From Regaleira’s bid to go back-to-back, to Museum Mile flying the flag for the three-year-old crop, David Morgan breaks down the five storylines set to shape Sunday’s G1 Arima Kinen.
Venue: Nakayama
Distance: 2500m
Value: ¥1,090,000,000 (about US$7,267,000)
The Arima Kinen is Japan’s great fan-voted end-of-year Grand Prix and it has been won by some of the sport’s outstanding champions, including Symboli Rudolf, Oguri Cap, Grass Wonder, Deep Impact, Orfevre, and Equinox.
Regaleira is the overwhelming fan favorite this year, winning the poll with a record 612,771 votes, topping Do Deuce’s 478,415 in 2024 when he was scratched from the race. The record in the pre-Covid era was the mighty Oguri Cap’s 197,682 votes in 1989, when he finished fifth.
Regaleira rolls into Nakayama in the form of her life after wins in the G2 All Comers and the G1 Queen Elizabeth II Cup this autumn, and she is favorite to go back-to-back following her win in last year’s Arima Kinen.
Six horses have won the Arima Kinen twice and four have posted those wins in consecutive years, but there is not a filly or mare among that group. Regaleira would enter a storied realm if she were to win on Sunday, becoming the undisputed queen of the Arima Kinen.
The three-year-old middle-distance colts have come to the fore in Japan this autumn, with Masquerade Ball and Museum Mile taking first and second in the G1 Tenno Sho Autumn, then Masquerade Ball finishing best of the Japanese when second behind the French champion Calandagan in the G1 Japan Cup.
Museum Mile, winner of the year’s first colt’s Classic, the G1 Satsuki Sho in April, will aim to confirm that form with an Arima Kinen victory and show that this year’s three-year-old crop has the edge on its elders. It has been a fairly even split in the last 15 years, with three-year-olds taking eight victories.
The 2024 Japanese Derby winner Danon Decile was third in last year’s Arima Kinen and began this year with two victories that suggested he was destined to be the star of the show: the G2 American Jockey Club Cup and the G1 Dubai Sheema Classic. The latter win, in Dubai, hinted that he had the world at his feet.
Things did not go well for him in a messy running of the G1 Juddmonte International Stakes at York, England, in August, but he showed he was returning to his peak when third in the G1 Japan Cup last time. If he can land the Arima Kinen, he will reestablish his claim to be Japan’s top colt.
Kyoko Maekawa has already earned her place in history as the Japan Racing Association’s (JRA) long-overdue first female trainer. Just nine months after her first runner, she is set to become the first woman to have a starter in the Arima Kinen. She heads to Nakayama on the back of her stable’s seventh winner, Mitono Orfe, at Chukyo on Sunday.
Her representative, Sunrise Zipangu, is a longshot and would cause an almighty shock were he to win, but he is an interesting individual. In the unconventional mold of Maekawa’s mentor Yoshito Yahagi, the four-year-old is switching back to turf from dirt for the first time since finishing 12th in the 2024 G1 Tokyo Yushun, the Japanese Derby. He was runner-up in this year’s G1 February Stakes on the dirt and was last seen finishing eighth in the G1 Champions Cup.
Another longshot, but perhaps a slightly less daunting assignment, is Mystery Way, who will be ridden by the JRA’s tallest jockey, Hiroki Matsumoto. The 23-year-old stands 176 cm (5 feet 9 inches) and earned his first graded stakes win on Mystery Way in the G2 Copa Republica Argentina.
That race was also the Shinya Kobayashi-trained seven-year-old’s first attempt at a graded stakes race and showed that he is in the form of his life this year.
This story first appeared in Idol Horse as "It’s Arima Kinen Week. Here’s What You Need To Know."
