Distance: 2,400 metres
Venue: Tokyo
Prize money: ¥432,000,000
The Tokyo Yushun was first run in 1932 and was opened to foreign-bred horses in 2001. In 2010, when JRA races attained international ‘blue book’ status, the race was opened to horses trained outside of Japan.
Eight Derby winners have gone on to complete the Triple Crown and three of those horses have achieved the feat this century: the great champion Deep Impact, the mercurial yet brilliant Orfevre, and Deep Impact’s son Contrail.
Featured winner: Deep Impact
The great Deep Impact won the 2005 running of the Tokyo Yushun by a dominant five lengths under Yutaka Take on his way to winning the Triple Crown. The Yasuo Ikee-trained son of Sunday Silence won his first seven races but closed out his classic season with a first defeat when he failed to reel back the year-older Heart’s Cry in the Grade 1 Arima Kinen.
Deep Impact returned in imperious form as a four-year-old with Grade 1 wins in the Tenno Sho (Spring), Takarazuka Kinen, Japan Cup and Arima Kinen, with his only failure being his narrow third-past-the-post Group 1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe effort, for which he was later disqualified due to a positive sample.
He retired with 12 wins from 14 starts and his remarkable achievements continued at Shadai Stallion Station where he became one of the world’s greatest sires of the modern era before his death at age 17 in 2019.
Past winners
| Year | Winner | Jockey | Trainer | Owner | Time | | 2022 | Do Deuce | Yutaka Take | Yasuo Tomomichi | Kieffers Co Ltd | 2:21.9 |
| 2021 | Shahryar | Yuichi Fukunaga | Hideaki Fujiwara | Sunday Racing | 2:22.5 |
| 2020 | Contrail | Yuichi Fukunaga | Yoshita Yahagi | Shiji Maeda | 2:24.1 |
| 2019 | Roger Barows | Suguru Hamanaka | Katsuhiko Sumii | Hirotsugu Inokuma | 2:22.6 |
| 2018 | Wagnerian | Yuichi Fukunaga | Yasuo Tomomichi | Makoto Kaneko | 2:23.6 |
| 2017 | Rey de Oro | Christophe Lemaire | Kazuo Fujisawa | U. Carrot Farm | 2:26.9 |
| 2016 | Makahiki | Yuga Kawada | Yasuo Tomomichi | Makoto Kaneko | 2:24.0 |
| 2015 | Duramente | Mirco Demuro | Noriyuki Hori | Sunday Racing | 2:23.2 |
| 2014 | One And Only | Norihiro Yokoyama | Kojiro Hashiguchi | Koji Maeda | 2:24.6 |
| 2013 | Kizuna | Yutaka Take | Shozo Sasaki | Shinji Maeda | 2:24.3 |
| 2012 | Deep Brillante | Yasunari Iwata | Yoshito Yahagi | Sunday Racing | 2:23.8 |
| 2011 | Orfevre | Kenichi Ikezoe | Yasutoshi Ikee | Sunday Racing | 2:30.5 |
| 2010 | Eishin Flash | Hiroyuki Uchida | Hideaki Fujiwara | Tomomitsu Hirai | 2:26.9 |
| 2009 | Logi Universe | Horihiro Yokoyama | Kiyoshi Hagawara | Masaaki Kumeta | 2:33.7 |
| 2008 | Deep Sky | Hirofumi Shii | Mitsugu Kon | Toshio Fukami | 2:26.7 |
| 2007 | Vodka | Hirofumi Shii | Katsuhiko Sumii | Yuzo Tanimizu | 2:24.5 |
| 2006 | Meisho Samson | Mamoru Ishibashi | Tusutomu Setoguchi | Yoshio Matsumoto | 2:27.9 |
| 2005 | Deep Impact | Yutaka Take | Yasuo Ikee | Makoto Kaneko | 2:23.3 |
| 2004 | King Kamehameha | Katsumi Ando | Kunihide Matsuda | Makoto Kaneko | 2:23.3 |
| 2003 | Neo Universe | Mirco Demuro | Tsutomu Setoguchi | Shadai Race Horse | 2:28.5 |
| 2002 | Tanino Gimlet | Yutaka Take | Kunihide Matsuda | Yuzo Tanimizu | 2:26.2 |
| 2001 | Jungle Pocket | Koichi Tsunoda | Sakae Watanabe | Yomoji Saito | 2:27.0 |
A Derby day of hope: Take’s sixth classic a step on path to Arc redemption
