Hopeful Stakes G1 Guide

Venue: Nakayama

Distance: 2000 metres

Prize money: ¥152,200,000

The two-year-old programme in Japan is refreshingly removed from the pursuit of precocity and quick returns seen so often in Australia, Europe and the USA. Japan puts a wise emphasis on the long game. 

That being so, the JRA has only three Group 1 juvenile races: all are staged in December and the last of those, the Hopeful Stakes over ten furlongs, was upgraded to the highest level as recently as 2017. 

The race started life as a Group 3 for fillies, opened up to colts in 1991, and was a Group 2 contest when in 2014 the JRA moved it from Hanshin to Nakayama. Prior to the move, subsequent Classic winners Logi Universe, One And Only, Victoire Pisa and Epiphaneia won the race. Since 2014, the Hopeful Stakes has been won by the Satsuki Sho hero Saturnalia, the Tokyo Yushun winner Rey De Oro and the Triple Crown champion Contrail.

Featured winner:  Rey De Oro

The Hopeful Stakes was still a Group 2 when Rey De Oro landed the spoils in 2016 to round out his three-race juvenile season undefeated. His perfect record ended at his next start, when fifth to Al Ain in the Satsuki Sho, but in the Tokyo Yushun, the son of King Kamehameha gave his esteemed trainer Kazuo Fujisawa a long-awaited first Derby victory.

Rey De Oro went on to seal champion three-year-old colt honours with a success in the Kobe Shimbun Hai and second place in the Japan Cup. 

The following campaign saw Rey De Oro bounce back from a disappointing spring in Dubai with late season wins in the Sankei Sho All-comers and the Tenno Sho Autumn, as well as second place by a neck in the Arima Kinen. Those efforts earned him the JRA champion older horse award.