Data Analysis for the “2016 Yasuda Kinen”

Sparks may fly in this fiercely contested mile champion decider

Last year, the Yasuda Kinen ended in a spectacular victory for rising star Maurice, contesting a Grade 1 race for the first time. The previous year, Just A Way won by a neck, following a runaway victory in the Dubai Duty Free. But while the favored runners have seen success in recent years, another characteristic trend is that horses ranking lower than 8th in favoritism have finished in the Top 3 for 11 straight years since 2005. Given expectations of another fierce contest this year, we should not lose sight of potential dark horses.

Favored horses dominate

Despite the statistic mentioned above that “horses ranking lower than 8th in favoritism have finished in the Top 3 for 11 straight years,” a look at aggregate performances based on favoritism over the last 10 years shows that the highly favored runners basically dominate. A cause for concern, however, is that the 1st favorite, despite winning 4 times, has never finished 2nd or 3rd in that time. Similarly, the 2nd favorite has also won 3 times yet only finished 2nd once and never 3rd; three runners-up and eight horses finishing 3rd were backed as 8th favorite or lower. Turning next to performances by win odds, odds in the range of “7.0-9.9” have yielded no great success, while those in the range “30.0-49.9” have produced five 3rd-place finishes. [Table 1] [Table 2]

Check the horse number

Over the last 10 years, the Yasuda Kinen has been contested by 18 runners, except in 2014 and 2015, when there were 17. If we aggregate their performances by horse number, the stronger performers seem to be concentrated among the inner horse numbers (for example, numbers “1-6” have produced fifteen Top 3 finishers). There is little to choose between horse numbers other than these, except that no horse with numbers “7-8” has finished in the Top 2. [Table 3]

Characteristic trends based on the finish in the previous race

Viewing aggregate performances by the runners’ finish in their previous race over the last 10 years, all of the winners in that time had finished in the Top 4 in their most recent outing. Contrastingly, six of the runners-up had also enjoyed a Top 2 finish last time out, while the other four had recovered from a finish of 6th or lower in that race. Another characteristic trend is that all of the 3rd-placed horses had been beaten to 3rd or lower in their previous race. [Table 4]

Check the previous race, too

Turning to aggregate performances based on the runners’ previous race over the last 10 years, we find an affinity for horses returning from action in Dubai: the 2006 runner-up Asakusa Den’en, the 2007 winner Daiwa Major and the 2014 winner Just A Way had all contested in the “Dubai Duty Free” last time out. Of horses most recently seen in Japanese races, better performances often seem to be produced by horses previously appearing in “Turf 1,600m G1 races,” as well as the G2 races “Keio Hai Spring Cup,” “Yomiuri Milers Cup” and “Sankei Osaka Hai.” [Table 5]

Strong showing from winners on “counter-clockwise (left-handed)” courses

In the Yasuda Kinen over the last 10 years, horses that had “experience of winning open-class races on counter-clockwise (left-handed) courses within the previous four outings” have finished in the Top 2 every year except 2008. In 2008, the only runner to answer this description, Super Hornet, was the favorite but only finished 8th. [Table 6]

Seek out the winner!
Three straight victories by runners with clear wins in recent graded races

In each of the last 3 years, the Yasuda Kinen has been won by a horse that had “won a graded race by at least two lengths within the last three outings.” If any of this year’s runners comes with a clear victory in a recent graded race, it should be worth watching. [Table 7]

(Yasunari Asano)