“Your dignified, majestic style has always made you the star of the Classics.

You gave the honor of the Derby to the prodigy that longed for it.

You claimed a perfect victory in the traditional Spring shield.

Towards higher ideals. Towards mightier heroes. From peak to peak.

With pride, continue to walk the royal road.”

(Translation from the Umamusume wiki with edits by me)

Pride is both the vice that clips the wings of the privileged and the virtue that grows on the ascendant. The double Crown monarch has finally been inaugurated with the glorious success found on the one who seeks for it the most. Many worked their hardest. Many gave their all. But only one will be crowned. The Japanese Derby is over. And the legend continues onward in making history.

Final Results (In a Nutshell)

Finish in Order

Six years following Contrail’s Triple Crown feat, a new challenger has arisen to make a case for an historic endeavour. Lovcen’s midfield positioning saw him pull off a daring surge to claim the Derby and achieve the second leg despite running from the outside considerably along with a rocky start off the gate. Peintre Naif lands in second place by a head with a thankful relief of the slower pace along with a more optimised turn. Basse Terre lurches forward from back to front mid-way through the race and is able to retain his spot to 3rd place by 0.75 length while fending off a lightning-fast spurt from Going to Sky by a nose.

Positions at Bends

Sectional Times

Amateurish Analysis (Top 3)

Well, there has to be something about the best-performing racehorses in the race to warrant a deeper look into why they are able to excel as well as they did. In focusing on the top 3, we can look into both the moves made and the context surrounding their pedigree and their race records.

Lovcen

The winner of the Japanese Derby has also claimed the Satsuki Sho and the Hopeful Stakes. The now-3 G1-winning colt is already entering the top echelons of the country’s horseracing pantheon with strong performances across the board from his race records along with clear versatility in positioning. If the “Derby horse” is to be a mini-encapsulation of the ideal Triple Crown champion in Japan at least, Lovcen’s showing which nets him the title staunchly affirms his contention for the full sweep with an entry into the Kikuka Sho.

Firstly, Lovcen’s disadvantageous gate opening which is the second widest already demands a stayer-like stamina should he be unable to get into the inside as he’ll be running an unintended extra bit of distance. That’s what happened in the Derby as while he’s oriented towards the midfield rather than being a frontrunner as had happened in the Satsuki Sho, he’s running roughly 4 racehorses wide from the inner rail on the last 2 corners of the race. He’s already exhibiting an inheritance from his sire World Premiere which makes his Kikuka Sho contention a very serious probability.

Secondly, his spurt sticks out as being among the best in the field especially given the more relaxed pace. His L3F time of 33.2 seconds was comparable to Juryoku Pierrot’s, Enne’s, and Laughterlines’s in the Oaks just a week ago under a similar condition of rapid acceleration being needed should the tempo of the race be slow. There’s even a smidge of awkwardness from the start of the homestretch where his turn on the final corner saw Peintre Naif block him for a minute which leads to an adjustment needed for a better field for spurting. Yet, he still holds out despite the issue and with an average of around 65km/h, he soon edged out the one who blocked him by a head. He’ll certainly find a home in Kyoto with its similarly long final straight.

Lastly, while I initially believed his main weakness to be his tendency to act on his own which can bite him hard, Lovcen shows serious discipline in the Derby. His main jockey Kohei Matsuyama said in a pre-race interview that he’s not ruling out a frontrunning attempt yet the positioning in the actual race leans more clearly towards being in the midpack with the intent to surge. Lovcen also didn’t follow Basse Terre’s move to prematurely contend for pacesetting from far back during the uphill section of the race. It’s clear that Lovcen’s smarts is a big asset that allows him to prevail well along with his physique and should he manage to claim the Triple Crown achievement, it’ll come down to his awareness of when to make the right moves even if they’re against Matsuyama’s judgements.

All in all, Lovcen’s performance is a testament to all the well-deserved hype surrounding him as a top contender since his Hopeful Stakes breakthrough. The sky is no longer the limit for him with how dominant he is in his generation. Many thought that the entrants for this year’s Classics are among the best in recent history and it’s telling later on down this article why such a case is warranted. It only makes Lovcen’s success all the more special and even if he’s able to win the Triple Crown, there are more hopes for him to carry on this momentum down the line.

Peintre Naif

In writing about Peintre Naif in the race preview, I noted that he would ideally want the Derby to be run in a way that appears to fit his breathing pattern. The absurdly fast tempo in the Satsuki Sho forced him to slow down considerably on the final corner and thus put out a meandering surge that put him in double-digit placement. Here, the tempo is more similar to that of Europe’s especially in the first half of the race with the sectional times being just over 12 seconds barring the 200-400m mark. This pacing allows Peintre Naif to run his own way without being caught off-guard by other obstacles.

Another factor to bring into Peintre Naif’s second-place finish is the textbook jockeying by his jockey Lemaire to allow him to rebound as well as he did. He’s always positioned just about optimally around being on-pace throughout the race for the wide swing while conserving as much stamina as possible. He marked Lovcen down to mitigate whatever opening there was for him to pull off a more dominant win by blocking him. Upon the final corner and onto the final straight, he makes a smooth sidestep to the right of the tired-out M’s Begin and instantly surge on to what would have been a win. That is if not for Lovcen being as cracked as he is.

Peintre Naif’s performance opens some doors toward where his future starts might look like. Given the slower tempo of the race, he might be more at home with Europe’s own style of horseracing where the pacing tends to be more sluggish in favour of dramatic spurts. Of course, there’s a question on whether he’ll be able to adjust to the softer turf before he finds himself sinking into it a bit too much. There’s also the Middle Eastern races like the G1 Dubai Sheema Classic where the entirely international lineup paves the way towards a similarly slow tempo from the start as a safety measure. Should he struggle to build up on his strong placement here, I wouldn’t rule out an overseas campaign being the ideal call for him next year as had happened with Deep Monster and Byzantine Dream.

Basse Terre

Out of the top 3 placers, Basse Terre’s individual performance feels like one of the most stunning aside from Lovcen’s. While Peintre Naif (as respectfully as possible) is able to run his own race, Basse Terre pulls off a manoeuvre that eclipses even Realize Luminous’s from the Oaks. Running from the back end as expected based on his race records, he instead prematurely spurts on the top straight to tail right behind Realize Sirius who had just secured the lead from Meisho Hachiko by the top-left corner. Such a move would have tired him out and thus left little fuel for him to unleash his spurt that won him the G2 Yayoi Sho…

Which is true but the effects aren’t as drastic as expected. Once he reaches the final straight, his speed at first is comparable to that of a typical frontrunner’s as the lack of racehorses from their perspective as a “reference” makes starting their spurt up more sluggish. Combine that with the top straight move and the result should have been blundersome for Basse Terre. However, he’s able to push himself a bit once he gets a bit of breather to overtake Realize Sirius (albeit by swerving right in front of him which warrants a fine to his jockey Yuga Kawada) and just about reach the finishing line before Going to Sky. 

The showing leaves a pond of implication surrounding Basse Terre’s next start. While he didn’t win the Satsuki Sho and the Japanese Derby, his ability to catch his stamina up to clinch out a bronze after an elongated spurt makes him a very real contender for the Kikuka Sho where he could put an end to Lovcen’s hot streak. Should his connections want to instead optimise his performance at a minimum distance of 2000m, the Autumn Tenno Sho could be in play as it’s set in the very same racecourse with the shorter distance leaving less chance at his gambit wearing him out thin. I wouldn’t even rule out him competing in the Japan Cup for a chance to stand out against whatever international competition heads their way there. 

What matters is that with a bit more context, Basse Terre was seen as being among the least impressive-looking out of Kitasan Black’s foals who are competing in this year’s Classic races. He’s not as bulky as Black Olympia, his specific pedigree lacks the prospective magic that Exceed and M’s Begin are hoping to fully realise, and he doesn’t quite enjoy the fairy tale narrative that Black Chalice or Realize Glint are going through now. Yet, his top 3 placement with his moves made are massive indicators to point towards him hoping to stand out as being among the top of the crop in the future. Following the growth spurt over the summer, he’ll likely return to deliver an even better showing.

Amateurish Analysis (Other Competitors)

For the rest of the entrants, some have made moves that might have shaped the very way the race is run which makes for unexpected leanings that play to the advantage of others. This section is for those who either had done better than expected even if outside the top 3 or have shaped the race in a way that might have tilted the results in favour of others.

Going to Sky

Going to Sky is my pick for the winner of the Derby and while the race didn’t go quite as I thought it would, my view on the colt didn’t change much. He’s still by and large his father’s finest so far even though he lacks the shiny credential as a Derby horse and skepticisms surrounding Contrail’s prospects as a top sire remain. His L3F time of 32.8 seconds is the fastest out of all the others and it surpasses even Juryoku Pierrot’s and Enne’s in the Oaks. The simple issue is that due to his positioning towards the back, his spurt needs to be more herculean to clinch out the win even if it involves a difference of just being 1 millisecond quicker. 

Is Yutaka Take to blame for the misreading? Maybe, although compared to the Oaks, there aren’t a lot of entrants whose main strength rests in their sharp spurts with a good number of whom are either tired out from an underperformance or had returned from a long layoff. The jockey cam video appears to point most notably at a consequential point where Going to Sky tries to eye up a wide turn. Yet, he’s unable to make his move due to Justin Vista blocking the angle and he appears to almost swerve towards Forte Angelo which disrupts his momentum. This bit of reset thus put all of his weight into his spurt on the final straight which saw him only faltering to Basse Terre for 3rd place by a nose.

Realize Sirius

Among the biggest controversy that has arisen in the Derby is a swerve that might have led to a strong placement being robbed. As great as Basse Terre’s performance looks, it’s Realize Sirius who falls victim to the move by Kawada that disrupts all his momentum and thus puts him in 7th place. As mentioned previously on the race preview, Realize Sirius’s greatest asset in the race lies in his proven ability to hold on to his lead on the final straight against a constant barrage of spurts. His 2 graded titles are from racecourses where the final straight is long to the point where frontrunners are almost guaranteed to bomb out just because the likely demotivation factor would slow them down without anyone in front of them to act as a “reference” to overtake. The extra 2 furlongs in the Derby are another multiplicative factor that could enhance the slowdown even more due to the possible fatigue from racing the longer distance.

It’s not hard to see why his main jockey Akihide Tsumura appeared to be upset at the underhanded move being made. Throughout the race, Realize Sirius tails right behind Meisho Hachiko until the top-right corner when he overtakes him and starts asserting the pace more in his favour. At the 1600m mark, the tempo clearly starts to pick up more quickly which, combined with the extra distance, leaves a good number of entrants tired out from the uphill run. The move feels calculated on Tsumura’s behalf to ensure that Realize Sirius gets the most optimal run possible.

Otherwise, where Realize Sirius will go next for his hopeful first G1 title remains an open mystery right now. The aforementioned swerve from Kawada on Basse Terre dampens the mood from his connections on trying out 2400m races with his slow L3F time of 34.6 seconds to boot from the emergency brakes needed. They’ll likely stick between 1600m and 2200m for now with the likely only option to stretch out being in Nakayama for the Arima Kinen with its shorter final straight. He could find a comfort zone in Hanshin where the racetrack’s layout tends to favour frontrunners like him so the likelihood of him winning the Osaka Hai or the Takarazuka Kinen are relatively high. I could even see him contend for the Dubai Turf where he pulls off a similar performance as Equinox in the 2023 Dubai Sheema Classic for a win.

Reichsadler, Congestus, Ask Edinburgh, Audacia, and Forte Angelo

Most of the dark horses I have identified on my race review had notably done poorly in the race. Basse Terre has truly punched above his weight barring the swerving controversy and reports regarding Green Energy’s mild fever puts his performance more as a glorified exercise where his safety is the top priority. Reichsadler, Congestus, Ask Edinburgh, Audacia, and Forte Angelo have all bottomed out unfortunately. The notable 5th placer goes to Matenro Gale in a small win to Epiphaeneia whose siring record this year has been rocky.

You can chalk the performance up to a variety of factors like getting blocked or being positioned towards the back too much as had shown with Audacia who pulled off a tied second fastest L3F time of 33.2 seconds with Lovcen. To me, the arguable main factor rests in how the tempo of the race is slow for the first half. Note how a lot of the races that the mentioned entrants have won or did well tend to either break or tie the race record which engenders a faster pacing. The only graded race where the time can be said to be slower than the race record with full confidence is the Yayoi Sho – one that Basse Terre wheezes through to a win and where Reichsadler placed second. This suggests a reliance on a fast tempo in order to excel and without a quick pacesetter, let alone a runaway, their acceleration might not be quick enough to endure the challenge.

Meisho Hachiko

As a relatively shorter aside, Meisho Hachiko’s initial position as the pacesetter for the first half of the race might have drastically shaped up the way it’s been run. Because he’s a clear long shot with little prospects for him to likely win the race, his speed means that the tempo is slow and it thus makes the development more similar to the Oaks’s where the winner tends to have strong acceleration to reach up to top speed with ease. He might have placed a lowly 13th place, but the overtaking from Realize Sirius has shaped the race in ways that have sealed the deal for many to bomb out hard.

M’s Begin

My upset pick didn’t do as well as I would have hoped. If at all. A 14th place finish with a sluggish L3F time of 34.7 seconds along with a substitute jockey and an outside position as a pace chaser sets him up for failure. The performance would have dampened a lot of expectations around him sadly enough and you may well root for him to at least get out of allowances and collect a few graded wins. A silver lining is that his father Kitasan Black also did terribly in the same race back in 2015 before his dramatic growth spurt allowed him to stand out as among the country’s all-time greats over the next two years. Who knows for M’s Begin? Maybe the same ordeal might happen to him later on this year.