the week, were no shows.
“They’re going to work on Epicharis this afternoon with ice,” Martin Panza, the NYRA senior vice president of racing operations, said. “They feel confident they can make the race tomorrow, but they’re still going to monitor the horse.
“Obviously, the horse comes first. If there are any problems, they’ll re-evaluate.
“Right now they’re very comfortable that the horse is comfortable and much better than he was two days ago.
“So right now we look OK. They’re going to check him again and they think he’s moving in the right direction and will be OK for tomorrow.”
Epicharis last trained properly at Belmont Park when he breezed 1,000 metres in 1 minute, 6 seconds on Tuesday.
Since then he has suffered an issue in his hoof area and was administered Ketaprofen, an anti-inflammatory. he is almost certain to clear race-day thresholds in preparation to take part.
Epicharis has not run since he was edged out of the UAE Derby at Meydan Racecourse on World Cup night in March by Thunder Snow.
On that night he tried in vain to hold off the Godolphin challenger but was caught in the dying strides.
Given that Thunder Snow went on to finish second to Coolmore’s Churchill in the Irish 2,000 Guineas, Epicharis is a far classier challenger than Lani. He is a grandson of the 1989 US Horse Of The Year Sunday Silence and a landmark first Japanese victory in the 2,400m Classic would almost certainly secure a lasting legacy of Japanese three-year-olds heading west.
Most likely those horses would mount their bids through a Meydan transit.
Each of the major racing nations are desperate to court Japanese runners to tap in to the huge volume of interest from Japanese racing fans and the money that follows them.
The Belmont Stakes is one of six Grade 1 races at the New York racecourse Saturday with the return of crack filly Songbird the real draw card.
Songbird was beaten by Beholder in one of the great stretch battles in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff in November and faces six rivals in the Ogden Phipps Stakes.
Godolphin Mile third finisher Sharp Azteca clashes with 11 others in the Metropolitan Handicap.
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