At Hanshin, Egao o Misete won two G2 races over 1,600 metres in less than three months. The first was restricted to fillies and mares; the second brought her into an open field against males as well. At Kyoto, she also finished close behind the leaders in two of Japan's major races for females over longer distances. That combination makes her an interesting guide to the late-1990s Japanese turf programme: a mare whose best victories came at a mile, but whose strongest G1 placing came over 2,200 metres.
Her name means "Show me a smile." For Japanese racing followers it also carries the memory of the fire at Yamamoto Training Center in February 2000, in which she died while still in training. The loss belongs in her story. So do the opponents she beat, the weight differences in those encounters, and the races in which she nearly matched more celebrated mares. Those details recover the competitive career behind a name often encountered through an account of the tragedy.
Two Hanshin miles, two different fields
The Hanshin Himba Tokubetsu on December 20, 1998 was the first of her graded victories. It was a G2 over 1,600 metres on turf, held near the end of the year. Egao o Misete, ridden by Ryo Takahashi, carried 53 kilograms and won in 1:34.7 on good going. She was sixth favorite in a field of thirteen. The runner-up, Admire Sunday, carried the same weight and finished two lengths behind; Sugino Cutie was third. This was a clear success against her own sex, achieved before the end of her three-year-old season.
Kyoei March, the previous year's Oka Sho winner, was fourth in that race and carried 57 kilograms. The distinction helps place the result accurately. Egao o Misete had beaten an established Classic winner, but under conditions that gave her a four-kilogram advantage. Race records provide both pieces of information. Remembering the opponent while dropping the weights would overstate the comparison; remembering only the allowance would overlook the fact that she had actually won a high-class race by a useful margin.
She returned to Hanshin for the Milers Cup on March 7, 1999. Hiroshi Kawachi took the ride, and she was seventh favorite among fourteen runners. On slightly heavy turf she won in 1:35.6, defeating Kyoei March by three-quarters of a length. This time Egao o Misete carried 54 kilograms and Kyoei March 57. Keiun Viking finished third. It was a second G2 mile victory at the same course, but in a contest open to both sexes rather than a repeat of the female-only assignment.
The changing rider and conditions are useful parts of the story. Takahashi had delivered the December victory on good ground; Kawachi delivered the March victory on a softer surface. Their mare succeeded in both. The runner-up was also a significant recurring opponent, linking the two performances without making them identical. Egao o Misete's reputation as a miler rested on repeat achievement at this level, rather than on a single favorable result that was never reproduced.
Neither race should be relocated to suit a modern reader's mental calendar. In this period the Hanshin race for females was a December mile, and the Milers Cup was a March event at Hanshin. Reading the original dates, distances and venues is particularly valuable when following a Japanese horse from decades ago: familiar race names can survive substantial changes of programme. In Egao o Misete's case, both graded wins were earned on Hanshin turf at the same distance, within one winter and early spring.
How a Classic trial winner became that miler
Egao o Misete was born on May 27, 1995, at Northern Farm in Hayakita, Hokkaido. The JBIS profile records her as a dark chestnut daughter of Sunday Silence and Curly Angel. Yuichi Odagiri owned her, and Hidetaka Otonashi trained her at Ritto. Her maternal grandsire was Judge Angelucci. The pedigree combined a sire transforming Japanese turf racing with a female family already firmly established in the country's breeding history.
Her name was a readily understandable Japanese phrase, rather than a conventional grand-sounding racing title. A report published on the day of her death singled out that accessible naming as part of her appeal. It is reasonable to translate the phrase for an overseas reader; it is not evidence that the horse herself possessed a particular human emotion. The name gave fans a simple expression to remember and say aloud while the results supplied a sporting reason to follow her.
Japan's age convention can make the record appear a year later than it was. Contemporary charts label her four in 1998 and five in 1999. Those are three and four in modern international terms. Japanese horses were then counted as one at birth. Thus the December G2 winner was still a three-year-old, and her March Milers Cup success came early in her four-year-old season. This was a young mare establishing herself against older runners, not a late-career discovery.
Her route into that position included a successful attempt to reach the Classics. In the Sweet Pea Stakes at Tokyo on May 10, 1998, she won over 1,800 metres with Yoshitomi Shibata riding. Carrying 54 kilograms, she defeated Dantsu Princess by a length and a quarter in 1:48.3. She was third favorite. The race was an open stakes event, not a graded race, so it belongs beside her two G2 victories without being counted as a third graded success.
The next step was the Oaks. The JRA's official result shows how abruptly the task changed: Egao o Misete finished fifteenth over Tokyo's 2,400 metres as Erimo Excel won the Classic. The corner positions place her near the front through much of the race, before that final placing. A trial victory had earned her a place in the discussion, but it did not establish that the longer Classic distance was her best assignment. Her subsequent career would develop through a wider range of opportunities.
At the other end of 1998, the Shuka Sho result provided a different assessment. She finished fourth at Kyoto over 2,000 metres, ridden by Hirofumi Shii, only 0.4 seconds behind Phalaenopsis. Narita Luna Park and Air Deja Vu took the intervening places. Egao o Misete had started as the eleventh favorite, yet finished ahead of Oaks winner Erimo Excel. The result did not reverse the Oaks; it demonstrated a more competitive performance at a different course and a shorter distance in the autumn.
That distinction is central to her development. Her three-year-old season included both a heavy Classic defeat and a close finish in another major race. December then supplied her first graded victory. Treating the whole season as either disappointment or uninterrupted progress would flatten it. The actual sequence shows a filly who could perform well in strong company without being the dominant member of her generation, and who found an important winning opportunity at a mile.
The mares who kept testing her
Winning the Milers Cup did not produce an easy passage through the rest of 1999. The Yasuda Kinen at Tokyo put her into a deeper international mile field. Air Jihad won ahead of Grass Wonder, and Egao o Misete finished sixth in 1:34.0, 0.7 seconds behind the winner. She was eleventh favorite and carried 56 kilograms. Her place in that field is a useful ceiling on claims made from the March victory: she was a serious graded miler, but she did not win the country's principal spring mile championship.
Two weeks later she was back at Hanshin, now over 2,000 metres in the Mermaid Stakes. On heavy turf, Erimo Excel won in 2:03.6. Egao o Misete finished third in 2:04.0, behind Kikuno Scarlet, with Takahashi riding again. Both Egao o Misete and Erimo Excel carried 56 kilograms. The Oaks winner therefore remained an active part of her sporting environment beyond the Classic season, meeting her again in the older fillies' and mares' programme.
Their next important comparison came in the Fuchu Himba Stakes on October 17. Egao o Misete was favorite at Tokyo over 1,800 metres, ridden by Masayoshi Ebina. Erimo Excel beat her by half a length, their times 1:47.5 and 1:47.6. The winner carried 56 kilograms and the runner-up 55. This was a close defeat rather than a win to be excused into existence, but it showed that Egao o Misete was still competing near the front of a strong female division in the autumn.
There is a coherent pattern across those encounters. Kyoei March gave her graded mile victories a recognizable standard; Erimo Excel repeatedly tested her over intermediate distances. These were different comparisons, and Egao o Misete did not enjoy the same success in both. Against Erimo Excel she lost the Oaks, finished ahead in the Shuka Sho, then finished behind again in the Mermaid and Fuchu Himba. The sequence gives texture to a career otherwise easy to compress into two wins and a tragedy.
Her strongest G1 placing came next, in the Queen Elizabeth II Cup on November 14, 1999. Over Kyoto's outer 2,200-metre course, Mejiro Dober won in 2:13.5. Fusaichi Airedale was three-quarters of a length behind, and Egao o Misete followed another half-length back in third, timed at 2:13.7. Ebina rode her, and she carried 56 kilograms, the same as the winner. The younger runner-up carried 54. These are small but meaningful distinctions in a closely grouped finish.
She also finished ahead of Phalaenopsis and Erimo Excel that afternoon. This does not make her superior to them across their careers. It does establish that, in a major championship at a distance beyond her winning miles, she could finish immediately behind Mejiro Dober and contend with leading mares from more than one age group. The race broadens the evidence for her ability. Calling her only a miler leaves out one of her most accomplished performances.
The year ended less successfully. She was favorite when defending her Hanshin title in December, but finished ninth. Her JRA career record then closes with fourteenth in the Tokyo Shimbun Hai on January 30, 2000. That was her nineteenth start. Across those nineteen races she won four times, finished second once and third three times. She had achieved two G2 wins and a G1 placing, while still experiencing the reversals common to horses campaigning repeatedly in strong company.
Curly Angel's daughter, and a younger brother
The family relationship is worth setting out carefully. Egao o Misete's mother, Curly Angel, was a daughter of Judge Angelucci and Dyna Carle. Dyna Carle was therefore Egao o Misete's maternal grandmother. Reading a Japanese female family as a sequence of famous names can obscure these actual steps. Here the important link runs through Curly Angel, whose own offspring would include a younger full brother to Egao o Misete.
That brother was Orewa Matteruze, born on January 16, 2000. He shared both Sunday Silence and Curly Angel with her. He also raced for Odagiri, was bred by Northern Farm and trained by Otonashi. In 2006 he won the Takamatsunomiya Kinen over 1,200 metres and the Keio Hai Spring Cup over 1,400 metres. He extended the family's success into sprinting, whereas his sister's graded victories had both come over 1,600 metres.
This is a sibling connection, not a descendant line from Egao o Misete. She never reached a broodmare career. Her brother's later achievements are relevant to the family and to the same owner-trainer partnership, but they should not be credited as her production record. For overseas readers encountering her in a pedigree discussion, that difference is especially useful: the continuing branch belongs to her mother and brother, while her own contribution was made on the racecourse.
Otonashi's official retirement profile published by the JRA in February 2025 lists both horses among the graded winners of a long training career. His licence dated from 1995. Egao o Misete's victories thus belong to the early years of a stable that later became associated with many major winners. Orewa Matteruze's 2006 successes appear in the same record several seasons later, giving the family connection a concrete place in the trainer's professional history as well.
Before those later events, the family had already suffered its loss. Egao o Misete died in the Yamamoto Training Center fire in the early hours of February 11, 2000. The contemporary netkeiba report said she had gone there after the Tokyo Shimbun Hai and was being prepared for a possible Nakayama Himba Stakes appearance the following month. She was five by modern age reckoning; reports using the old Japanese system called her six. Her career ended through the fire, not through an announced retirement after her final race.
The dates leave one precise connection between the sister and brother: Orewa Matteruze had been born less than a month before she died. His racing victories were still years away. They could not restore her opportunity to race again or become a broodmare, but they would put the same parents, owner and trainer back into major-race results. Egao o Misete's own winning entries remain the Sweet Pea Stakes and, above all, those two Hanshin miles: December 1998 with Takahashi, March 1999 with Kawachi.
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