A FORCE FOR RECKONING

Click above to watch the 2010 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe
(Image : Zimbio - Footage : Dubai Racing)

“WORKFORCE HEADING TO JAPAN”

I first met Teruya Yoshida, the present master of his family’s famous Shadai Farm, when we were fellow speakers at an Asian Racing Conference in India in 1995. As we embarked on our aeroplane, he asked me about several aspects of my speech relating to South Africa. In the course of the conversation, we got onto the topic. Starting with his father, of how Zenya had so influenced breeding affairs in Japan to the degree that it had become a world force. I probed him on the subject of what instigated their purchases of the mile and a half winners of the English Derby, the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, which were fundamental elements in the Shadai stallion band. Teruya was quick to respond. For centuries, these races were the proving grounds for the great stallions of Europe, but since the advent of the likes of Sir Ivor and Nijinsky from America, the emphasis among European breeders was on speed. These “Derby” types, whose metier was a mile and a half, and which had served as the foundations of the breed for so long, became surplus to their requirements.

In other words, the Japanese simply stepped into the space so long occupied by the best breeders in Britain, Ireland and continental Europe. However, the Japanese needed as a result to re-write a race programme which would suit the progeny of these horses, and so they came to revere the 2400m plus event as the testing ground for the best horses in Japan. At a time when the third leg of the British Triple Crown, the St Leger (contested at 2800m or a mile and three quarters) had so lost its lustre that few horses which had completed the Guineas / Derby double, even bothered to subscribe for it, the Japanese developed a new and healthy respect for the winner of their St Leger, and even for those horses that excelled in their Group Ones at 3000m, such as the excellent Sunday Silence stallion, Manhattan Café. The key is class, and most good horses, whatever their stamina attributes, have the speed that goes with it. Witness Americain, last year’s winner of the Melbourne Cup, who despite being beaten in this year’s event, still posted the best speed figures in the race.

That the strategy worked, is evident in the many fine Japanese horses which grace the racetracks of the world today, and which are undoubtedly, by any measure, world-class.

No surprise then, that the highest rated horse in Europe last year, the runaway hero of the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, Harbinger, was bought by Shadai when his career came to a sad and abrupt end after the King George. And now we have the news that the English Derby and Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe ace, Workforce, is the next excellent horse to leave British shores for Japan. Yoshida commented “the sire line of Kingmambo is enjoying success in Japan, as seen in the favourable results by King Kamehameha. The maternal line of King’s Best is also very good (that of Galileo and Sea The Stars). His performance as a racehorse was extraordinary. Not only the record breaking victory in the Derby, but also the fact that he drew clear of his field, these were keys in deciding the purchase”.

That the moment Teruya and I alighted the aircraft in India has turned out to be fortuitous, is evident in the relationship we have forged with his brother, Katsumi and his Northern Farm. The only son in Africa of Japan’s greatest-ever stallion, Sunday Silence, (great by the standards of any country anywhere), Admire Main is here courtesy of that meeting.

JAPAN'S SHADAI FARM ACQUIRES HARBINGER

Harbinger
(Photo : Racing International)

JAPAN SWOOPS : THE REST WALLOW

We all know it, the Japanese brought us Toyota, Nissan and Sony, and Shadai Farm gave us Sunday Silence. We’re more interested in horses though, and the Sunday Silence story is a compelling one. As good as he was in earning himself the status of America’s Horse Of The Year, when it came to his retirement to stud, Sunday Silence was blacklisted by American breeders.

It was said that he was too slight, too light of bone, it was said he was crooked in the knees and trailed his hocks. In fact, he was condemned for every possible reason, despite the fact that he was the best horse, by far, of his generation. Frustrated by the lack of appreciation his colleagues exhibited for the horse, Arthur Hancock III took the next best option: he sold the horse to Japan’s most famous breeder, Zenya Yoshida of Shadai Farm. The Japanese have an appreciation for a horse with the stamina to go 2400m, and the ability to beat all-comers, whatever his make or shape.

History tells us this was one of breeding’s most successful gambles, and Sunday Silence went on to wow the rest of the world with a succession of exceptional performers. They ran at two, they ran short and long, they ran on the turf and the dirt, and they excelled at home and abroad. There were simply no limits for the Sunday Silences, and those of us who have them, should cherish the moment. Summerhill’s acquisition of Admire Main in a venture with Shadai Farm is an expression of its appreciation of this great stallion’s legacy. Admire Main’s record may be uniquely Japanese, but the Sunday Silence story is universal.

This week’s announcement of the acquisition of the world’s highest-rated racehorse, once again highlighted the Japanese propensity for a good deal, as well as their appetite for risk, as Shadai Farm outpointed the world in acquiring Harbinger. After suffering a career ending injury following his emphatic win in Ascot’s King George VI & Queen Elizabeth II Stakes (Gr1), has been sold to stand in Japan.

According to Highclere Thoroughbred Racing’s website, the deal to sell the four-year-old to the Shadai Group “values the horse as one of the highest-priced transactions in recent times”. Director John Warren explained, “There were a number of top stud farms from both home and abroad involved in the negotiations, and there was a very strong bid to keep the horse in England. Unfortunately for the British bloodstock industry, the final bid from the famous Shadai Group, where Sunday Silence stood, was far too strong to be able to compete.” Harbinger is currently in recovery following the condylar fracture he sustained to his near-fore cannon bone at the start of last month when being prepared for York’s Juddmonte International (Gr1).

SUNDAY SILENCE SON TOPS JAPAN SIRES' LIST

Manhattan Cafe
(Photos : Oumanoshasin/Impereal)

MANHATTAN CAFE

Manhattan Cafe, a son of deceased leading Japanese sire Sunday Silence, heads the 2009 Japanese sires’ list by progeny earnings. His runners earned $27,791,565 according to the Japan Racing Association.

Remarkable as it might seem, Sunday Silence is the sire of the top three stallions on the list and 10 of the top 20. Agnes Tachyon, who headed the list in 2008, ranks second, and Dance In The Dark ranks third. Sunday Silence himself, who died in August 2002, ranks 28th. We take comfort from the fact that in the accomplished racehorse, Admire Main, Summerhill has the only son of Sunday Silence on the African continent.

Japanese-bred Manhattan Cafe, who is out of the Law Society mare Subtle Change and unusually these days, a winner of the Japanese Ledger Group 2, was represented by several graded stakes winners, including grade 1 winner Red Desire, who finished third in the Japan Cup (Jpn-1). Twelve-year-old Manhattan Cafe stands at the Yoshida family’s Shadai Stallion Station on the island of Hokkaido.

Shadai patriarch Zenya Yoshida purchased a quarter-interest in Sunday Silence after the Kentucky-bred son of Halo had been voted North America’s 1989 Horse Of The Year and Champion 3-year-old male. Yoshida later bought out his partners’ interest in Sunday Silence and sent him to Shadai for Stallion Duty.

TOP 20 STALLIONS IN JAPAN
2009

	Sire		Earnings
1	Manhattan Cafe	Sunday Silence	$27,791,565
2	Agnes Tachyon	Sunday Silence	$24,804,196
3	Dance In The Dark	Sunday Silence	$24,702,435
4	Symboli Kris S	Kris S.	$24,249,924
5	Kurufune	French Deputy	$23,126,728
6	Special Week	Sunday Silence	$23,120,054
7	Fuji Kiseki	Sunday Silence	$22,952,674
8	King Kamehameha	Kingmambo	$18,715,935
9	Sakura Bakushin O	Sakura Yutaka O	$17,711,152
10	Tanino Gimlet	Brian’s Time	$17,398,054
11	Stay Gold	Sunday Silence	$16,940,467
12	French Deputy	Deputy Minister	$15,186,413
13	Neo Universe	Sunday Silence	$15,161,924
14	Brian’s Time	Roberto	$14,776,663
15	Taiki Shuttle	Devil’s Bag	$14,159,554
16	Jungle Pocket	Tony Bin	$14,075,565
17	Gold Allure	Sunday Silence	$13,770.576
18	Admire Vega	Sunday Silence	$12,966,707
19	Marvelous Sunday	Sunday Silence	$12,440,859
20	Grass Wonder	Silver Hawk	$12,391,609

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.

LAND OF THE RISING SUN : The dawning of a New Era?

Shunsuke Yoshida and Mick Goss
(Photo : Tarryn Liebenberg)

About a fortnight ago we posted a piece on the anticipated visit of a delegation from Japan’s Champion breeders, Northern Farm, which is part of the Japanese thoroughbred legend. Summerhill has taken great pride in its four consecutive Breeders Championships in an era when competition for the title has never been greater. Katsumi Yoshida’s Northern Farm has managed this on six consecutive occasions, each time at the expense of the fabled Shadai Farm, property of Katsumi’s older brother Teruya. On the face of it, this sibling rivalry has all the tenets of an internecine struggle, and while the battle for the championship is contested as stoutly as any, it’s all done in a spirit of considerable mutual admiration.

Both sons of the father of Japanese breeding’s international renaissance, Zenya Yoshida, the premiership is always a tightly contested affair between the brothers, best illustrated in the past season’s results when Northern Farm’s total earnings eclipsed those of Shadai by a mere $1 million and a touch, an aggregate of $75 million being Northern Farms championship winning total. Imagine that, $75 million US dollars (R750 million) in a single season!.

In a recent interview in America’s most famous weekly, The Blood Horse, Teruya proclaimed Katsumi’s exploits as “legend”, adding that Katsumi was the man he admired most in the breeding business. The fact is, the three brothers (there’s a third, Heruya) have it in them to co-operate on a broad scale, notwithstanding the rivalry for the Breeder’s crown, and collectively they preside over an assembly of Japan’s most formidable stallions at Shadai Stallion Station, where nine of the nation’s top ten stallions reside. We’ve always been in awe of Coolmore’s dominance of the European stallion logs, but Shadai brings a new dimension to our understanding.

The delegation this week included Katsumi’s son, Shunsuke Yoshida, resident veterinarian, Dr Kiyosumi Suygaya, and Yuku Matsmura. You can imagine the banter passing between us during the course of the weekend, and the exchange of ideas between representatives of a nation which leads the world technologically, and one which has to be as innovative as creativity allows, in order to maintain a semblance of competiveness in the international racing world.

Who knows, this could lead to the advent of Africa’s first son of Sunday Silence at stud.