With 300 metres to run you would have given up on fourth favourite Shahryar in Sunday’s $4.2 million Yokyo Yushun (Japanese Derby).
Odds-on shot Efforia, the Satsuki Sho (Japanese 2000 Guineas) winner, had just burst past the four runners who had seemed to have the race between them and was going away impressively. Could he be the next in the growing line of Japanese superstars following on from the likes of Deep Impact, Orfevre, Contrail and Almond Eye?
The inexperienced, unbalanced Shahryar, having found himself behind horses, was at least four lengths behind and struggling to find any rhythm.
Find that rhythm he did, though. And how! As the video below shows, the son of Deep Impact surged after Efforia and was a head in front on the line.
Based on what these horses have achieved in their careers so far, however, this must rank as the worst Yokyo Yushun in the TRC era. Shahryar was having just his fourth race (he won his only outing as a juvenile last October, was third to Efforia in a G3 over 1800m in February then won an 1800m G3 Derby prep in March, beating Great Magician by a neck. Great Magician, another son of Deep Impact, was less than a length and a half back in fourth on Sunday.
For now, then, the TRC Computer Race Ratings algorithm calculates that the most likely performance rating to assign this race is TRC 115, leaving this year’s Derby at the bottom of the pile of previous renewals since 2011, arranged in descending order of merit here:
Shahryar’s rating is a function of the previous ratings of the horses coming into the race and the distances between them at the finish, given the distance of the race and the going.
It is not uncommon for 3-year-old races to receive higher ratings retrospectively as the season goes on, though 2021 Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit had his winning figure of TRC 121 revised downwards by one point following the running of the Preakness Stakes ,in which he was only third.
Shahryar’s sire Deep Impact, currently the world’s #2 stallion behind Galileo in the latest TRC Global Rankings for Sires, has now produced a remarkable seven of the 11 Japanese Derby winners covered by TRC data.
The low rating given to Shahryar’s success continues the global trend of relatively low figures awarded to the first Classics in the Northern Hemisphere this year. This could be somewhat attributed to the disruption caused to the racing schedule by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Efforia remains the highest-rated Japanese-trained 3-year-old colt for his victory in the G1 Satsuki Sho.
Judging by the way the Yokyo Yushun unfolded, it would be no great surprise if Shahryar was able to achieve a much higher ratings later in the year.