(1st Aug 98)

SEEKING THE PEARL won G1/Prix Mourice de Gheest

Hideyuki Mori, based at Ritto Training Center near Kyoto, is the trainer withinternational mind, and he was very hungry with the success at Europe since he wonHong Kong Cup with Fujiyama Kenzan in 1995.
As Mori bought Seeking The Pearl for hisclient Tomoko Uenaka as she was yearling privately in America, he had the plan in hismind to give her the campaign in Europe.
Seeking The Pearl won NHK Mile Cup beating colts at 3 in Japan, and was sent tothe summer meeting at Deauville in France at 4 to compete in G1/Prix Mourice de Gheest.
The front-running tachtics worked very well there, and Seeing The Pearl ridden by YutakaTake became the first Japanese-trained horse to win a Group One Race in Europe.

(1st Aug 98)

TAIKI SHUTTLE's Japan double in a week

While the success of Seeking The Pearl in the Mourice de Gheest was a sort of pleasantsurprise for racing fans in Japan, Taiki Shuttle's victory in the G1/Prix Jacques leMarois on the following weekend at the same track has different meaning.
As Yoshiki Akazawa's home-bred Taiki Shuttle, though he was born in America, was sentto France, he was very highly regarded.
By that time, he won 10 races among 11 strats,including 3 stakes with premier grade, and all of them were very easy performances.
He could handle every type of track and act on every sort of ground, therefore, racingfans in Japan believed that he could adapt with races in Europe, where the racecondition could be totaly different with races in Japan.
So he did it, beating qualityfield which included Sussex winner Among Men, Lockinge winner Cape Cross, and top milerfrom Germany Waky Nao, and completed the astonishing Japan double in a week in France.

(1st May 98)

LIMNOS took European Pattern Races

As Niarchos Family sold their Champion 2-y-o colt in Europe Hector Protector to Japan,they kept a part of interest and launched the project of sending their mares to Japan,to be bred to Hector Protector standing at Shadai Stallion Sataion in Hokkaido Island.
This enterprising project resulted in Limnos(JPN), who was born at Katausmi Yoshida'sNorthern Farm in 1994, and subsequently won Prix Jean de Chaudenay at Saint-Cloud inMay and Prix Foy at Longchamp in September of 1998.
It is the first time when Japan was entered in the statistical record of EuropeanPattern Book as the country which bred the winner of Graded Stakes in Europe.