8:12 p.m. My task concerning Tenno-sho has been smoothly carried out so far, partly thanks to the meeting cancellation this afternoon, and I'm on day three. There were just two horses left to check Limit Buster and Warp Speed, when I realized that the result of the barrier draw had already been released.

The pace is likely to be slow, perhpas super-slow. That means horses that performed well in their previous races would have the advantage as well as trailers with long-lasting speed.

The End

Caterpillar

8:44 p.m. Oh no, itrained cats and dogs here in Tokyo, I wonder if it also did in Kyoto?

A quick check revealed that the percipitation at Kyoto Racing Course today was 22mm however, the turf condition was announced to be "good to firm" whereas the dirt course condition was announced to be "sloppy". Given another full day of sunshine, the turf condition shall recover to "firm"

I've read before that the renewed Kyoto course has great drainage. Seems that's true after all. A formidable course.

My task schedule was carried out smoothly until yesterday, but that ended abruptly. Now I'm stuck with other tasks pending. Will have to tap in the data tomorrow.

The End

Caterpillar

9:13 p.m. Because I was running behind schedule already yesterday, I haven't finished calling Tenno-sho yet. Well, at least not completely finished. So I'll leave my current conclusion.

My trio candidates have just been narrowed down to six horses, from which I will have to choose a horse to key. The names of the surviving candidates are Blow the Horn, Sunrise Earth, Redentor, Chevallier Rose, Justin Palace, and Byzantine Dream.

As for my insurance quinellas, I've already decided to key Justin Palace. That's why I don't want to key him on my trio.

If nothing goes wrong, I'm thinking that Redentor would be a bit advantaged than Sunrise Earth however, Redentor does have the risk of not performing well when shortening the distance from Diamond Stakes. It might be better after all, to leave both of them on the wheel and key Blow the Horn.

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Caterpillar

7:50 p.m. Oh, no. My only fear concerning Justin Palace was the rider and look what he's done now. In my humble opinion, there were at least three things he shouldn't have done to make Justin Palace perform its best. Very much disappointed.

On the contrary, Damian Lane did a swell job with Redentor. He made a rocket start and when Jean Kazuma rushed off to take the lead evetually making space, Damian settled Redentor in the best position right along the rail before entering the first corner. Yutaka also did his best with Shonan la Punta, therefore he made it to third place.

Yes, I admit there's a gap between good jockies and bad jockies. Though I think that could not be the only reason to buy betting tickets as it's the horses that run after all, not the jockies.

The finishing record was quite fast. In fact, the second fastest in the past 10 years following 2017 when Kiatasan Black won this race for the second time.

The End

Caterpillar

9:01 p.m. Reviewing Tenno-sho crying over spilt milk.

I've put the furlong records down in a line graph to compare with year 2024 and 2023. What stood out was that this year, the horses sped up from the first homestretch around 2000m off the start, and the speed hardly dropped to the finish line except for the last corner.

Usually, the pace doesn't get fast when the horses go past the spectators' stand but rather shifts up closer to the finish line when they get over the second hill and start climbing down towards the last corner.

Apparently, it was different this year. In a way, you might say the horses were forced to go for a super-long spart. No wonder Redentor won. Justin Palace seemed to be suffering, swaying to the outside at the entrance of the last stretch. Now I know why.

Let me add that Andrasch also did a great job with Byzantine Dream.

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Caterpillar

8:45 p.m. Let's move on to NHK Mile Cup.

Because it's a mile race for 3-year-olds only, it's not rare for female horses to enter this race. Looking back on the past 10 years of results, female horses have in fact, been performing pretty well.

Of the thirty horses that finished above third place in the past 10 years, eight of them were female horses. Not surprising considering the 2kg lighter weight they carry.

Since there seem to be several female horses entered this year, I've gone and checked out the past high-performers to find that all the female horses that made it to the podium except Resistencia, had finished above second place against male horses before running in NHK Mile Cup. This might provide support when they're about to compete against male horses again this time, in a G1.

As for Resistencia, she'd already proven her high potential in Hanshin Juvenile Fillies and Ohka-sho, that she was the most favored in win odds in NHK Mile Cup.

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Caterpillar

8:09 p.m. As of today, there are nine female horses entered in NHK Mile Cup this year. Three of them, Sourire Mignon, Neve Fresca, Meant to Be are likely to be excluded, so I checked the remaining six female horses to see whether they had finished above second place against male horses.

It turns out that all of them have except for Tiratore, which I wasn't going to buy in the first place. Among the five female horses that survived, my hope is on Ma Puce. Personally, I think she lost Ohka-sho for a reason so if she draws a middle barrier as well as recover nicely from her damage, I'd be happy to include her on my wheel.

I'll just leave it at that. I have other concerning things I'd like to check out.

The End

Caterpillar

7:55 p.m. The entry for NHK Mile Cup has been closed while I was in a meeting. It looks like we're having a full-field race of 18 horses as expected. Well, it always had been in the past 10 years but still, it's good to hear that the barriers are full.

We're in for some rain starting tomorrow evening however, it's said that it will stop by Saturday morning and the weather would recover, though you never can put full trust on the forecst. I can't tell you how many times I was rushed to change my well-thought-out decision just because the weather had changed from the forecast, resultingly changing the track condition.

Will have to wait and see the rest until the barrier draw announcenent tomorrow, since a lot of the race depends on the barrier.

The End

Caterpillar

8:26 p.m. So here's the awaited barriers.

Hmmm, the pace would probably be average. The question is the track condition. It's already raining in Tokyo, and although the rain is said to stop by tomorrow noon, the precipitation is thought to be quite a lot. Perhaps I should give up the possibility of a firm, fast track?

The End

Caterpillar

9:22 p.m. I'm sorry to have to say that again, I haven't finished up my call for NHK Mile Cup. It sounds like a lame excuse, but I did try hard this week and the data had been entered much earlier. It's just that this race was hard to call as it always is for me.

Anyway, I've managed to come down to six horses and these are the names: Mondo dell'Amore, Cerbiatto, Admire Zoom, Magic Sands, Ma Puce, and Satono Carnaval. I wanted to include Immigrant Song however, I need to delete someone in order to do so.

Unfortunately, I haven't decided which horse to key yet, though Ms. Ma Puce keep popping up in my mind since she drew an outer post like I hoped she would. However, her post number 12 hasn't been performing well whereas post number 11 has been doing pretty well. That's why I'm being hesitant.

The End

Caterpillar

8:15 p.m. I pondered until five this morning and keyed Ma Puce on my trio and Magic Sands on my quinellas. It concerned me that Ma Puce was dropping her position race after race, and also because she was too favored, but I couldn't come up with a better horse to key. Panja Tower never struck me.

As a jockey with green helmet charged up from the outside, stupid Cow said it was Ma Puce was coming up. I didn't believe him as this wasn't the first time he'd screwed it. Nevertheless, my expectation grew bigger when I saw Cerbiatto in the slow playback. After that I was dropped from heaven to hell.

Oh, God. Is it because I was a bad kid? I think this is going to take some time to recover.

The End

Caterpillar

7:52 p.m. Just as I said it's going to take time to recover, I'm already thinking about Victoria Mile Cup. I am pretty surprised with that myself. After all, losses made by races can only be saved with wins.

So I want to move on right away, but I came across an interesting phenomemon while reviewing NHK Mile Cup and I thought I'd ahre the information here before starting my preparations for Victoria Mile Cup.

In advance to NHK Mile Cup, I assumed the pace would be average, if not slow although it turned out to be quite tight with the gap between the first three furlongs and the last three being 0.9 seconds. While I tried vainly to figure out how that happened, I ran into the fact that the most favored horse, in this case Admire Zoom started from barrier 4, post number 7, which reminded me of Grenadier Guards. That was year 2021, the gap between the first three furlongs and the last was 1 second flat, and the most favored Grenadier Guards had started from barrier 4, post number 8.

Considering NHK Mile Cup rarely runs at a tight pace especially, on firm track, could it be sheer coincidence that the most favored horse had started from barrier 4?

The End

Caterpillar