Data Analysis for the "Asahi Hai Futurity Stakes (G1)"

This race is noteworthy as one of the 2-year-old champion deciders, alongside the previous week’s Hanshin Juvenile Fillies. Last year’s winner Grand Prix Boss also took this year’s NHK Mile Cup, while the runner-up Real Impact won this year’s Yasuda Kinen. The winner two years ago, Rose Kingdom, was runner-up in last year’s Tokyo Yushun (Japanese Derby) and Kikuka Sho (Japanese St. Leger) before winning the Japan Cup. Clearly, this race can serve as a stepping stone to greater things for the victor. Let’s now check some trends by looking at data from the last 10 years.

Put your money on the inside brackets!

The 1,600m turf course at Nakayama starts at the back of the 1st corner. The first point to be noted is that the distance from there to the first curve is not very long. In other words, horses in the outer brackets have less chance to enter the middle pack, and so can easily lose ground when rounding the corner. A look at the runners’ performance by bracket number over the last 10 years shows that only one horse from “Bracket 8” has finished in the top two - Meisho Bowler (favorite and runner-up in 2003), who came to this race with 4 straight wins from his debut. The trend for the inside brackets to dominate should be seen as a basic fact of this race. [Table 1]

Strongly favored runners tend to do well

A general trend in this race is that dark horses rarely take the spoils. In terms of the runners' performance by win odds favoritism, the "1st favorite" and "2nd favorite" routinely perform well, while 25 of the 30 top three finishers were within the top five favorites for the race in question. Five horses backed as "6th-10th favorite" have made it into the top three; all of them had a previous track record of "winning an open stakes races or finishing in the top three in a graded race". They were what we call "betting blind-spots". [Table 2]

Both horses and jockeys "based at Ritto" have the upper hand

In terms of the runners' performance by affiliation over the last 10 years, "Horses based at Miho Training Center (Miho-trained horses)" have only achieved two wins while those based at Ritto Training Center ("Ritto-trained horses") have managed eight. Ritto-trained horses also have a clear advantage in the number of top three finishes, with twenty compared to ten by Miho-trained horses. A similar trend emerges when analyzing the jockeys' performance in terms of their affiliation: "Jockeys based at Miho Training Center" have three wins but "Jockeys based at Ritto Training Center" have five. In other words, Ritto has the clear edge for both horses and riders. Incidentally, there have been 18 "Foreign jockeys", eight of whom have finished in the top three. Last year, more specifically, all four foreign jockeys finished within the top five places, so they should continue to deserve attention this year. [Table 3] [Table 4]

Strong showing when the previous outing was a graded race

In the Asahi Hai Futurity Stakes, horses most recently seen in graded races have an overwhelmingly good track record. Although two of the winners have come straight from "Open stakes races", these were Admire Don in 2001 and Eishin Champion in 2002; no horse from these races has finished in the top two since 2003. Runners tend to have an equally hard time of it when their last race was an allowance race (earning 5 million yen or less).

Turning next to the performance by win odds favoritism among strongly performing horses last seen in "JRA graded races", horses backed as 1st or 2nd favorite in their previous race have a good track record. Last year, Grand Prix Boss won the Keio Hai Nisai Stakes as 7th favorite, then went on to win this race as well; but this could be seen as an exception to the rule. [Table 5] [Table 6]