Yushun Himba (Japanese Oaks) (G1) - Data Analysis

Ultimate contest for three-year-old fillies takes place at Tokyo Racecourse at the start of the summer
Following her first G1 victory in the 2024 Yushun Himba (Japanese Oaks), Cervinia triumphed in the Shuka Sho in her next race after a layoff, and received the JRA Award for Best Three-Year-Old Filly in the same year. In addition, Liberty Island, the winner of the 2023 Japanese Oaks, similarly won the Shuka Sho of the same year, becoming the seventh Triple Tiara champion in JRA history. The Japanese Oaks is a highly anticipated race that determines the champion filly of the current three-year-old generation. Let’s now analyze some features shared by successful runners in this race based on results over the last 10 years.

Highly favored runners dominate
Looking at performances by runners over the last 10 years in terms of favoritism, we find that 19 of the 30 Top 3 finishers were backed as 3rd favorite or higher. Meanwhile, runners backed as 4th favorite or lower produced zero winners, and achieved a low Top 3 ratio. We should therefore first focus our attention on highly favored runners. [Table 1]

Runners with 4 or 5 career starts perform well
Looking at performances by runners over the last 10 years by career starts, we observe that runners with 4 or 5 career starts achieved a high Top 3 ratio. This year, it would be wise to again quickly check career starts. [Table 2]

Runners starting in Bracket 1 appear strong, but …
Looking at performances by runners over the last 10 years in terms of bracket number, we note that runners starting in Bracket 1 enjoyed the highest Top 2 and Top 3 ratio. However, if we limit our analysis to the five years since 2020, their performance was only [0-1-0-9] (Top 3 ratio of 10.0%). Runners starting in Brackets 2 and 3 had relatively low Top 3 ratio. This suggests that, on the whole, runners starting in the inner brackets have probably been at a disadvantage in recent years. [Table 3]

Favoritism in the previous race is an important factor
Looking at performances by runners over the last 10 years in terms of favoritism in their previous race, we find that runners that had been backed as race favorite or 2nd favorite achieved relatively strong Top 3 ratios. Meanwhile, runners that had been backed as 5th favorite, 6th-10th favorite, or 11th favorite or lower all had a Top 3 ratio under 10%. In this race, therefore, it appears we can place our trust in runners that were highly favored in their previous outing. [Table 4]

Seek out the winner!
Ritto-based jockeys have secured 13 consecutive victories
The last 10 winners were all ridden by Ritto-affiliated jockeys. The last winner ridden by a Miho-affiliated jockey was Erin Court (ridden by jockey Hiroki Goto) in 2011. Other shared features among the 10 winners were that they were backed by win odds of less than 10, and that they had been positioned 4th or lower when passing the 4th corner in their previous race. We should narrow down our selection based on the trends outlined above. [Table 5]

(Masaya Ibuki)