Museum Mile drew away in the final furlong and set a stakes record on Sunday at Nakayama to win the Gr1 Satsuki Sho, Japan’s 2000 Guineas and the first leg of their Triple Crown.
Breaking smoothly from gate 11 in the field of 18, the 3-year-old Leontes colt traveled wide in mid-pack early in the roughly 2000m race.
Museum Mile (9-1) rallied briefly with odds-on favourite Croix du Nord (1-2) nearing the sixteenth pole but soon pulled away with a powerful turn of speed to win by 1 1/2 lengths.
Joao Moreira stays low as Museum Mile storms home (Pic – JRA)
The winning time on the good-to-firm course was 1:57.0 without a run-up for the 2000 meters, 13 yards short of 1 1/4 miles. That was one-tenth of a second faster than the Satsuki Sho record set last year by Justin Milano.
Owned by Sunday Racing, Museum Mile was ridden by Joao ‘Magic Man’ Moreira.
He became the sixth jockey since Christophe Lemaire in 2019 to claim both the Oka Sho (Gr1) and the Satsuki Sho in the same year. It was his fifth Japan Grade 1 victory.
“When we were turning for home, we were a bit unbalanced, maybe because the ground was not so smooth,” Moreira said. “But when I got him on the stretch, he just dashed home, and when he took the lead with 150 meters to go, he kept running away, showing me that he’s got so much ability.”
Museum Mile’s trainer Daisuke Takayanagi earned his first classic win and his third in a Group 1.
Croix du Nord, who was Japan’s champion juvenile colt last year, stalked in fourth before surging out of the second right turn and into the lead at the eighth pole. Although he was overtaken by Museum Mile, the Kitasan Black colt ran persistently, holding off the strong charges from behind to secure second place.
Masquerade Ball (12-1), who came in from a Grade 3 victory, was 11th before he tipped out for the stretch run with the second-fastest late drive. He finished third by a half-length over fourth-place Giovanni (22-1).
After a third-place debut in August, Museum Mile broke his maiden next out in Kyoto. Another win preceded his runner-up finish in the Futurity (G1) to end his 2-year-old season. He kicked off the current season with a fourth in the Deep Impact Kinen (G2) on March 9.
The 2400m Tokyo Yushun (Gr1), also known as the Japanese Derby, will be run on 1 June as the leg of the Triple Crown. The 3000m Kikuka Sho (Gr1), Japan’s St. Leger, will complete the series on 26 October at Kyoto.
