Ushba Tesoro captures the Dubai World Cup for red-hot Japan (Dubai Racing Club)
Breeders’ Cup Notes
Japan’s best-ever hope to take home the spoils of the Longines Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1), Takagi Noboru-trained USHBA TESORO (JPN), put in a 4f breeze on Sunday morning at Santa Anita, leaving the quarantine barn at 6:15, walking for 15 minutes to wait for the track to open and proceeding to the main track.
Allowed to ease into his work at the half-mile pole and around the far turn, he did not begin lengthening stride and quickening until turning for home, where he impressed onlookers henceforth and into a considerable gallop-out. While an official time was not published on the work tab, he was hand-timed from the quarter-pole to the 6-furlong pole in 49 2/5 for that 4f sector.
“Very good,” an all-smiles exercise rider Masa Fukami said from atop the 10-time winner, while cooling out with eight laps of the parade ring.
Owned by Ryotokuji Kenji Holdings, the son of six-time G1 winner and dual Arc runner-up Orfevre (also the sire of 2021 Distaff winner Marche Lorraine) has been a force since moving to the dirt, winning seven of eight, with his lone blemish coming off a five-month layoff on a sloppy track. The bay 6-year-old enters in the form of his life, seeking a seventh consecutive victory. Two of his triumphs within said streak came — like the Breeders’ Cup Classic — at the highest level and over 10 furlongs.
The first of those came in December’s Tokyo Daishoten at Oi, one of only two Grade 1s in Japan beyond 1 mile, while the second was the $12 million Dubai World Cup at Meydan in March. Both efforts showed a locomotive-style rally that provided him with comfortable victories. His average margin of victory from his seven dirt victories is 2¼ lengths.
“Moving to dirt helped him,” said Noboru, through a translator. “The timing worked well, and he grew up both physically and mentally from it. He was a difficult horse to control, but with dirt racing, everything matched him, I believe.”
Following a six-month post-Dubai break, he prepped for the Breeders’ Cup with a facile victory in the $456,200 Nippon TV Hai over 1 1/8 miles at Funabashi, tight-turned and left-handed track. Left in his wake that day were Tenkaharu, a well-regarded son of Distaff champion Ginger Punch, as well as Saudi Derby runner-up Sekifu, who entered in career-best form and off a G3 victory. Over similarly tight left-handed bends, he won February’s $1,045,300 Kawasaki Kinen, seven weeks out from his Dubai World Cup conquering.
“The Breeders’ Cup Classic is another big race, and we are the challenger in here,” Noboru continued. “He won at Kawasaki, which also (like Funabashi) has tricky tight bends. I don’t think Santa Anita’s turns will be a problem.”
Japan’s reigning champion jockey, Yuga Kawada, who was aboard for his victories at Funabashi and Meydan, has the return assignment next Saturday. Kawada already has made Breeders’ Cup history, having piloted Japan’s Loves Only You to win the 2021 Filly & Mare Turf.
