Japanese sprint racing changed hands during 2012, and the transfer happened inside one stable.
Curren Chan entered that year as Japan's reigning champion sprinter. She had won five races in succession during 2011, including the Sprinters Stakes, and opened her next major campaign by winning the Takamatsunomiya Kinen. Third behind her that day was a younger stablemate named Lord Kanaloa.
Six months later, they met again in the Sprinters Stakes. This time Lord Kanaloa won and Curren Chan finished second. Their final meeting came in Hong Kong in December, where Lord Kanaloa became the first Japanese winner of the Hong Kong Sprint.
That sequence places Curren Chan at an interesting point in Japanese horse racing history. Before Lord Kanaloa became Japan's internationally recognized sprint champion, the leading sprinter in Takayuki Yasuda's stable - and in Japan - was a gray mare by Kurofune.
Kurofune, Spring Ticket and a 26.25 Million Yen Foal
Curren Chan was foaled on March 31, 2007, at Shadai Farm. Her sire was Kurofune, the gray son of French Deputy whose racing career included the NHK Mile Cup on turf and a dominant Japan Cup Dirt victory in 2001.
Her dam, Spring Ticket, was by 1988 Japan Cup winner Tony Bin. Curren Chan was offered at the 2007 Select Sale as a foal and purchased for 26.25 million yen by Takashi Suzuki.
She joined the Ritto stable of Takayuki Yasuda, a trainer whose name would become closely associated with elite Japanese sprinters. Kenichi Ikezoe later became Curren Chan's principal jockey.
Nothing about her first race suggested that a sprint championship was imminent. Curren Chan made her debut over 1,400 meters at Hanshin in December 2009 and finished second. Her three-year-old season began on dirt, where she won a 1,200-meter maiden at Kyoto. She switched back to turf soon afterward and gradually established the distance range that would define her career.
By the end of 2010, she had won three of five starts that season. Her final appearance of the year produced a convincing 1,200-meter victory at Nakayama, setting up a four-year-old campaign in which she would not lose a race in Japan.
Five Consecutive Wins in 2011
Curren Chan's 2011 season can be read as a steady climb through Japan's sprint program rather than a sudden breakthrough in one championship race.
She began by winning the Yamashiro Stakes at Kyoto over 1,200 meters. Her next assignment required a longer distance and stronger company: the Hanshin Himba Stakes, then a G2 over 1,400 meters. Curren Chan won again, giving her the first graded-stakes title of her career.
The summer moved her to Hokkaido. At Hakodate she won the Hakodate Sprint Stakes over 1,200 meters, then continued to Sapporo for the Keeneland Cup and collected another G3 victory.
Four starts in 2011 had produced four wins. More importantly, Curren Chan had progressed from an open-class sprint to G2 and G3 company without interrupting the sequence.
The fifth race brought international opposition and Japan's autumn sprint championship.
Sprinters Stakes 2011: Rocket Man Comes to Nakayama
The 2011 Sprinters Stakes was not simply a contest among Japan's leading short-distance horses. The Global Sprint Challenge had brought two prominent overseas runners to Nakayama.
Rocket Man arrived from Singapore with an international reputation that made him the clear favorite. Earlier that year he had won the Dubai Golden Shaheen and KrisFlyer International Sprint. Hong Kong was represented by Lucky Nine, another high-class sprinter who had won the Hong Kong Classic Mile and would later establish himself at the top level over shorter distances.
Japanese bettors made Rocket Man the 1.5 favorite. Curren Chan, despite her four consecutive victories, was third choice at 11.2.
Ikezoe positioned Curren Chan around sixth as the field travelled through Nakayama's 1,200-meter course. Pas de Trois raced near the front, while Rocket Man and Lucky Nine were also prominent.
Curren Chan produced the strongest finish among them. She covered the final 600 meters in 33.8 seconds and won in 1:07.4, one and three-quarter lengths ahead of Pas de Trois. A Shin Virgo finished third, Rocket Man fourth and Lucky Nine fifth.
Her first G1 victory was also her fifth consecutive win of the season. The sequence had begun in a 1,200-meter stakes race at Kyoto in January and ended nine months later with Curren Chan defeating an international field at Nakayama.
Hong Kong and the End of the Winning Streak
Curren Chan's final race of 2011 took her outside Japan for the first time. She travelled to Sha Tin for the Hong Kong Sprint on December 11.
Lucky Nine, fifth behind her at Nakayama, was back on home ground. The Hong Kong runner came from the second half of the field and won in 1:08.98, with Entrapment and Joy And Fun dead-heating for second. Little Bridge finished fourth.
Curren Chan finished fifth, 0.4 seconds behind the winner. The result ended her five-race winning streak, but her Japanese season had already established her position in the division.
When the JRA Awards were announced, Curren Chan received 270 of 285 votes for Best Sprinter or Miler. No other horse received more than four votes in the category.
Takamatsunomiya Kinen 2012
Curren Chan returned at five in the Ocean Stakes at Nakayama before heading to Chukyo for the Takamatsunomiya Kinen on March 25.
There was an important name among her opponents. Lord Kanaloa was a four-year-old colt trained, like Curren Chan, by Takayuki Yasuda. He had won five consecutive races from the autumn of 2011 through the 2012 Silk Road Stakes and started as the 2.4 favorite.
Curren Chan was second choice at 3.9.
The two stablemates approached the race from similar forward positions. Curren Chan travelled second, while Lord Kanaloa sat around fourth. San Carlo, a powerful closer who had finished second in the previous year's Takamatsunomiya Kinen, waited much farther back.
Curren Chan reached the front and had enough left to resist San Carlo's late run. She won by a neck in 1:10.3. Lord Kanaloa finished third, another half-length behind San Carlo.
The victory gave Curren Chan both of Japan's major 1,200-meter JRA G1 races. She had won the 2011 Sprinters Stakes at Nakayama and the 2012 Takamatsunomiya Kinen at Chukyo.
JRA later noted that she was the fifth horse to complete that sprint G1 double and the third filly or mare to win the Takamatsunomiya Kinen.
Two Sprinters from the Same Stable
Curren Chan and Lord Kanaloa were not merely rivals who happened to meet in major races. Both were trained by Yasuda, and their careers overlapped at precisely the point when one was reaching the top and the other was about to move beyond it.
The Takamatsunomiya Kinen established the initial order clearly: Curren Chan first, Lord Kanaloa third.
They did not meet again during the summer. Curren Chan returned in September for the Centaur Stakes at Hanshin and finished fourth, only 0.1 seconds behind winner Epice Arome. Lord Kanaloa had also been preparing for the autumn championship after finishing second in the Hakodate Sprint Stakes and winning the Silk Road Stakes earlier in the year.
The Sprinters Stakes on September 30 brought them together for the second time.
Sprinters Stakes 2012: Lord Kanaloa Reverses the Result
Curren Chan entered the race as defending champion and started favorite at 2.5. Lord Kanaloa was second choice at 4.4.
Curren Chan raced ahead of her stablemate, sitting around fifth while Lord Kanaloa waited farther back. In the straight, Curren Chan accelerated into contention and ran the 1,200 meters faster than she had when winning the race one year earlier.
It was not enough.
Lord Kanaloa came past to win in 1:06.7, establishing a Nakayama 1,200-meter course and race record that still stands in 2026. Curren Chan finished three-quarters of a length behind in 1:06.8. Dream Valentino was third.
The result did not diminish Curren Chan's sprint credentials. She had just run one-tenth of a second slower than a record-setting winner. But the order between the two Yasuda-trained sprinters had changed.
The Final Meeting at Sha Tin
Both horses travelled to Hong Kong for the Hong Kong Sprint on December 9, 2012.
For Curren Chan, it was a return to the race in which she had finished fifth the previous year. For Lord Kanaloa, it was his first start outside Japan.
Lord Kanaloa won. The victory made him the first Japanese-trained horse to capture the Hong Kong Sprint and began an international sequence that would eventually include another Hong Kong Sprint, a Takamatsunomiya Kinen, a second Sprinters Stakes and the Yasuda Kinen.
Curren Chan finished seventh in what became the final race of her career.
The three meetings between the stablemates form a compact record of the transition. Curren Chan beat Lord Kanaloa in the 2012 Takamatsunomiya Kinen. Lord Kanaloa beat her in the Sprinters Stakes six months later. He beat her again in Hong Kong, then continued racing through 2013 as the dominant sprinter of his era.
Curren Chan retired after Sha Tin with 18 starts, nine wins, three seconds and one third. JBIS records 16 starts in Japan and two in Hong Kong, with total Japanese earnings of 449,061,000 yen.
Two JRA Awards in Two Different Categories
Curren Chan's championship record reflected the way her final two seasons unfolded.
Her unbeaten domestic campaign in 2011 brought the JRA Award for Best Sprinter or Miler. The 270 votes she received made the choice overwhelming.
In 2012, Lord Kanaloa took over as Best Sprinter or Miler after defeating her at Nakayama and winning in Hong Kong. Curren Chan was instead voted Best Older Filly or Mare. Her season had included one win from five starts, but that victory was the Takamatsunomiya Kinen, followed later by second place in the Sprinters Stakes.
She therefore retired with two JRA championship awards, but in different categories: Japan's leading sprinter or miler in 2011 and leading older female in 2012.
Curren Moe: Lord Kanaloa Returns to the Family
Curren Chan returned to Shadai Farm as a broodmare. One of her matings later connected her directly to the horse who had succeeded her at the top of Japanese sprint racing.
Her 2016 daughter Curren Moe was by Lord Kanaloa.
Curren Moe developed into a specialist at the same 1,200-meter distance associated with both parents. She won four of 13 starts and earned more than 116 million yen. Although she never won a graded race, she finished second in three G3 sprints: the 2020 Keihan Hai, 2021 Ocean Stakes and 2021 Hakodate Sprint Stakes.
The pedigree was unusually direct. Curren Moe's dam had beaten Lord Kanaloa in the 2012 Takamatsunomiya Kinen; her sire had then beaten Curren Chan in the Sprinters Stakes and Hong Kong Sprint.
The next generation is now on the racecourse. Curren Moe's 2024 colt Curren Hau, by Sungrazer, won one of his first two starts in 2026. JBIS also records a 2025 filly by Matera Sky and a 2026 filly by Curren Black Hill from Curren Moe.
The Curren Chan Family in 2026
JBIS's latest broodmare records show that Curren Chan's family continues to expand.
Curren Chan herself produced Curren Slay by Novellist in 2015, Curren Moe by Lord Kanaloa in 2016, Curren Hime by Danon Chantilly in 2017, Curren Yuan Meng by Curren Black Hill in 2018 and Curren Emotion by Heart's Cry in 2019. Her later produce includes a 2024 filly by Reach the Crown.
Her daughters have also moved into breeding. Curren Hime has a 2025 filly by Omega Perfume and a 2026 filly by Efforia. Curren Moe's young offspring are already beginning to race.
That breeding record provides a direct link from the Japanese sprint scene of 2011 and 2012 into the current generation. Curren Chan's most accomplished racing daughter was sired by the stablemate who replaced her as Japan's sprint champion, and Curren Moe's offspring are now carrying that combination forward.
2011 to 2012: A Change at the Top
Curren Chan's peak lasted for a relatively short period, but the chronology is unusually clean.
In 2011 she won five consecutive races, progressing through the Hanshin Himba Stakes, Hakodate Sprint Stakes and Keeneland Cup before defeating Rocket Man, Lucky Nine and Japan's domestic sprinters in the Sprinters Stakes. That season made her Japan's champion sprinter or miler.
In March 2012 she added the Takamatsunomiya Kinen and defeated Lord Kanaloa. In September, Lord Kanaloa reversed the result in record time at Nakayama. In December, he won the Hong Kong Sprint while Curren Chan made her final start.
Lord Kanaloa's international achievements would eventually make him the more famous horse. Curren Chan's place immediately before that rise is equally clear in the race record: when the future champion first contested a Japanese sprint G1, the horse waiting for him at the finish was his gray stablemate.
Curren Chan won that race.
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