Takamatsunomiya Kinen (G1) - Preview (1)

2009 Takamatsunomiya Kinen

The Takamatsunomiya Kinen will again be an all domestic competition after the Hong Kong pair of Sacred Kingdom and Ultra Fantasy pulled out, but the 40th running of the race at Chukyo Racecourse next weekend promises to be another closely contested affair by the Japan Racing Association's top short-distance runners.

Sacred Kingdom, the 2007 and 2009 Hong Kong Sprint winner widely regarded as the best sprinter from the region, and his P F Yiu stablemate Ultra Fantasy both withdrew on Thursday from the March 28 race. The 7-year-old Sacred Kingdom showed signs of stomach pains before boarding his flight at Hong Kong International Airport, forcing the trainer to scratch this year's Chairman's Sprint Prize and Centenary Sprint Cup champion, as well as the 8-year-old Ultra Fantasy who had been along for the ride. Ultra Fantasy had taken second to Sacred Kingdom in the 1,000-meter Centenary Sprint Cup at Sha Tin in late January.

Chukyo Racecourse

The withdrawal of the Hong Kong duo and the absence of defending champion Laurel Guerreiro - 2009 JRA Best Sprinter or Miler: is in Dubai and will take a shot at the Dubai Golden Shaheen on March 27 – has left just one top level winner in a potential field of 18 for the JRA's first turf Grade 1 race of the year: Fine Grain, now 7, who won the Takamatsunomiya Kinen in 2008 but has not been a shade of her record-breaking form of two years ago recently.

Fine Grain

Kinshasa no Kiseki

Ultima Thule

The Takamatsunomiya Kinen, with total prize money at more than 200 million yen, is Chukyo's only Grade 1 race, located just outside the central Japanese metropolis of Nagoya. The 1,200-meter race starts on the back stretch which runs 400 meters before turning left, leading into the final straight of 314 meters. The course is widely regarded as a fair course, with its long, flat stretches that give all horses a crack at the winner's check of 95 million yen.

The Takamatsunomiya Kinen started out in 1967 as the Chukyo Daishoten, for 3-year-olds and up at set weights, before it was renamed in 1971 as the Takamatsunomiya Hai – in honor of the actual trophy presented by Prince Takamatsu. The race had been held over 2,000 meters in the summer until 1995, when the JRA revised its sprint program. The Takamatsunomiya Kinen was then promoted to Grade 1 and rescheduled for May at its current distance of six furlongs. The race took on its existing name in 1998 and two years later, was penciled in for the final weekend of March as the top sprint race of the spring season, for 4-year-olds and above.

The 2010 Takamatsunomiya Kinen will be a tough race to call for the betting man, with nearly half the field having a chance to take home the honors. The early favorite is Kinshasa no Kiseki, who has laced together three straight graded wins since October. He was runnerup to Fine Grain in the 2008 race. Six-year-old Ultima Thule, the top choice at last year's Sprinters Stakes and is coming off a swift victory in the Silk Road Stakes on Feb. 7, should also draw plenty of support in what will be the final race of her career.