Keep your eyes on number 3 in Sunday morning’s Hyacinth Stakes at Tokyo Racecourse. The race offers 30 Kentucky Derby points to the winner and it was won last year by Master Fencer, who finished sixth in the 2019 Derby.
Watch and then read more below.
CAFE PHAROAH, from the first crop of the brilliant American Triple Crown winner AMERICAN PHAROAH, was making just his second career start and first of the year but rolled to a handy win in the one-turn, one-mile Hyacinth Stakes. The race is the third of four Kentucky Derby trail races in Japan and the points leader gets an assured spot in the Derby gate, Last year’s points leader Master Fencer finished an admirable sixth in the Derby.
Cafe Pharoah ran the distance in 1:37.7.
The final race of the Japan Derby series is the March 28 Fukuryu at Nakayama Racecourse worth 40 qualifying points to the winner.
Cafe Pharoah is owned by Koichi Nishikawa and trained by Noriyuki Hori, who enlisted Mirco Demuro to ride. Paul Pompa bred the colt in Kentucky.
A $475,000 March purchase at the Ocala 2-Year-Old in Training Sale in 2019, CAFE PHAROAH, now 2 for 2, is a son of a More Than Ready mare, Mary’s Follies who won over $338,000 and was a two-time graded stakes winner of the Mrs. Revere Stakes (G2) and Boiling Springs Stakes (G3), both events on the grass.
Mary’s Follies has four other fours to race including 2019 Grade 2 and 3 stakes winner Regal Glory, Grade 3 winner Night Prowler and $240,000 earner Casses Story.
NIGHT PROWLER, incidentally, is racing in Barbados these days and is scheduled to compete in the Sandy Lane Gold Cup March 7.
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