Pepped Up Group

(WED) March 4th, 2026

7:29 p.m. To be precise, there were three horses in the past 10 years that performed well in Nakayama Hinba Stakes, despite finishing below fourth place in their previous three races before Nakayam Hinba. Apart from the already mentioned Shinryokuka, were 2022 champion Kurino Premium and the third place winner of 2016, Meisho Suzanna.

Kurino Premium and Meisho Suzanna hadn't performed well in G1 and in that sense, different from Shinryokuka's (or Soul Stirling's) case. Two things they had in common, though were that they both had a career of performing well on a turf 1800m course with tight corners, as well as that their most recent race before Nakayama Hinba Stakes were run at medium pace with the gap between the first and second halves being within +0.4 to -0.4 seconds. So it's better to have high aptitude to tight-curved, non-major distanced courses in order to perform well on Nakayama 1800m, while it also seems important to experience a relatively faster pace before running in Nakayama Hinba Stakes.

That makes sense. Running in a tighter pace could surely pep up the horses for the next race. And if the pepped up horses originally were highly suited for Nakayama 1800m, it won't come as a surprise if they performed well. Might as well look out for these pepped up group, too.

The End

Caterpillar