8:33 p.m. Oh, no. Oh no, no, no, no, no! I won this race. I won Nakayama Kinen! Because the turf seemed to have dried more than yesterday, I decided that won't be good for Magic Sands to replace him with Ecoro Walz. So I finally won the first race this season. Then why, why is my trio payout smaller than the quinella payout? Why?

Ugh! I'm in the red! I shouldn't have chickened out on buying trifectas if this was the case. I could at least, have bought exactas since I knew it would be Lebensstil to win this race. Or I could even have put everything on win. These betting tickets would have brought back more! But I somehow chose betting tickets that has the worst cost for money.

It's almost miraculous how I always make the worst decisions. But well, I finally picked up my first win, though not satisfactory.

The End

Caterpillar

9:22 p.m. I'm not happy with yesterday's result even though it was my first win this season. Luckily, there's Nakayama Hinba Stakes this week although it's on Saturday. It should be a perfect race to blow off some steam, only if I could win it because Nakayama Hinba is run on Nakayama turf 1800m. As anyone can see, it's run on the same course in the same distance as Nakayama Kinen, which means that I might have a better shot at winning right after I've won Nakayama Kinen.

I think I don't need to change my approach from the way I called Nakayama Kinen. It could be said that basically, Nakayama Hinba also gives advantage to inner post drawers and front runners just like Nakayama Kinen. There is one thing however, that I realized after Nakayama Kinen. In order to perform well under the conditions of current Nakayama turf 1800m, horses not only need initial velocity to get good positions up front, but also need enough speed (and power) to keep the position so that they could take over the runaway on the short homestretch.

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Caterpillar

9:19 p.m. Checking out the trends of Nakayama Hinba Stakes concerning step races.

As already mentioned, the basical approach stays the same as Nakayama Kinen. Since Nakayama Hinba is run on the same course as well as in the same distance as Nakayama Kinen, the pace rarely gets tight just like Nakayama Kinen. And because it usually runs at a leisurely pace, again horses that have finished above third place in either of their recent two (or three) races are performng well.

However, there seem to be a few more horses that haven't performed well in either of their recent two (or three) step races compared to Nakayama Kinen, so I tried analyzing the characteristics of each horse.

Shinryokuka the third place winner of Nakayama Hinba 2024, has been losing below fifth place in all five of the races she ran before Nakayama Hinba, but she'd finished second in Hanashin Juvenile Fillies behind Liberty Island six races earlier to Nakayama Hinba Stakes. It's the case where the high performance at a G1 race has backfired. You might call her the Soul Stirling type in Nakayama Kinen.

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Caterpillar

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.

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Caterpillar

8:08 p.m. I've looked up the entrees of Nakayama Hinba Stakes to see if there were any Soul Stirling or Shinryokuka type and found three. Erika Express has finished second in Shuka-sho, while Stellenbosch is an Ohka-sho champion as well as runner-up for both Hanshin JF and Oaks. Bond Girl has also finished second in Shuka-sho. As Soul Stirling and Shinryokuka both performed well in Hanshin JF, perhaps Stellenbosch may be more closer than Erika Express or Bond Girl. Paradis Reine has also finished second in Queen Elizabeth Cup, though I think that might be a little different from Shinryokuka's case.

It looks like the feared rain won't fall. Even if it does, it's likely to be slight. I wonder what the track condition of Nakayama might be like after the rain on Tuesday? Well, it should be released tomorrow. All that matters now is the barrier draw. The entry has been closed today and the race is going to run with 16 horses BTW.

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Caterpillar

9:03 p.m. Cow was desperately trying to listen to the radio broadcasting of WBC Japan versus Taiwan game on TV. I felt sorry for him and downloaded Radiko onto my iPad so he could listen to the game while I work downstairs. I could work listening to the live streaming via my desktop. See what Netflix's exclusive distribution adds to the hassle while Mr. N-jima having good old friends back from his school baseball club, must be fully enjoying the game LIVE at Tokyo Dome.

Me, I've worked hard to figure out which horse to pick for Nakayama Hinba Stakes, ears listening to the streaming. Yamamoto wasn't good today. Can't blame him at this time of year, after what he's done last season.

The turf seems to be good to firm in reality, though it's announced to be good as of this morning. The rain hasn't dried off yet whereas there's still a chance of slight rain from tonight to early tomorrow morning. Nevertheless, I'm thinking that the turf would dry off by the time of the race since it's expected to get windy tomorrow. Currently remaining on my list are Paradis Reine, Bond Girl, Flaming Hoop, Stellenbosch, Angola Black, and Nishino Ti Amo. But I'm not sure about Paradis Reine as her condition puts a question mark. Stellenbosch is also unreliable forced to carry 57.5kg, considerably heavy weight for a female horse even though she's a G1 champion horse.

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Caterpillar

8:23 p.m. Just because I've done something I usually don't, look what happened. A disaster.

The turf wasn't as dry s I'd hoped it to be, so I added Erika Express in a hurry thinking that the front runners would be advantaged. But then, it didn't hit me that inner post drawers would also be much advantaged when the track condition is soft. I'm not good at adapting to changing circumstances.

Checked out Yayoi-sho in frustration, though I don't think I could avoid Admire Quads and Reichsadler, the first and second favored in win odds. It's a small-field race. I guess it's not worth betting on unless I could pinpoint the third place winner on a trifecta.

Well, I'll think about it some more.

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Caterpillar

8:36 p.m. Eventually, I bought trifectas for Yayoi-sho keying Admire Quads on first place with Reichsadler and Basse Terre on the second as well as third row. Another disaster. I shouldn't have bet on the race from the start.

I mean, look at the trio payout. 470 yen! What, are you kidding? You only get less than 500 yen even when you call the top 3 horses right? Gimme a break! Look at the trifecta payout. You call the top 3 horses in order and JRA is only going to pay back 4,820 yen!? It's ridiculous!

Will say that again. It's ridiculous!

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Caterpillar

8:32 p.m. The Chukyo races are finally beginning this week, with Kinko-sho kicking off as the first grade race. Quite a few competitors are entered such as last year's champion Queen's Walk, June Take, Douradores and Ho O Biscuits. The focus will also be on how Giovanni and Urban Chic might perform while they haven't been making good results lately.

Kinko-sho is intriguing, though I can't simply give up Nakayama either since we're having Spring Stakes, another 1800m race. As you already know, I've been struggling with Nakayama turf 1800m for the past month and now that I've come this far, I feel like I should stick to it to try one more time. But it does seem pretty tricky so what should I do?

Just saw the expected win odds for Spring Stakes which showed 1.9 for Crepuscular. Unbelievable, unreliable, and reidiculous! Isn't htat too overrated no matter how you look at it?

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Caterpillar

9:27 p.m. If I'm going to stick to Nakayama 1800m, there's no avoiding reflecting on Nakayama Hinba Stakes. I need to know what exactly I did wrong.

Nakayama Hinba Stakes was difficult to call for me for two things. One was the track condition, which turned out to be good to firm despite being in relatively good condition with fast records. Because the track condition was announced to be good to firm contrary to my expectation, I panicked and all the theories in my head got blown way. If I'd been calm enough to take in the information to link it to my memory, it may not have been that hard to come up with the potential horses to perform well on Nakayama turf 1800m.

Usually when the turf condition gets soft while the pace isn't so fast, the inner post drawers and front runners are much advantaged. It would be difficult for the outer post drawers to take over the horses running ahead of them because of the pace and the distance loss they are forced to bear. So if you wanted to perform well from an outer post, all you can do is to either go up front or sweep up the outside to gradually raise the position.

If there was no outer post drawer who could adopt either strategy, the top 3 finishers (or even more) would be dominated by inner post drawers. This is what happened in Nakayama Hinba Stakes.

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Caterpillar

8:37 p.m. The other thing that made it hard to call Nakayama Hinba Stakes was the formation. I guessed either Erika Express or Lesedrama would take the lead since they'd drawn outer posts, while Nishino Tiamo would go up front for the same reason. If things had played out as I had assumed, I thought the horses would form a tightly packed formation, which would make it difficult for inner post drawers to beak away from the group.

The problem was that I couldn't be sure about my assumption. But well, you never could be sure about how the race might unfold as unfortunately I'm not born with some special talent to forsee the future. So I guess I shouldn't blame myself too much about it. What I can improve, though is to be more careful. After all, I knew that the track condition would largely benefit the inner post drawers, so I should have paid more attention to the inner post drawers. Especially to horses like Beyond the Valley previously running in a dirt G1, which became a perfect pep race, or Ethelfleda, a Nakayama specialist carrying lighter weight.

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Caterpillar

9:17 p.m. If the weather stays as predicted by the forecasts, it's likely that we'd go without rain this weekend. Nevertheless, I tink the fundamentals of Nakayama turf 1800m won't change, so I should carve it down in my memory. Additionally, Spring Stakes is a step race for Satsuki-sho and will be limited to 3-year-olds therefore, I don't have to worry about which horse carries lighter weight. What I should focus on are the pace, the possible formation, the track condition including whether it's biased, and which horses would benefit from these already mentioned factors as well as the barrier draw.

Entry has been closed and 16 horses will be running this year's Spring Stakes. Crepuscular's expected win odds has slightly dropped to 2.0, though I'm still not sure why that happens while Ask Edinburgh, the third place wnner in Hopeful Stakes (G1!) or Teruhiko finishing in fourth place only 2-lenghts behind Peintre Naif in Tokyo Sports-hai are also entered.

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Caterpillar

8:52 p.m. Looking at the racing form of Spring Stakes, I realize there were more horses that might want to take the lead than I'd expected there'd be. They are clustered together, though not spread apart so I guess one horse would run away and the others would follow in a formation. When the formation settles, so will the pace. I'd say it's likely to become medium or even slow, depending on which horse takes the lead.

Considering that the pace probably won't get tight, the inner post drawers will be advantaged. Outer post drawers might experience a tough race. Crepuscular has unfortunately drawn an outer post. To my eyes he seems to have been driven to a tight corner even though I will keep him on t he wheel just for the rider.

Meanwhile, the expected win odds for Crepuscular has inched up again and showing 1.9 as of this evening. It will be interesting to see how the odds change or not change tomorrow.

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Caterpillar

9:13 p.m. I did say the inner post drawers will be advantaged. Once I started choosing my candidates, though I realized it was hard to find horses in inner posts that might achieve better results than their previous races. The front runners are mostly concentrated in inner posts, so the position battle can get fierce, though that doesn't necessarily mean that the pace would get tight. And because most of them have only experienced races in shorter distance with smaller fields of horses, it's hard to think they could survive the pushing and squeezing. They've only just started racing after all.

I think I can trust Ask Edinburgh, but I'm not really sure about the others currently remaining on my list, to be specific, Last Smile, Meiner Cymbeline, Crepuscular, Mr Right, and Audacia. Basically, I'm rating the front runners highly for outer post drawers.

The win odds I've been looking forward to see hasn't changed much BTW. Crepuscular's win odds is going back and forth between 2.0 and 1.9. Duh, uninteresting.

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Caterpillar

8:06 p.m. Yet again, one horse missing from my trio wheel, damn it! Why didn't I buy Acrophase instead of Mr Right? Wasn't Benbatl descendants supposed to be good at firm, fast track condition such as today's? Mr Right eventually wasn't right at all for me, he was rather Mr Wrong.

Crepuscular sunk in seventh place. See? One shouldn't trust a 3-year-old running only two races when the odds drop to the one point something range, no matter how great the rider is. I had reason to doubt his performance and that's the one only good thing that happened to me this week.

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Caterpillar

8:07 p.m. Not sure where or how I could vent out my frustration caused by Spring Staks as well as the WBC. I can't do anything about WBC, but I shall get my Nakayama 1800m revenge with a Nakayama 1800m race.

As I checked the calendar with bloody eyes, I found a perfect opportunity lying around this weekend. Oh? Flower Cup, G3 on Saturday. Limited to 3-year-old female horses. The average payout for trios for the past 10 years is 10,372 yen. It looks much more attractive than Hanshin Dai-shoten.

The only problem is that it's on Saturday while I'm having a full week of work, chores, zoom meeting and clinic visits.

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Caterpillar

7:48 p.m. Having clinging to Nakayama 1800m for the past three weeks, there's something I noticed about the pace. It's more likely to go at a relaxed pace when the majority of the compeitors are either extending the distance frome their previous race or running the same distance as their most recent race.

What happens when the pace drops on Nakayama 1800m is that it helps the outer post drawers sweep up the outside if they have the potential as a sweeper, which was exactly what happened in Spring Stakes.

As of today, there are 18 horses entered for Flower Cup, while half of them ran in a mile race previously. I wonder if the same thing will be repeated this week?

Oh, no. I just spotted the name of Exceed, a younger sister to Equinox among the entrees. The rider not to mention, is Christophe, which means the most favored win odds could again drop to the one point something range. That's not good, not good at all.

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Caterpillar

8:59 p.m. Another thing about Nakayama 1800m is slightly bothering me. It's the turf condition.

The A Course od Nakayama has been used for six days until last week, and the inner part of the turf course along the rail is getting damaged. As the finishing time of last week's Spring Stakes was 1 min. 46.0 seconds rather fast for a mile and a half, perhaps there's no need to worry. But the top four finishers all coming from behind were taking their positions on the outside of the course.

Additionally, Ask Edinburgh and Acrophase both had a European sireline that backs up their power as well as toughness, while Audacia and Sound Move both had European blood in their broodmare sire.

I need to be careful considering the possibility of track bias, though Flower Cup is held on Saturday and I have to face the problem of not being able to collect enough samples to grasp the trend. That's a difficult situation.

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Caterpillar

8:57 p.m. Entry for the weekend races have been closed today. Hanshin Dai-shoten has been settled to run with only 10 horses while the place/show rate for the most favored in win odds is 70%. Isn't that a good enough reason for me to lose interest in the race?

Flower Cup on the otherhand, is running with 16 horses. I've already typed in the necessary data as I unexpectedly had some time, thanks to my client who cancelled our zoom meeting with short notice. It was then I realized that there were quite a few front runners in Flower Cup. Basically, I believe the pace won't get tight as we've seen in the past Nakayama 1800m grade races held this month. However, we might see a tight-lapped race like the year 2020 depending on how the front runners are lined up after the barrier draw. Guess I should stay on the alert.

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Caterpillar

9:41 p.m. Well, well. Flower Cup was one of the hardest race to call this year. I almost regretted persisting on calling a Nakayama 1800m race.

Although I struggled, I managed to narrow down the candidates to six horses and these are their names: Godiamo, Cris Regina, Exceed, Viscontessa, Smart Priere, and Ametista. I'm also drawn to Cara Persona, but in order to include her I need to cut a horse out.

Fortunately or unfortunately enough, there's another turf 1800m race at Nakayama tomorrow, Race 9 actually, though in lower purse category. Might as well wait until it's run to make the final decision.

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Caterpillar

9:40 p.m. Eventually, I ditched Chris Regina to adopt Cara Persona while I keyed Exceed on my trio, not knowing that she was just back from an injury (fracture) break and look what happened. Longing Celine, how dare you! What were all the other front runners doing?

Exceed did great. Although she screwed her start, that couldn't have been helped considering the blank. What's impressive was she finished in third place from such a position way behind. A normal horse couldn't have done that. I'm sure she'd win in her next race as long as her condition is sound.

After all the fuss, my challenge for Nakayama 1800m ended with misery. If there's a medicine that could cure my one horse missing disease, someone please let me know.

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Caterpillar