Pretty Cast – The Mare Who Stole the Emperor’s Prize

In Japanese racing history, few winners of the Tenno Sho (Autumn), Japan’s Emperor’s Prize feel as unlikely – or as unforgettable – as Pretty Cast. On paper she was an ordinary staying mare with a modest record. On one November afternoon in 1980, she turned Tokyo Racecourse into a stage for one of the most audacious front-running performances the Tenno Sho (Autumn) has ever seen.

Bloodlines: A small mare with a giant pedigree

Pretty Cast (Japanese-registered as プリテイキャスト) was born on March 20, 1975, at Yoshida Farm in Hayakita, Hokkaido. She was a bay mare by Cover Up II, a U.S.-bred stallion imported to Japan who, under the racing name Seikan, had a modest race career but later became an outstanding sire of stayers and classic horses. From his Hokkaido base he sired major winners such as Ryuzuki (Satsuki Sho and Arima Kinen) and Kashu Chikara (Tenno Sho (Spring)). Pretty Cast inherited that staying blood from her sire’s side.

Her dam was on a completely different level of fame. Typecast, a daughter of Prince John, was a tough American racemare who started 57 times for 21 wins, and in 1972 she was crowned the Eclipse Award Champion Older Female. She was precisely the kind of mare most people expected to remain in the United States as an elite broodmare. However, when her owner and breeder Fletcher Jones died in a plane crash, his horses were dispersed at auction. Yoshida Farm’s Shigeo Yoshida traveled to the U.S. and bought Typecast for what was then a record price for a broodmare – reported at around US$725,000 (roughly ¥220 million at the time), a staggering figure by 1970s standards.

Typecast was imported to Japan as a foundation mare for the farm. From such bloodlines, expectations naturally ran high. When one of her foals, a rather small but bright-eyed bay filly, was selected by owner Hisanari Takada, he named her Pretty Cast, evoking an image of a delicate, charming presence – a name that would later clash brilliantly with the brutal way she would win her greatest race.

A difficult pupil: Slow to mature and mentally fragile

Pretty Cast entered the Tokyo yard of trainer Tatsuo Ishikuri at the end of 1976. To the trainer’s surprise, the filly who walked into his stable was a lot lighter and narrower than the strong-bodied youngster he remembered from the farm. Concerned that she might be ill, Ishikuri even had her blood tested. The results were normal – physically she was fine – but mentally, and in terms of racing manners, she would prove to be a challenge.

Her debut finally came on November 6, 1977, in a maiden race over 1600 meters at Tokyo. She left the gate only to be squeezed between rivals and lost her position completely, finishing sixth. The incident left a scar. Pretty Cast began to shy away from other horses, and her subsequent races as a three-year-old were mostly disappointing performances, beaten by large margins despite the talent her connections believed she had.

She remained winless through the end of 1977 and into early 1978, struggling both on dirt and turf. Jockey Tomio Yokoyama, who rode her frequently in those days, later admitted that even he was running out of ideas. The filly was honest enough but nervous, and she seemed to lose heart when crowded or restrained.

Breakthrough in the north: the first win

In May 1978 the stable decided on a change of scenery. Pretty Cast was shipped to Niigata and fitted with blinkers for the first time, hoping to help her focus. On May 20, 1978, in a 2000-meter turf maiden race held the day before the Japanese Oaks, she finally broke through, winning under jockey Kazumi Tokuyoshi. The new headgear seemed to help: once allowed to roll along, she showed the staying power her pedigree promised.

That summer she was sent even farther north to Hakodate and Sapporo. Back with Yokoyama in the saddle, Pretty Cast began to blossom, winning two allowance races – the Yukawa Tokubetsu and the Goryokaku Tokubetsu – and finishing second in the Doshin Hai. Step by step she graduated from obscure maiden to promising staying mare.

The next goal was black-type company. In the Queen Stakes at Sapporo, her first attempt at a graded race, she finished a disappointing eighth. But in an open class race at Kyoto afterward she improved sharply, running fourth behind Hokuto Boy, the previous year’s Tenno Sho (Autumn) winner. That effort earned her a place in the Queen Elizabeth Ⅱ Cup at Kyoto later that autumn.

In the 1978 Queen Elizabeth Ⅱ Cup (then still a race for three- and four-year-old fillies and mares), Pretty Cast was sent off third favorite. She started poorly, lingered near the back, and closed strongly in the stretch – but fell short and finished fourth behind Lead Swallow. For her connections it was bittersweet: evidence that she could compete with good fillies, but also a reminder that her weak starts and mental quirks might always hold her back.

She closed out 1978 with a victory in the Christmas Handicap at Tokyo under jockey Masato Shibata, entering the new season as an open-class mare with still more questions than answers.

Frustration and perseverance in 1979

The 1979 campaign almost broke everyone’s patience. Now officially a five-year-old under the Japanese system, Pretty Cast was aimed at major middle-distance and staying races, but the results were dismal. She finished far back in the Tokyo Shimbun Hai, the spring edition of the Meguro Kinen, and the Nakayama Himba Stakes, then tailed off last in both the Tanigawadake Stakes and the Niigata Daishoten.

At one point, early retirement to become a broodmare was seriously considered. However, after being dropped in class for the Sapporo summer meeting and back under Yokoyama’s guidance, she revived: second in the Doshin Hai, victory in the HBC Hai, and another second in the Daisetsu Handicap. Her staying power had not disappeared; it merely needed the right conditions and front-running tactics.

Trainer Ishikuri and Yoshida Farm changed their minds. Perhaps, they thought, Pretty Cast was a late bloomer like her dam Typecast, who had peaked at seven. They postponed her retirement and kept her in training for the 1980 season, even as she turned six – an age when many mares in Japan were already in the breeding shed.

1980: from hard-knocking mare to Tenno Sho contender

The new decade began quietly. Pretty Cast ran fifth in both the Haru no Hayaume Sho and the Hatsufuji Sho, and then won the Kintei Sho on dirt for her sixth career victory. She returned to turf for the Diamond Stakes, a long-distance race over 3200 meters at Tokyo. Sent off at 8th choice in a field of 13, she seized the lead down the backstretch and simply never came back, leaving her rivals seven lengths behind. It was her first graded stakes win and a hint of what would come later that year.

The Diamond Stakes performance encouraged her connections to take a shot at the Tenno Sho (Spring), one of Japan’s “Eight Major Races” and a 3200-meter marathon at Kyoto. This time, however, the tactic failed. Facing proven stayers and unable to dictate the pace as she liked, Pretty Cast faded badly and finished far behind winner Nichido Taro. For many observers, it looked like she had been exposed as a useful but second-tier long-distance mare.

But her owner and trainer remained stubborn. Every summer Pretty Cast seemed to find her form in Hokkaido, so they sent her north again. At Sapporo she ran second in the Sapporo Nikkei Sho and the Sapporo Kinen, both as favorite, before struggling on heavy ground in the Hakodate Kinen. Even so, Ishikuri decided to press on toward the biggest target of all: the 1980 Tenno Sho (Autumn) at Tokyo, at that time still held over 3200 meters.

Setting the stage: the 1980 Tenno Sho (Autumn)

The 1980 edition of the Tenno Sho (Autumn) assembled a strong field of stayers and middle-distance stars. The favorite was Katsurano Haiseiko, the previous year’s Tokyo Yushun (Japanese Derby) winner, fresh off an impressive victory in the autumn Meguro Kinen. Another leading contender was Hoyoyo Boy, a talented late-developing horse making his first appearance in one of the Eight Major Races. Popular mare Silk Skii, coming off a striking win in the Kyoto Daishoten and a good second to Katsurano Haiseiko in the Meguro Kinen, drew strong support from fans who believed in the old “every nine years a mare wins the Tenno Sho” jinx.

Pretty Cast, despite her Diamond Stakes win, was largely dismissed. In the field of eleven she went off at 8th favorite. Many saw her as a tough, honest mare, but not one who could beat the country’s best males at weight-for-age. Even her own trainer spoke modestly before the race, saying that with a favorable pace perhaps she could finish third.

Strategically, though, Ishikuri had a card to play. A key rival, the front-running horse Hashi Harry, had been withdrawn. That left the race without an obvious pace-setter. Pretty Cast, who sulked when restrained but showed her best form when allowed to roll along in front, suddenly looked like the only natural leader in the field.

The great escape: Pretty Cast’s legendary runaway

The ground on that November day at Tokyo was officially “heavy” after earlier rain – energy-sapping conditions over two laps of the vast 3200-meter course. Jockey Masato Shibata knew that if he could get Pretty Cast to the front cleanly, he should simply let her run.

For a mare known for poor starts, she broke almost perfectly. Seizing the lead within the first strides, she opened up a clear margin going into the first turn. No rival went with her. Perhaps they expected her to come back; perhaps they feared burning out their own mounts in the demanding ground. Whatever the reason, by the time the field passed the stands for the first time, Pretty Cast was already many lengths in front, ears pricked, galloping freely.

Then something remarkable happened. As the field settled and the others tried to steady for the long trip, Pretty Cast refused to slow down. Her dam Typecast had been notorious for her fierce temperament, and here the daughter showed the same streak: she simply ignored Shibata’s attempts to rate her and continued at her own rhythm. Down the backstretch on the second circuit the gap stretched to what television cameras later estimated at more than one hundred meters. From the grandstand, it looked as though she were in a race of her own.

Behind her, the favorites were paralyzed. Jockey Hiroshi Kawachi on Katsurano Haiseiko, Kazuhiko Kato on Hoyoyo Boy, and others spent precious time watching each other instead of the runaway leader. Some expected someone else to move first; others assumed the mare would inevitably tire and come back. Further back in the pack, veteran riders like Tomio Yokoyama on Mejiro Phantom – who knew Pretty Cast well from earlier days – began to worry. He reportedly urged others, “Someone go after her,” and when no one did, he and Yukio Okabe on Aranas Z tried to mount a belated chase.

By then, it was almost too late. As Pretty Cast swung into the final turn, the television broadcast showed only her: a solitary bay mare far in advance of the rest, kicking up clods of heavy ground. Only in the final 200 meters did she begin to shorten stride. From the stands the closing pack finally appeared in the same frame, Mejiro Phantom in particular making up ground with every stride.

But the line arrived first. Pretty Cast, hanging on grimly, crossed the finish seven lengths clear of Mejiro Phantom. The official time was 3 minutes 28.1 seconds, a slow time reflecting the deep ground, but the visual impression of the race – that incredible, almost reckless solo flight – burned itself into the memories of everyone watching.

Fuji TV commentator Takeshi Moriyama’s excited call in the final furlong has since become part of Japanese racing culture. As Mejiro Phantom tried in vain to close, he repeatedly cried out that the others would “never catch her,” and when Pretty Cast reached the post he famously shouted that she had “left them all – every single one of them – far, far behind.” It was not just a win; it was a story.

With that victory, Pretty Cast became the 82nd winner of the Tenno Sho (Autumn) and, significantly, the last mare ever to win the race at its old distance of 3200 meters. In later years the autumn Tenno Sho would be shortened to 2000 meters and repositioned as a middle-distance championship, making her runaway victory a kind of closing chapter for the race’s staying-era history.

After the summit: Arima Kinen and retirement

After the Tenno Sho, connections pointed Pretty Cast toward the year-end Arima Kinen. Public opinion, however, remained skeptical. Many fans dismissed her big win as a “fluke of pace and heavy ground” rather than proof that she was truly superior to the male stars.

In the fan voting for Arima Kinen she ranked only 21st and therefore did not qualify through the ballot, entering instead as a recommended runner. In the race itself, she could not reproduce her Tenno Sho heroics. With Sakura Shingeki making the running, Pretty Cast was never able to get comfortable on the pace and faded badly, finishing last, more than four seconds behind winner Hoyoyo Boy.

That final disappointment did little to tarnish her legend. Her Tenno Sho victory secured her the Yushun Sho Award (later JRA Award) for Best Older Filly or Mare of 1980, beating out fellow mares Silk Skii and Agnes Lady by a wide margin in the voting. Shortly afterward she was retired from racing and returned to Yoshida Farm as a broodmare.

Broodmare years: a famous son without a famous record

As a broodmare, Pretty Cast did not achieve the kind of success her pedigree might have suggested. Between 1982 and 1992 she produced eight named foals. Several failed to make the races at all; those that did had modest records. Her most famous offspring, though, wrote his own curious chapter in Japanese racing.

Her seventh foal, the dark bay colt Steel Cast (by Magnitude), was born in 1991. On paper he was hardly a star. Across his long career he made 69 starts for 4 wins, three of them in JRA races and one in regional racing after being transferred to the local NAR circuit. His overall record – 69 starts, 4 wins, with central-racing figures of 38 starts and 3 wins – looks like that of a sturdy but ordinary galloper.

Yet for one afternoon in 1994 he electrified the racing world. Entered in the 55th Kikuka Sho (Japanese St. Leger) against the mighty Narita Brian, who was aiming to complete the Triple Crown, Steel Cast was sent off at enormous odds. Jockey Koichi Tsunoda, aware of his stamina and mindful of his dam’s legend, sent him straight to the front. Down the long Kyoto backstretch Steel Cast opened up a huge lead, echoing his mother’s Tenno Sho tactics, and for a moment the crowd dared to imagine a miracle repeat of 1980.

It was not to be. In the final 200 meters the early exertions caught up with him, and he faded to finish fourteenth while Narita Brian stormed home to complete his historic Triple Crown. But the race call by legendary announcer Kiyoshi Sugimoto repeatedly invoked Pretty Cast’s name, turning Steel Cast’s bold, doomed escape into a nostalgic homage: the son briefly revived the memory of that famous runaway at Tokyo.

Pretty Cast’s other foals, including Ken Cast, who later won multiple races on local circuits, did not reach major stakes level. As a broodmare she is remembered more for the romance of her bloodlines and for Steel Cast’s storytelling value than for producing champions.

Last days and legacy

Pretty Cast spent her retirement at Yoshida Farm. In June 1995, at the age of twenty, she was diagnosed with advanced laryngeal cancer. With no realistic hope of recovery and to spare her increasing suffering, the decision was made to euthanize her on June 28, 1995. She was twenty-one by Japanese counting.

On the bare numbers, she retired with a record of 41 starts, 8 wins, 6 seconds, and 1 third, earning about ¥173 million – roughly equivalent to several hundred million yen in today’s money when adjusted for inflation. It is a good record, but hardly comparable to the dominant champions of her era. What elevated her to cult status was not consistency, but that single, outrageous afternoon when everything clicked: fitness, tactics, the absence of a true front-runner, and a field that fatally underestimated her courage.

For overseas fans discovering Japanese racing, Pretty Cast’s story offers a different kind of legend from the polished greatness of horses like Deep Impact or Orfevre. She represents the unpredictable side of racing – the day when a mare with a difficult temperament and an uneven record seizes control of a major race, runs exactly as her blood tells her to run, and leaves a grandstand full of people staring at the gap on the track and asking, “Did that really just happen?”

Today, whenever Japanese fans talk about “dai-nige” – the huge, almost reckless front-running escape – Pretty Cast’s name still comes up. Her Tenno Sho (Autumn) remains a race that not only decided a title, but also captured the essence of why people fall in love with horse racing in the first place: because sometimes, against all logic, a small mare with a stubborn heart outruns the entire established order and writes her own chapter in history.

Toumei – The “Mouse” Mare Who Conquered Japan

In the history of Japanese horse racing, a few mares stand out as legends: early pioneers like Miss Onward and Miss Homare, and later stars such as Air Groove and Gentildonna. But long before that golden age of champion mares, there was a tiny black filly from Hokkaido who rewrote what people thought a female racehorse could do.

Her name was Toumei (トウメイ), a 1966 black mare by Cipriani out of Toshimanna, bred at Tanioka Farm in Shizunai, Hokkaido. She was small, plain, and so unimpressive that people at the stable called her “the mouse.” Yet in 1971 she won both the Tenno Sho (Autumn, 3,200m at Tokyo) and the Arima Kinen (Grand Prix, 2,500m at Nakayama), defeating the best colts and older horses in the country. That season she was voted Japan’s Horse of the Year, the first mare ever to receive that honor.

For modern fans, especially those discovering Japanese racing through anime or international broadcasts, Toumei’s story reads almost like a fable: the unwanted filly who became a national champion, then returned as a broodmare to watch her own son win the same Tenno Sho she had conquered years before. But behind the fairy tale is a very real, very tough racehorse who ran 31 times, won 16 races, and never once finished out of the money.

Humble beginnings: a small filly from a great but “side” family

Toumei was born on May 17, 1966 at Tanioka Farm in Shizunai, Hokkaido. Her sire Cipriani was a stallion by Never Say Die, part of a male line that would later become very fashionable in Japan. At the time, however, Cipriani was still relatively unknown. Her dam Toshimanna, by Meiji Hikari, had raced once in local competition and finished unplaced. On paper, Toumei belonged to a distinguished female family: her ancestress Manna (racing name Robin O) had won the 1932 Teishitsu Goshoten (Emperor’s Cup, the forerunner of today’s Tenno Sho) at Hanshin, and the same line later produced classic winners such as Kumono Hana. But Toshimanna herself was considered a “side branch” of this famous family, without any recent top-class performers.

Physically, Toumei started life with some promise. As a foal she was small but nicely balanced, with a soft, elastic walk that reflected her sire’s good muscle quality. Then, somewhere along the way, her growth simply stopped. While other youngsters in the paddock filled out, she remained light-framed, almost skinny. Breeders and horsemen who saw her later described her as looking like a “mouse” – narrow, dark, and not at all like a future champion.

Tanioka Farm tried to sell her privately, even offering her in a package deal together with other horses. No one wanted her. Eventually, in the autumn of 1967, Toumei was sent to a public sale. There, trainer Kiyoshi Takagi from Ohi Racecourse in Tokyo bought her for ¥1.65 million, at a time when the average price at that sale was around ¥3 million. In other words, she was a clear “discount” purchase – roughly half the going rate, perhaps equivalent to tens of millions of yen in today’s value, but still cheap by racehorse standards.

An unwanted trainee: no groom, no stall, no expectations

After the sale, Toumei was moved to Fujisawa Farm near Tomakomai for early training. The plan was simple: educate her there, then send her to Takagi’s stable at Ohi for a career in regional racing. But before that could happen, Takagi suddenly died of pancreatic cancer. His death left Toumei in limbo, with no clear destination.

Around this time, her future owner entered the story. The man was Katsuo Kondo, who ran a chain of pachinko parlors in Sapporo. He took over ownership of the filly and tried to find a trainer willing to accept her into a JRA stable. It was not easy. Her frame was so light, her coat so dull, that many trainers refused. In the end, in the spring of 1968, trainer Shigeji Shimizu at Hanshin accepted her almost out of a sense of duty – he had been the one who had recommended buying her at the sale.

Even inside the stable, Toumei did not immediately find a place. No groom wanted to take charge of the strange, underdeveloped filly who kicked at other horses and did not trust people. For a while, Shimizu’s assistant – his own younger brother – looked after her in between other tasks. When the stable temporarily moved to Sapporo, she spent her days tied in an open space beside the barn, brought indoors only at night. She was, in every sense, a nobody: a little black mare with no supporter, no status, and no great expectations.

Shimizu even tried to send her to local racing. He offered to pay Kondo back ¥3 million – covering her training expenses and a little extra – and move her to a regional circuit where expectations would be lower. No regional trainer agreed to take her. The deal collapsed, and Toumei remained in Shimizu’s barn because there was literally nowhere else for her to go.

First steps: from “small mouse” to classic contender

On August 30, 1968, Toumei finally made her debut in a maiden race at Sapporo. She went off as the sixth favorite in an eight-horse field – a clear sign that the betting public shared the professionals’ low opinion of her. Yet she ran bravely and finished second. Two weeks later, running back on short rest in another maiden, she won. That victory changed everything. Kondo, Shimizu, and the stable staff started to see her with new eyes. She was still small and plain, but now there was something else: a powerful closing kick and a will to chase down whatever was in front of her.

Back at Ritto Training Center, Toumei progressed quickly. Between October and December she put together a three-race winning streak, proving that her Sapporo form had been no fluke. By the end of her two-year-old season (under the old Japanese age system), she was regarded as the top filly in western Japan.

In March 1969 she captured the Kyoto 4-Year-Old Special (roughly equivalent to a modern graded stakes for three-year-olds), her first stakes victory over 1,600m on turf. That win stamped her as a serious classic candidate, and she was sent to the Oka Sho (Japanese 1000 Guineas, 1,600m at Hanshin) as the race favorite.

In the Oka Sho, Toumei settled in fifth, just behind the leaders, waiting for her chance. Turning for home she moved up smoothly and briefly struck the front, the small black mare suddenly looming larger than life on the big stage. But in the final strides, the well-bred filly Hide Kotobuki unleashed a sharp late burst and caught her right before the line. Toumei had to settle for second.

In the Yushun Himba (Japanese Oaks, 2,400m at Tokyo) a month later, she again ran bravely but not quite bravely enough. She turned for home in striking range, slowly wore down the front-runner Light Parley, but in the last 100 meters another challenger, Shadai Turk, came flying and snatched the win. Toumei finished third, beaten only a neck and a nose. Twice in a row, she had run like a champion, only to be denied in the final yards.

By the end of her three-year-old campaign (modern age three), Toumei’s record stood at an impressive 7 wins, 6 seconds, 2 thirds, and 2 fourths. She had already earned more than enough to justify Kondo’s gamble. Many owners would have been content to retire such a small mare at that point and send her to the breeding shed. But Toumei’s real story was only beginning.

Injury, doubt, and an eight-month silence

As a four-year-old (modern age four), Toumei moved into open company. In March 1970 she won an open race, then followed up with victory in the Milers Cup (Yomiuri Milers Cup, 1,600m at Hanshin). She then finished second in the Hankyu Hai, another important sprint–miler race.

After the Hankyu Hai, however, disaster struck. Toumei was diagnosed with a serious problem in her right hind foot – a kind of white line disease known as hakusen-retsu. The vets estimated that she would need more than six months away from racing.

From the outside, the decision to rest her looked questionable. Here was a mare weighing just over 400kg, already a stakes winner against top-class males. Some fans and journalists argued that she had already earned more than expected for a cheaply bought mare and that any further campaigning was simply greed. Why risk her soundness?

Trainer Masayuki Sakata, who took over her care after Shigeji Shimizu’s death, saw it differently. He believed that Toumei had more to give – that if she could be brought back sound, she could compete at the very highest level. So the team chose patience. For eight months, the little mare disappeared from the racetrack, nursing her injured hoof and quietly building the strength she would need for the greatest season of her life.

1971: the “miler” stretches out

Toumei returned to racing in January 1971. It took her four runs to get back to the winner’s circle, but once she did, the old rhythm returned. She won an open class race, then in April defended her title in the Milers Cup, this time defeating the reigning Kikka Sho (Japanese St Leger) winner Date Tenryu. A “mere” miler was not supposed to beat a 3,000m classic winner so easily over 1,600m, but Toumei did.

Two months later she met another stiff test in the Hankyu Hai, now over 1,900m. There she carried a crushing top weight of 58kg – enormous for a small-bodied mare – and still won. For Sakata, that was the turning point. If this fragile-looking “mouse” could carry 58kg over 1,900m and finish strongest, perhaps she could stay much further.

In October, the stable decided on a bold plan: send Toumei to Tokyo for a series of major races. First came the Himba Tokyo Times Hai, a 1,600m handicap race for fillies and mares. The handicapper showed exactly how highly he rated her: she was assigned 59kg, while the next-highest-weighted mares, including Nasuno Kaori and Pearl Fontaine, carried only 54kg.

The race was run on a heavy track. Most horses hugged the inside rail, seeking the shortest way home through the tiring ground. Toumei’s jockey, Eiji Shimizu (no relation to her first trainer), chose the opposite path. He guided her calmly to the outside, let her relax, and then “stroked” her around the turn as if she were running in slow motion. She won by 1½ lengths without ever being fully asked. In the press room after the race, one clocker famously described the performance as “Toumei nine-tenths, just breezing.” It was the kind of effortless victory that made professionals raise their eyebrows and re-check their notebooks.

Just a month later, on November 28, Toumei stepped up in distance by double for the Tenno Sho (Autumn) – then a gruelling 3,200m turf race at Tokyo, one of the eight “big races” that formed the highest level of Japanese racing before the modern GI system. Many believed that asking a “mile specialist” to run two miles against classic winners was madness.

The 1971 Tenno Sho (Autumn): two miles in two acts

The 1971 Tenno Sho (Autumn) brought together a powerful field that included Akane Tenryu, winner of the Kikka Sho and one of the best stayers in the country, and Daishin Boldguard, a Tokyo Yushun (Japanese Derby) winner. Toumei was sent off as the third favorite, respected but not fully trusted by most fans to stay the full 3,200m.

Shimizu’s race plan was simple. Later he would explain that he had decided to ride the Tenno Sho as if it were “two 1,600m races back-to-back.” In the first mile, he would let Toumei settle, breathe, and do nothing more than gallop within herself. In the second mile, he would ride the race on its merits.

Breaking from the gate, Toumei quickly took up a mid-pack position, a few horses off the rail. Shimizu kept her in clear air, away from traffic, avoiding any stop-and-go movements that might break her rhythm. The field completed one circuit of the track, passed the stands, and headed out for the second lap. Still Shimizu sat quietly, hands low, letting the others make their moves.

After 2,000m the race finally began in earnest. Stamina-type colts started to wind up from behind; front-runners began to feel the strain. Shimizu eased Toumei off the rail, giving her a straight line of sight to the leaders. Coming into the long Tokyo stretch, he finally asked her to quicken.

The little black mare responded instantly. Moving down the center of the track, she lengthened her stride and began gobbling up the ground. The Derby winner and the St Leger colt fought on, but with every stride Toumei’s tacky, relentless finish drew her closer. In the final 200 meters she swept past them, taking the lead and holding it to the line to become that year’s Tenno Sho (Autumn) winner. Her winning time was 3:23.7, and at just 428kg she remains one of the lightest Tenno Sho winners in history.

For many observers, that was the day Toumei stopped being “the mouse” and became something else: an all-rounder, a mare with the courage and constitution to handle any distance, any race, any track condition.

The 1971 Arima Kinen: flu, chaos, and a six-horse Grand Prix

After the Tenno Sho, there was one obvious target left in the season: the Arima Kinen (Grand Prix), held at Nakayama over 2,500m in late December. It is an all-star race, with most of the field selected by fan vote. Toumei’s form and story captured the public imagination, and she duly took her place in the line-up.

Then, on the very day of the race, disaster struck Japanese racing. An outbreak of equine influenza began to reveal itself in the racecourse stables. Horses developed fevers one after another. In total, more than twenty horses were scratched from the day’s card due to illness, including major Arima Kinen contenders such as Mejiro Asama and Akane Tenryu. The Grand Prix, which should have been a packed, glittering finale to the season, shrank to a field of just six runners – the smallest in Arima Kinen history.

Toumei was one of the lucky ones. Because she had been stabled at an off-course training facility for traveling horses, she had avoided contact with the infected barns. Some people would later say she won the Grand Prix thanks to “luck.” Trainer Sakata, and many others who watched her that autumn, disagreed. They believed that even if the full, original field had stood their ground, no horse in Japan could have stopped her that day.

In the Arima Kinen itself, Toumei dropped out to her familiar position near the rear of the field. The early pace was honest but not suicidal. As the runners went past the stands and into the backstretch, she sat quietly, her small frame almost hidden behind the larger bodies of the colts in front of her.

Approaching the final turn, Shimizu guided her to the outside – the same wide, clear path that had worked so well in the Tokyo Times Hai and the Tenno Sho. There, on the outside, with nothing to block her view, he finally shook the reins.

Toumei surged forward, sweeping past rivals one by one. At the top of the short Nakayama straight, she ranged up alongside the foreign-bred colt Continental, who had taken the lead. For a moment they ran as one, two dark shapes driving through the winter air. Then Toumei found just a little more. Her stride deepened, her neck stretched, and she drew away to win by about 1½ lengths. She had taken the Tenno Sho and the Arima Kinen in the same season – something no mare had achieved since Garnet more than a decade earlier.

In the weeks that followed, the influenza outbreak worsened, forcing the cancellation of racing in the Kanto region at the start of the new year. In the shadow of that crisis, the scale of Toumei’s achievement was almost forgotten. But voters did not forget. At the end of the year she was crowned Horse of the Year and Best Older Mare by the major racing awards – the first mare ever to receive the top national title.

Her career earnings eventually totaled around ¥150,000,000, at the time the highest sum ever earned by a mare in Japanese racing – roughly equivalent to several hundred million yen in today’s money.

31 races, never off the board

Toumei’s final record is one of the most remarkable in Japanese racing: 31 starts, 16 wins, and she was never once out of the top four. In Japanese racing jargon, she “never missed the board” – something even great horses like Deep Impact or Symboli Rudolf could not claim.

She achieved this not as a lightly raced modern star protected by careful campaigns, but as a hard-knocking mare who ran often and carried big weights. She raced primarily in central Japan under JRA rules, never went abroad, and faced the best colts and older horses of her era repeatedly. Her trainer and jockeys often noted that she was difficult to handle and that she sometimes sulked if hit with the whip; she was a horse who responded better to rhythm and trust than to force.

Perhaps the most striking image left by contemporary journalists is her gaze. One writer recalled peeking into her stall one evening and finding her staring back at him, absolutely motionless, eyes burning with what he described as “a mixture of resentment, willpower, and something like a curse.” It was, he wrote, “not the eye of a horse, but the eye of a being who had decided never again to let others decide her fate.” That may be poetic exaggeration – but standing behind the poetry is a simple fact: in an era when mares were expected to be fragile and inconsistent, Toumei was neither.

From champion mare to Tenno Sho-winning dam

After the Arima Kinen, there were plans to give Toumei one final race in western Japan and hold a retirement ceremony at her home track. The influenza crisis made that impossible. Racing was suspended; travel between regions was heavily restricted. By the time things returned to normal, the decision had been made: the Arima Kinen would be Toumei’s last race.

She was supposed to retire as a broodmare at Kondo’s Makubetsu Farm in Hokkaido, a private farm set up specifically to house his mares. But even here, the influenza crisis intervened. Because of quarantine restrictions and breeding complications, Toumei instead spent her early broodmare years back at Fujisawa Farm, the same place that had helped raise her as a young horse. From 1972 to 1978 she lived and bred there, before finally moving to Makubetsu in 1979.

In total, Toumei produced 14 foals. Her most famous offspring was the colt Tenmei, by the stallion Luiz Dale. In 1978, he won the Tenno Sho (Spring, 3,200m at Kyoto), making Toumei and Tenmei the first mother–son pair to both win the Tenno Sho. It was a perfect circle: seven years after she had shocked the racing world in the autumn Tenno Sho, her son came charging down the long Kyoto straight to claim his own emperor’s prize.

Another of her foals, Hokumei, won races in central Japan before moving to the Hokkaido regional circuit, where he captured the Doei Kinen and other local stakes. Breeders who worked with her offspring noted that, like their dam, many of them were small in body and fiery in temperament – living proof that the tiny “mouse” mare passed on more than just a famous race record.

Toumei’s female line also continues to this day. The descendants of her eighth foal, a mare named Toun, produced the colt Nick Banyan, who won the Haneda Hai on the Ohi circuit in 2008. Through such descendants, her blood quietly threads its way through modern Japanese pedigrees.

A long, quiet old age

Unlike many champions whose lives end in accident or illness not long after retirement, Toumei enjoyed a remarkably long and peaceful old age. At Makubetsu Farm, farm manager Isamu Doi later recalled that she was a tough, healthy mare who almost never needed a veterinarian. Her internal organs and teeth remained strong well into her late years, and for most of her life she ate her feed with relish.

Kondo left clear instructions in his will: his family should not own racehorses after his death, but there was one exception. Toumei, and Toumei alone, was to be cared for until the end of her days. When Kondo died in 1991, all the other broodmares on the farm were sold, but Doi refused to move the aging Toumei. She had earned the right to stay where she was.

In early March 1997, at the age of 30 under the modern counting system (32 by the old Japanese method), she began to lose her appetite. By late March she stopped eating entirely and had to be supported with fluids. On April 7, 1997, Doi visited her stall and found that she had quietly slipped away. In accordance with Kondo’s wishes, she was buried in a small grave on the farm. Even after Makubetsu Farm ceased operating as a breeding farm, the signboard was left in place so that fans could find the site and pay their respects.

Why Toumei still matters

For modern fans—especially international ones discovering Japanese racing through global broadcasts and anime—Toumei can feel very far away. She raced before the official GI era, before international raiders, before Tokyo’s massive grandstands and the “Japan Cup generation.” Her name does not appear in GI lists because there were no GIs yet. But in the context of her time, she was every bit a world-class champion.

She was the first mare to be named Horse of the Year in Japan. She won two of the toughest staying races in the country—Tenno Sho (Autumn) and Arima Kinen—in the same season, over distances that test not just speed but heart. She raced 31 times in top company and never once failed to finish in the prize money. And she did all of this starting from a place where no one wanted her, where she literally had no groom and no stall to call her own.

In that sense, Toumei’s story is not only about racing. It is about what can happen when one small, unwanted life is given just enough time and just enough faith to show what it can really do. For Japanese racing, she opened a path that later mares like Air Groove, Vodka, Buena Vista, Gentildonna, Almond Eye and others would walk with their own styles and strengths.

For fans abroad, especially those coming to Japanese racing through modern stars, Toumei offers something deeper: a reminder that greatness doesn’t always look like a big, perfect, expensive horse in the sales ring. Sometimes, it looks like a “mouse-colored” mare tied outside the barn, waiting for someone to believe that she can run.