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.

The End

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.

The End

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.

The End

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

8:26 p.m. As i asked Gemini a few questions about the past Victoria Mile Cup in my vain attempt to save time even for a little, Gemini responded me a returning a confusing answer.

My questions were about horses that performed well to finish above third place in Victoria Mile Cup in the last 10 years, and Gemini displayed a list of horse names confidently. The list was in ascending order (well taught!) but at the end of the list that referred to 2024, there was a name I didn't recognize.

Huh? Teumessa? My waining memory tells me the top three of 2024 were Ten Happy Rose who'd unfortunately already retied from JRA, Masked Diva and someone else. It certainly wasn't Teumassa. Teumassa?? WHO???

The End

Caterpillar

9:05 p.m. Sorry, there's a slight correction to make. The horse's name was Teumessa, not Teumassa.

A quick serach revealed my misspelling as well as that Teumessa did exist as a four-year-old female horse, though has never run in Victoria Mile Cup. She's struggling in the 3-wins class so I'm afraid she won't be able to make it this year either, even if she was entered.

There was more besides Teumessa.

According to Gemini, Keiai Elegant has finished above third place in both 2014 and 2015, which is not true.

My prompts may not have been easy to understand for Gemini however, it should learn to say "I'm sorry but I may be inaccurate on that one so can you please look them up on your own?"

The End

Caterpillar

9:22 p.m. Since Gemini was unreliable, I decided it had to be done on my own resorting to manual labor. I barely finished typing in the basic stats of the horses today and it' already this late.

Meanwhile, the entry for Victoria Mile Cup has been closed and it will run with 18 horses this year, which is good to hear as I always say. I see a couple of names that I could delete from my list right away, but will do that tomorrow as I'm running behind schedule.

Besides, I want to wait for the weather forecast until the last minnute. It looks like rain this weekend and I want to get the latest information to assume precipitation, which would be the basis of assuming the track condition.

The End

Caterpillar

8:58 p.m. The barriers for Victoria Mile Cup have been drawn, so let's take a look.

Ascoli Piceno has drawn the second most outward post. She has already proven that she can perform well on firm, fast turf in Keisei-hai, and I think she can handle starting from the outward post, but she might do better starting from an inner post. The question rahter seems to lie in her condition after winning in 1351 Turf Sprint.

The End

Caterpillar

9:18 p.m. Sorry, but I'm too sleepy to think of anything. I've tried, and in that sense very hard however, I haven't made progress for the last 15 minutes and so I decided to call it a day, although I haven't finished calling Victoria Mile Cup.

Seven horses are still remaining currently, and their names are Argine, Safira, Ravel, Shinryokuka, Admire Matsuri, Bond Girl, and Ascoli Piceno. The candidate for my key is Argine so far, because Ascoli Piceno seems risky.

In order for Ascoli Piceno to perform well, she would need a slow to average pace on a firm, fast track. Since I'm not sure all these conditions will be met, I can't key her on my betting tickets.

Argine on the other hand, will be a more secure key if the pace gets tight.

The End

Caterpillar

7:55 p.m. I apologize for doubting and take my hat off to Ascoli Piceno.

Though I thought there is a chance for the pace to get tight, I wasn't quite sure while I couldn't get to grips with the track condition either. I should have given this race a pass. Observing myself I've learned that I can't win when I can't pin down either the pace or the track condition, sometimes both.

Victoria Mile Cup's result show that the track condition was softer and more power-consuming than I'd imagined, despite JRA's announcement of "firm". It was completely different from that last week when Panja Tower won NHK Mile Cup.

One good thing is that I was able to pick up a lot of information from this year's Victoria Mile Cup so as to make use of them in mile races, especially Tokyo mile races in the future.

One bad thing was that I'd bought betting tickets for Sing That Song starting from post number 11 instead of Shirankedo starting from 12 again without learning from failure.

The End

Caterpillar

8:32 p.m. Time fies and it's already time for Oaks. I must stop the continuing losing streak.

Assuming from the results of Victoria Mile Cup, Tokyo turf (B course) is shifting from a speed track to a power-consuming course with damage left on the inside. In addition, we're having drizzly weather towards the weekend, which would benefit horses with tough, European pedigree background. The 2400m distance is already a stamina-demanding condition for a three-year-old filly, but if it rains on top of that, the demand for stamina will only increase.

Luckily, my Thursday meeting has ben cancelled this week. Let me make the best of that chunk time to win.

The End

Caterpillar

8:06 p.m. As I pointed out, Oaks is going to be a stamina race. Nevertheless, long-lasting speed is also necessary as the race is held on Tokyo turf. The 525.9 meter homestretch will not be kind to front runners, unless the track is soft with the pace accurately average as if measured in order to create a monotonous race character.

Horses running in Ohka-sho previously are advantaged compared to horses running other trial races, as 19 of them finished above third place in Oaks in the recent 10 years. Experiencing a tough race like Ohka-sho can boost perfomance, just like we've seen with our own eyes when Cerbiatto finished third in NHK Mile Cup despite being the 12th favored.

That means you can't simply avoid Embroidery or Arma Veloce, however favored they may be.

The End

Caterpillar

8:19 p.m. Apparently, it seems like the tide is turning.

The rain that was predicted to fall from Friday to Saturday has shifted to Sunday, and the chance of precipitation for Sunday has jumped up from 60% to 100%. This might bring he track bias method I worked on two years ago into action.

On the expected win odds chart, Arma Vloce who had been shown second after Embroidery until yesterday has suddenly shot up to the top. It must have something to do with the change in weather.

Meanwhile, the owner side of Ascoli Piceno has retracted their statement of entering Yasuda Kinen as Piceno's next race. The plan of running in Yasuda Kinen had just been released yesterday, but now they say they can't make it because Ascoli Piceno is showing significant fatigue, ha!

It only shows how tough Victoria Mile turned out to be.

The End

Caterpillar

8:28 p.m. It's Thursday, and it's Oaks. Let's look at the barrier draw results.

It doesn't look like it's going to be a tight-lapped race to me so far. Depending on precipitation and how soft the track becomes, it might benefit the front runners.

The End

Caterpillar

8:48 p.m. According to this afternoon's forecast, it's likely that the rain would start falling from tomorrow evening and stop before Sunday noon. However, the precipitation is thought to be as much as warning level. I'm not sure how much that'd be, but the turf won't dry up to record-breaking level even in the strong wind they're predicting. I'm guessing the track condition would be close to that of last week.

As we all know already, Victoria Mile Cup turned out to be a tough race regardless of the distance. Saving stamina will be crucial.

I've read articles worrying about Arma Veloce because there hasn't been an Oaks winner starting from post number 1. Well, she might not win depending on her position, but I think she can handle the power-consuming turf. It might even be good stamina-wise to start from post number 1 especially, if the rider could keep a good position during the race.

The End

Caterpillar

9:42 p.m. I feel sorry that I haven't been able to finish my calls every time recently. I'm doing what I can but it takes time to organize my thoughts especially, when the situation is unstable and my mind confused.

Currently I'm down with six horses, which still might change because I'm in a confused state at the moment. I need to organize my thoughts.

I'm pretty sure the track condition would be either good to firm or firm tomorrow, with the pace possibly average to slow, so let me take up again from there.

Incidentally, the six horses remaining now are Arma Veloce, Paradis Reine, Lynx Tip, Embroidery, Kamunyak, and Erika Express. Arma Veloce and Erika Express are my recommends. On the contrary, I'm reluctant on Lynx Tip and Embroidery.

The End

Caterpillar

8:10 p.m. After having painful experiences two weeks in a row, I was too obsessed with horse number 12 that I'd accidentally boughtBrown Ratchet on my wheel. As a result, Tagano Abby, which I thought might have a chance to finish third in a turf condition as today, got pushed out of my wheel.

I'd keyed Erika Express on my trio wheel while I didn't have Kamunyak on my quinellas. Really, it sucks.

Excuse me for my bad language. I get pricky when my hard work don't pay out. Looking at the bright side, though I am close to winning. That's why it hurts so much.

The End

Caterpillar

8:23 p.m. The results of Oaks tell us that the turf condition was very close to that of the week before. It also impresses me how Arma Veloce fought well, but needs one more push though I'm not sure what that could be.

Come to think of it, Arma Veloce has performed very well so far starting from Sapporo last summer never finishing behind third place regardless of the class. We won't know which horse would be entering the Shuka-sho yet, at least not at this point when Oaks has just finished. Still, Arma Veloce's averagely high performance would surely be worth considering as the main cast of the third crown.

On the other hand, I regret keeping Embroidery and Lynx Tip on my wheel. I was reluctant to keep both of them in the first place. If I hadn't been so defensive, I would have been able to include Tagano Abby.

As for Erika Express, I overestimated her strength. Wanting her to be a longshot was only my wishful thinking when she was a runaway.

The End

Caterpillar

8:30 p.m. It's not good. Things aren't looking good for the past month. I ought to put a stop to this.

So it's the D'erby this week. As you can easily imagine, the Satsuki-sho group (horses that ran Satsuki-sho) will be favored since they have been performing well in this race for as long as I can remember. Therefore, Museum Mile would be favored probably, following Croix du Nord however, Satsuki-sho winners haven't won the D'erby in the past 10 years apart from Contrail and Duramente.

Personally, I don't think Museum Mile is as great as Contrail or Duramente. That means he won't be on the first row of my trio or trifecta formation.

The End

Caterpillar

9:28 p.m. It's late. I'm way behind schedule, thanks to a major online shopping site that keeps trying to trick me into paying the shipping fee.

So many things are annoying. Not having music shops in good access, even if there was one, they don't sell guitar parts anymore like they used to so I have to go online to find a shop that sells certain parts. Then, I have to make new acounts here and there, only to use them once. Sorry, I didn't mean to bicker, I was just so frustrated.

Getting back to D'erby, they say it's going to rain from tomorrow evening. And it's said to stay until Saturday, raining on and off. Sunday is predeicted to be cloudy or sunny, but you never know at this point.

What I want to say is that the track condition could be pretty tough again. All the more reason to dislike Museum Mile this time since he didn't perform well on a time-consuming track at the time of Yayoi-sho. And that was the next race after he performed well in a G1, Asahi-hai Futurity Stakes. Who could trust him?

The End

Caterpillar

8:21 p.m. It's Thursday. D'erby's barriers have been drawn and announced.

It doesn't look like the pace is going to be tight. That's another blow for Museum Mile while Croix du Nord has won a perfect draw. If he doesn't win starting from post number 13 in this situation, then he probably won't live up to his expectations. As I've said before, having Kitasan Black as a sire doesn't necessarily mean the horse is going to be the next Equinox.

The End

Caterpillar