Japan Grade 1: Arma Veloce wins, May Day Ready finishes 13th
Arma Veloce earned her first graded-stakes victory and Japan’s 2-year-old fillies championship title in only her third career start, winning by 1 1/4 lengths Sunday in the 76th running of the Grade 1, US$934,324 Hanshin Juvenile Fillies on the turf at Kyoto.
U.S.-based May Day Ready, the first international participant since the race was opened in 2010 to horses outside Japan, faded to finish 13th under jockey Frankie Dettori.
“Frankie said she was spinning her wheels trying to get a hold of the turf, so she may have wanted something a little harder,” May Day Ready’s trainer Joseph Lee said. “It wasn’t the result we wanted of course, but we tried. We’ll give her a little break now and then come back and hopefully run as well as she did before.”
May Day Ready (8-1), owned by Larry and Karen Doyle’s KatieRich Stables, broke sharply from post 17 in the field of 18. Keeping pace with the leaders up to the one clockwise turn, the Tapit filly appeared to have used up a lot of energy after a wide trip. She faded soon after turning into the homestretch of the roughly one-mile race.
“The race was good,” Dettori said. “I had a good position, but the filly had a long season. She prefers really fast ground. It was a little bit loose, and the first time right-handed confused her a little bit, so the combination of the three things was why she ran no race today. And also it’s the fifth run in four months, so she’s tired. It was a long way here.”
May Day Ready finished second Nov. 1 in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf at Del Mar. Before that she won her first three starts, including her Aug. 4 debut at Saratoga, the Kentucky Downs Juvenile Fillies on Sept. 8 and the Jessamine (G2) on Oct. 4 at Keeneland.
Arma Veloce (9-1) broke smoothly and chased pacesetter Mistress from mid-pack close behind May Day Ready. The Harbinger filly trained by second-time Grade 1 winner Hiroyuki Uemura never missed a beat after circling wide into the straight. She turned in a terrific turn of speed along the wide route, powering past her rivals to reach contention in the last sixteenth of a mile. She continued to draw away and win by a comfortable margin.
“It feels great to be able to stand here as a Grade 1 winner after six years of waiting,” said jockey Mirai Iwata, whose first top-level victory also was his 12th graded-stakes win. “I had a feeling that the filly had a great potential ever since I started riding her, and today she justified that with great finishing speed. I was too occupied in driving her to the finish, so I didn’t know until I had crossed the wire, but with no horse next to me then, I felt I had done it. The filly is really easy to ride and responsive when asked, so this is her strong point.”
Vip Daisy (17-1) joined Arma Veloce for the stretch run with matching speed before capitulating to finish second. Teleos La La (15-1) rallied for the lead at the furlong pole before being overtaken late, outdueling Shonan Xanadu (34-1) in a photo finish for third place.
Post-time favorite Brown Ratchet (2-1) was a fraction slow out of the gate, having to race a little farther back than her usual position in mid-field. She had little to show after meeting traffic at the top of the stretch and was well beaten in 16th.
The winning time for Arma Veloce on the good-to-firm turf was 1:33.4 without a run-up for the 1,600 meters, 10 yards short of a mile. The early fractions were 22.7, 46.5 and 1:10.5.
Arma Veloce most recently lost by a nose finishing second against males in the 1 1/8-mile Sapporo Nisai (G3) after a win in her career debut in August at Sapporo, also at nine furlongs.
Sunday’s race was shifted temporarily to Kyoto due to ongoing renovation at Hanshin.