Kizuna and Contrail Add to Deep Impact’s Legacy in Japan’s Sire Championships

[Wandering Eyes]

It is three years since Deep Impact's long reign as Japan's champion sire ended, and six years since his death at the age of 17, but his influence on the country's stallion ranks is still profound.  As well as being sire of the champion Kizuna, he is also sire of champion freshman Contrail, who, like his father, was a Triple Crown winner. And, it will doubtless come as no surprise that Deep Impact is also the champion broodmare sire for the second time. Gone but very much not forgotten.

The Tokyo Yushun, or Japanese Derby, remains an important test in Japan and Kizuna added his name to that particular roll of honour back in 2013, some seven years before Contrail did the same. That they have both now been champion first-season sire speaks volumes, both for the way these horses are valued by breeders in the support they have received, but also for the structure of Japan's two-year-old programme. Back-loaded in the season, the juvenile contests are very much a springboard for a career at three and beyond, rather than the be-all and end-all for a young racehorse. 

To nurture proper Classic horses, this is the way it should be, and it is also worth noting the enduring importance and influence of the Kikuka Sho (Japanese St Leger), whose recent winners of course include the aforementioned Deep Impact and Contrail, as well as Kitasan Black – sire of the great Equinox and this year's Derby winner Croix Du Nord – as well as the revered Orfrevre, Epiphaneia, and World Premiere. From a small first crop of just 25 foals conceived at the Yushun Stallion Station, World Premiere is now the sire of Lovcen, breakthrough winner of last week's G1 Hopeful Stakes, a race won in the last two seasons by Croix Du Nord and 2024 Arima Kinen victrix Regaleira, a daughter of the Japan Cup winner Suave Richard. 

World Premiere had three winners from his 11 starters, and his crops to come will be similarly small, with 32 yearlings about to turn two. He covered 24 mares in 2025 at a fee of ¥500,000 (approximately €2,700). It will be interesting to see if Lovcen is a fluke or the start of something bigger to come. World Premiere was after all a decent racehorse. He was a winner at two and the Kikuka Sho wasn't his sole top-level win as he also landed the Tenno Sho (Autumn) as a five-year-old as well as finishing third in the Arima Kinen. Furthermore, his Listed-winning dam Mandela (Acatenango) is a half-sister to Manduro (Monsun), Europe's Horse of the Year in 2007.

But let's talk about Contrail. Much has been expected of the near-black stallion ever since he waltzed into the yard at Shadai Stallion Station. His first foals, then yearlings, sold like the proverbial hotcakes and with no shortage of representation in 2025 – 80 runners – he has notched 19 winners including the Listed winner Badrinath and Grade 3-placed duo of Gene King and Going To Sky. Expect him to click up a gear with his first three-year-olds in 2026.

While Contrail was comfortably clear on progeny earnings, both Grade 3-winning sprinter Matera Sky and GI Carter Handicap winner Mischievous Alex were ahead of him by number of winners, with 24 and 27 respectively at an impressive strike-rate, while Chrysoberyl, a Grade I winner on the dirt in Japan's Champions Cup, was fourth in the table, and also had 19 winners. 

From a European perspective, an honorary mention must go to the sixth-placed Benbatl. The son of Dubawi who won Group 1 races in Germany, Dubai and Australia, and has now made a decent start at Big Red Farm, with 13 winners from 49 first-crop runners. 

The compromised fertility of the 2021 2,000 Guineas and St James's Palace Stakes winner Poetic Flare means that he is relatively short on numbers, with just 38 foals from his first crop. However, 26 of those have run this year with eight of them winning, to put him in eighth place in the table.

 

Contrail, Japan's champion first-season sire of 2025 | Emma Berry

 

Back in the big league, Kizuna finished ahead of the perennial bridesmaid Lord Kanaloa, who has now been second in the table for six consecutive years. The admirable sprinter-miler, a multiple Grade 1 winner himself, has sired 12 Grade 1 winners including the 2025 scorers Bellagio Opera, Costa Nova and Satono Reve, who also finished a close second in the G1 Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot.

As already noted, Kitasan Black produced this year's Derby winner, Croix Du Nord, and finished third in the table overall, ahead of the late Duramente, sire of the exciting three-year-old Masquerade Ball, the winner of the Tenno Sho (Autumn) who ran Calandagan to the wire in the Japan Cup.

The 2016 Breeders' Cup Sprint winner Drefong continues to hold his own in Japan and was represented by his second Grade 1 winner recently in Star Anise, who landed the Hanshin Juvenile Fillies and is a potential Classic contender for 2026. Drefong's previous Grade 1 winner was his first-crop son Geoglyph, who struck in the Satsuki Sho (Japanese 2,000 Guineas) of 2022. He is proving a reliable stallion and finished fifth in the table (as he did in 2024), narrowly ahead of Epiphaneia and Leontes, the sires respectively of Dubai Sheema Classic winner Danon Decile and Museum Mile, the winner of last weekend's Arima Kinen. 

Real Steel, who is bred on the same Deep Impact-Storm Cat cross as Study Of Man and, like him, is from the family of Miesque, finished eighth in the table and was represented by the brilliant Forever Young, who became Japan's first winner of the Breeders' Cup Classic. 

 

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