Spring has come in Nakayama Grand Jump

The world's richest steeplechase race ended in a sizzling duel between the top favorites, and spring finally arrived for a 9-year-old whose career was once derailed.

Spring Ghent won the 11th Nakayama Grand Jump on Saturday afternoon by a neck ahead of King Joy, cashing in a winner's check of 80 million yen after a sensational match race with the No. 1 choice.

Spring Ghent, trained by Akihiko Nomura and ridden by Yuzo Shirahama, cut a winning time of 4 minutes, 49.1 seconds over 4,250 meters, more than two full seconds off the race record.

Australia's Ginolad, the only overseas entry in the field, never had a moment and finished a very distant sixth. The 9-year-old gelding had come in 10th in the Pegasus Jump Stakes on March 28 held over 3,350 meters at Nakayama.

Finishing a distant third was the surprise Pegasus Jump Stakes winner Open Garden, followed by 12th choice Croisade and D'Or Riviere.

Under the sun and on firm going at the Chiba Prefecture track, Koyo Wave, followed by Gran Turismo, set the pace in the early going of the race contested by a party of 15 including Ginolad, the star jumper from Down Under who has swept the Grand National Steeplechase and the Grand Annual Steeplechase back home.

Koyo Wave, the 5-year-old long-shot ridden by the young Yusuku Igarashi, conceded the lead on the back straight where Spring Ghent and 7-year-old King Joy began jousting for authority.

The pair pulled and pulled away from the rest of the pack, and by the time they reached the final turn, the two horses had turned the remaining 13 competitors into mere spectators.

With Spring Ghent on the inside, jockeys Shirahama and Jun Takada went at it full on, the intensity picking up with each and every bob of the horses' head. In the end, Shirahama's mount held off King Joy, winner of the Jump Grade 1 Nakayama Daishogai who was seen by many to add the Nakayama Grand Jump title on Saturday, by a slim margin as Shirahama pumped his fist after crossing the finish.

Spring Ghent won his fourth jump graded race, and is now 7-for-9 in all steeplechase races. Sired by Opera House out of Spring Madonna, Spring Ghent was sidelined for nearly two years by injury until October 2008, when he began his comeback.

It was the first Nakayama Grand Jump win for both the trainer and the jockey.