Hard-knocking son of Orfevre bags only top-level contest on NAR circuit

Second favourite Ushba Tesoro ran out a convincing winner of the one and only Group 1 contest on the NAR dirt race circuit on Thursday, taking the Tokyo Daishoten at Ooi by a length and three-quarters.

He raced in midfield under Kazuo Yokoyama before moving to the front four wide on the final turn and going on to win Japan's final top-level race of 2022.

Notturno was runner-up under Yutaka Take in the mile and a quarter contest, while favourite Meisho Hario was a further two and a half lengths back in third.

Ushba Tesoro is a son of Orfevre out of King Kamehameha's winning daughter Millefeui Attach. The Noboru Takagi-trained five-year-old was winning his seventh race on what was his 27th career start. It was a fourth win from just five runs on dirt and a first Graded stakes strike on his first outing at a NAR racecourse.

Winning rider Yokoyama said: "Since his first dirt race Ushba Tesoro has showed us his strong ability, so I wanted to get a good result today.

"I'm happy. The other horses are strong but, considering the shape of the course, although it is his first time at Ooi racecourse, I had been thinking that he would run up to form. I am glad that I was able to bring out his strengths.

"I wanted to position near the front, so it became a different form of racing than usual. The pace was slow, and I was hoping that I would be able to overcome that."

Jockey Kazuo Yokoyama: 'I wanted to get a good result today'Credit: Masakazu Takahashi

He added: "Since he switched to dirt, he has had such good results, and I just hope that things will continue to go smoothly."

Takagi said: "He hadn't bottomed out on the dirt, so I thought it would be worth challenging for this with him.

"The jockey made him calm in the slow-pace race and he overcame the deep dirt course.

"I don't know about his next appearance, I will decide it after looking at his condition."

The runner-up's rider Take said of Notturno: "His condition was good but the instantaneous speed of the winner did for him. He prefers Ooi's mile and a half."

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