MY GOODNESS, JAPAN IS IN CLOVER

Northern Taste
(Shadai Thoroughbred Club/Skynet/Franco)

JAPAN THOROUGHBRED STATISTICS 2009

If you’d visited Japan forty-odd years back, even as an avid horseman you probably wouldn’t have bothered much with visiting their stud farms, nor for that matter making a point of going to the races. All of that has undergone a dramatic renaissance in the intervening time, to the degree that today Japan boasts the highest prize money in the world, and it’s the centre of a burgeoning breeding industry. There were many who might’ve doubted Japan’s ability to aspire to any heights in the world of thoroughbred production, given the limitations on land space and the cost of it, yet at the heart of that country’s relatively new-found prosperity was a marvellous visionary in the form of the late Zenya Yoshida, who realised that to become world class, you needed to deal at the very top of the bloodstock world.

A consummate horseman in his own right, the patriarch of what is now known as one of the most successful breeding jurisdictions on the planet, set about acquiring yearlings at the major international sales, and within a relatively short time, he struck gold, as he was to do several times thereafter. While we all need to be fortunate in our lives, it’s amazing how lucky Zenya Yoshida became, the harder he practised, and one of his early windfalls came in the shape of a typically nuggety son of the emperor of all stallions, Northern Dancer, by the name of Northern Taste.

Not only did this fellow aspire to Group One glory in the Prix de la Foret at Paris’ fabled Longchamps racecourse, but he subsequently secured in excess of ten national sires titles in his homeland Japan.

From the time Northern Taste began to leave his mark on Japanese breeding, the Yoshida family prepared themselves for the day they would have to find the antidote for his blood, and this came at a point of transition in the family’s affairs, as Zenya’s sons, Teruya and Katsumi rose to prominence.

You might find it difficult to believe it, but Americans held little faith in the stallion potential of their Horse Of The Year, Sunday Silence, as a result of which Zenya Yoshida and his sons proceeded to acquire all the ownership rights to a horse they’d earlier invested a fractional interest in, and took him back to Japan, where his influence on the affairs of the turf was even greater, from the time his first progeny hit the tracks.

Since then, the influence of Sunday Silence has been profound, not only in domestic Japan, but across the length and breadth of the world, where he has something approaching ten sons now who have left Group One winners in various parts of the globe.

Our connection with the Yoshida family came this year with the arrival of Admire Main, one of the top three runners of his Classic generation. Admire Main’s attraction to South African breeders is to be seen in the names of those farms which have patronised him in his first year at Summerhill.

To get your head around the influence the Yoshidas have had on the Japanese racing industry and the extent of their prize money, you’d need to glance quickly at their latest statistics. Before you do so though, bear in mind that for many years, Shadai stood alone as the outstanding farm, but with the advent of Zenya’s two eldest sons, a second entity in the form of Northern Farm was created (under the stewardship of Katsumi Yoshida and his son Shunsuke), and it’s through Northern Farm that we’ve developed our association.

Northern Farm have, very much like Summerhill, been Champion Breeders in their own homeland for the past six seasons, and in every instance, the runners-up have been Teruya Yoshida’s Shadai Farm. This year, their roles have been reversed, and while the “fat lady” still has to sing at the end of December, Shadai have a narrow lead of the order of ¥300 million. To put that into context, Shadai runners have earned in the region of R720 million, while Northern Farm thus far, are on the verge of R700 million.

Now have a look at the leading sires list, where nine of the top ten sires are resident at Shadai Stallion Station, and five of the top seven are sons of Sunday Silence.

Do the same with the two-year-old sires list, and you’ll find that nine of the top ten stand at the same place, and once again, with the exception of the leading two-year-old sire King Kamehameha (by Kingmambo) are all descended from Sunday Silence.

We always thought Coolmore were a dominant force in Europe (and my goodness they are), but we doubt any domestic industry has ever known the overwhelming power of a single family, as Japan has.

SHADAI FARM : The Legacy Of Another Genius

In a remarkable coincidence, at one of our morning management meetings (these take place every day at 6:45 am, and are attended by 16 of the farm’s management team, some of whom drive all the way from places as far afield as Pietermaritzburg, Howick, Estcourt etc, we were involved in a discussion about Japan’s Shadai Farm. It arose because of a correspondence between ourselves and Katsumi Yoshida, (son of the late, great Zenya). Katsumi Yoshida is the owner of Northern Farm, current Champion breeders in Japan, where Mick’s son, Chris has spent the past 2 ½ years. Katsumi is a friend of Summerhill’s, and he was so impressed with Mike de Kock’s famous victory with Eagle Mountain in the Hong Kong Cup (Gr.1) a fortnight ago, that he’s asked us to facilitate a visit to Mike’s South African stable, taking in Summerhill en-route.

As so often happens in these instances, we began to reflect on the achievements of the most famous of all Japanese breeders, Katsumi’s late father, Zenya Yoshida, founder of Shadai Farm. The conversation turned to the first really important stallion to stand in Japan, a son of Northern Dancer by the name of Northern Taste, and we proffered the suggestion that he couldn’t have been a terribly expensive horse, notwithstanding his bloodlines, because of the somewhat ghostly appearance of the horse’s face, whose white-splashed blaze eclipsed his left eye. Truth is, horses don’t run with their eyes, nor with their blazes, and Northern Taste was a stalwart in Europe, where his most famous victory included the Prix de la Foret (Gr.1) contested over the 1400 m of Longchamp’s fabled racecourse.

Northern Taste went on to secure ten National Sires titles in Japan in eleven years, and has been the perennial champion broodmare sire ever since. Just last weekend, the Arima Kinen (Gr.1), as important as any race in Japan outside the Japan Cup (Gr.1), was taken by Daiwa Scarlet, a granddaughter of the most famous of all Shadai stallions, Sunday Silence, from a Northern Taste mare, and this story was reported in the American Thoroughbred Daily News within hours of our conversation at the morning meeting. Coincidentally, the story of Northern Taste’s acquisition is revealed in full, and Andrew Caulfield, as good as they get in the pedigree field, felt compelled to share his thoughts on Daiwa Scarlet’s pedigree.

“Northern Taste, a son of Northern Dancer bred by Windfields Farm, raced in the colors of the late Zenya Yoshida after being bought as a yearling for $100,000 in 1972. This was a comparatively modest sum for a youngster whose sire was responsible for such as Nijinsky, Fanfreluche, One For All, True North, Northfields, Lauries Dancer and Alma North in his first few crops. I suspect that Northern Taste’s price might have been inhibited by his markings. His broad white face extended just beyond his left eye, and his flashiness also included two lengthy socks. Perhaps would be buyers also had qualms about his being inbred 3x2 to Lady Angela, even though this famous mare numbered Nearctic among her many winners.

Needless to say, Northern Taste proved an excellent buy, becoming a Group 3 winner at two before developing into a high-class performer at up to a mile at three, when he took the G1 Prix de la Foret. He also finished fifth in the Derby on one of the rare occasions he ventured beyond a mile, so it was no great surprise that he went on to sire winners of the Japanese Derby and Oaks and even of the two-mile Tenno Sho (Spring).

He was Japan’s champion sire 10 times in an 11-year period, and his success laid the foundations of the Shadai Farm empire which flourishes to this day.”

Next Visit : KATSUMI YOSHIDA'S NORTHERN FARM

Sunday Silence
(Jockeysite/Nippon)

One of the great rewards of an involvement in the art of racehorse breeding is the places it takes you to and the people you meet.

In our travels, Cheryl and I have visited most of the great farms in the major breeding countries of the world, but the one place which had eluded us thus far, was Japan. So the invitation from the Asian Racing Federation to manage one of their Plenary sessions, was a welcome opportunity to complete the cycle.

In August, our son Chris completed a two and a half year stint at the home of Japan’s Champion Breeders, Katsumi Yoshida’s Northern Farm, so that was the obvious target of our initial intentions. The Yoshida family are third generation legends of the Japanese breeding scene, though the man largely credited with propelling the country into the forefront of international competition was the current team’s father, Zenya. His prominence arose from his anticipation of the internationalisation of racing and was based on his intrepid forays into the Keeneland yearling market, where he purchased his famous foundation stallion, NORTHERN TASTE (by Northern Dancer) a French Group One winner of the Prix de la Foret, and eleven times Champion Sire of Japan.

The greatest compliment to their father’s founding achievement, came when the three brothers Teruya, Katsumi and Heruya (in order of age) secured the American Champion SUNDAY SILENCE at a time when the Americans had pretty much spurned him, and if it was possible, SUNDAY SILENCE proceeded to outperform even NORTHERN TASTE, reshaping the affairs of Japanese and international breeding.

I remember a chat I had with “Terry” (Teruya) at this same conference in India in 1995, when he told me that the rise of Japanese breeding (and in particular Shadai Farm, which he’d inherited from his father) revolved around the acquisition of horses which had excelled at 2400m (which suits the local programme), when breeders around the world had largely rejected these horses for being too stamina oriented.

The Japanese don’t forget easily, and history reminded them that British and European breeding had thrived on the back of these very horses, so here was an opportunity which led to the purchase of SUNDAY SILENCE and the two “Arc” heroes, TONY BIN and CARROLL HOUSE, while REAL SHADAI and BRIAN’S TIME represented still more stamina from the ROBERTO line.