Belmont Stakes Still Seeking a Breakthrough From Japan

Two years after Lani rallied and briefly threatened to win the Belmont Stakes with a resolute charge, his eventual third-place finish continues to offer game-changing possibilities.

Japanese owners and trainers, who had long viewed the Triple Crown races as unattainable, are now looking to breed and develop more horses like Lani with the qualities necessary to deliver what would be a breakthrough victory. Officials from the New York Racing Association are working to add to the lure of the Belmont which, because of its distance and racing surface, already appears to be the most appealing of the three to Japanese connections.

In 2016, Lani ran ninth in the 1 1/4-mile Kentucky Derby and fifth in the 1 3/16-mile Preakness Stakes before his stamina — an attribute long prized by Japanese breeders — especially showed during his late surge in the 1 1/2-mile Belmont. He gave Martin Panza, NYRA’s senior vice president of racing operations, something to sell during recruiting trips.

“Lani running third certainly helps us when we do go over there,” Panza said. “It let them know, ‘Hey, you can be competitive with the right horse.’”

Panza intends to back up his words with dollars that extend beyond the Belmont’s $1.5 million purse. He said he would soon begin working with an insurance agency to extend a $1 million bonus to any Japan-based horse who competes in and wins next year’s Belmont.

He provided that incentive last year, and it helped attract Epicharis. The well-regarded 3-year-old would have given Japan consecutive starters for the first time in the history of a race renowned as the Test of the Champion. Instead, Epicharis’s misadventure only highlighted the challenges involved in making regular Japanese participation a reality.

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Epicharis was scratched the morning of the 149th Belmont Stakes when he failed an examination mandatory for all starters. A team of veterinarians determined that he was still lame in his right front foot, an issue that had kept him from training each of the previous two days at Belmont Park.

Kiyoshi Hagiwara, Epicharis’s trainer, still feels the sting of traveling so far for naught. “It was a valuable experience for me and my team to bring a horse to the Belmont,” he said via email, with Keita Tanaka serving as translator. Tanaka is the racing manager for Koji Maeda, the owner of Lani.

“But it was also hugely disappointing in coming back home without running there,” Hagiwara continued. “I feel sorry to the owners who gave me a chance, but I was unable to fulfill my commitment.”

Although Epicharis was unable to race, the situation still illustrated to the racing authorities in Japan, the United States and elsewhere how valuable Japanese participation could be from a financial standpoint. Even with the scratch of a horse that was driving Japanese interest, wagering was allowed to continue in a separate pool in Japan and totaled $4.7 million, according to Panza.

“If the horse had run, they probably would have bet $15 million to $20 million, which is a significant amount,” Panza said. “It’s certainly a market we would all like to tap into.”

Although Hagiwara was frustrated, he looks forward to returning. “When I have the right horse in the future,” he said, “I definitely would like to come back to the Belmont, but also to the other big races in the U.S.”

The trainer Mikio Matsunaga is eager to show he can improve on the performance of Lani, whose high-strung nature appeared to work against him during his time in the United States. With Tanaka translating again, Matsunaga said in an email that he would return to the Belmont when he also had “the right horse. I hope it comes in the near future.”

Matsunaga views the Belmont as being particularly approachable. “I believe Japan-trained horses have a better chance of winning the Belmont than the Derby or the Preakness,” he said. “The first two races tend to have an extreme level of early speed, which most Japanese horses find difficult to get involved in. But in the Belmont, tempo in the early stages is usually moderate, so Japanese horses can run much closer to the pace.”

It helps, too, that Belmont Park’s massive oval is nicknamed Big Sandy, a reference to its track composition. Even though Japan continues to emphasize turf racing, its dirt tracks are known for their deep, sandy makeup.

“A major concern of trainers is whether or not their horse’s speed will translate to match those of the American horses,” said Kate Hunter, a Japan-based agent for NYRA and other American racing entities, in an email interview. “So the closer a surface is to the Japanese tracks, the better. A Japanese horse should theoretically handle Belmont’s surface better than other dirt tracks in the United States.”

Recent transactions underscore Japan’s increasing determination to inject speed into dirt horses capable of contending in the Belmont Stakes and the other spring classics. Mind Your Biscuits, two-time winner of the Grade I Dubai Golden Shaheen, was sold recently to Teruya Yoshida of Shadai Farm for an undisclosed sum. It is hoped that Mind Your Biscuits, a strong American dirt sprinter, will combine well with Japanese broodmares that were capable of maintaining a solid, if unspectacular, pace for considerable distances.

Japanese buyers invested $20,506,500 in 64 horses that passed through the Keeneland sales ring in Lexington, Ky., in 2017. Some of their most expensive broodmare purchases were telling.

They spent $1.5 million on Her Emmynency and $1.3 million on Joyful Victory. Both were in foal to Pioneerof the Nile, the 2009 Kentucky Derby runner-up. Lucky To Be Me ($1.25 million) was due to deliver a foal by Uncle Mo, the speedy 2010 dirt champion. Top Decile ($950,000) was in foal to American Pharoah, the 2015 Triple Crown winner.

“I feel the next decade will show a major expansion of the Japanese breed into the world like never before,” Hunter said.

The race in Japan to find the right horse for the Belmont Stakes and other major dirt races is very much on.