Up With the Birds Taking Flight in Japan Cup

Sam-Son Farm’s homebred Up With the Birds, Canada’s Horse of the Year for 2013, is expected to make his next start in the prestigious $5.2 million, mile and one-half turf Japan Cup, November 30 at Tokyo Racecourse.

“That’s the plan as we speak,” explained trainer Malcolm Pierce.  “He’s invited and we’re just starting to put the paperwork in order, because it’s a big process.  It’s an honour (to be invited).  It’s a trip of a lifetime.”

The four-year-old son of Stormy Atlantic-Song of the Lark was a fast-closing second in the Grade 3 Knickerbocker at Belmont Park over very yielding ground last Saturday.  Overall, he’s won seven of his 14 lifetime outings, including the Breeders’ Stakes and Grade 1 Jamaica last year, and Canada’s two richest races for juveniles in 2012 – the turf Cup and Saucer and the Coronation Futurity on Polytrack, for earnings approaching $1.4 million.

“He came out of the Knickerbocker really well.  He came out of it 100%.  The turf was really yielding and soft.  He got himself so far back.  I think the turf course got me beat both Saturday and Sunday, because I ran Overheard on Sunday there and she did the same thing, came flying and got beat a neck and a nose.”

Regarding the Japan Cup, “Timing-wise, it gives him a good six weeks (between races).  It’s going to be a lot of travel.  I think it’s 15 hours for the horses on a plane.  They have to stop and refuel.   He’s got to get from here to either Chicago or New York to fly to Japan.   And if we want to spend a week at the track (before the race), which is what I’d like to do, in order to get a final workout over the track, I think they’re talking about us leaving here on November 15, 15 days before the race.  But it would be the trip of a lifetime.”  

Past winners of the Japan Cup, which is run counter-clockwise, similar to North American racing, include such stars as Lando (1995), Singspiel (1996), Pilsudski (1997), El Condor Pasa (1998), Falbrav (2002), Deep Impact (2006) and Gentildonna, winner in 2012 and 2013.

Singspiel won the 1996 edition of the Canadian International before his dramatic Japan Cup effort.

 

Source: Woodbine Entertainment Group