Sawin's First Run After Christmas

The Saturday after Christmas was the day of Sawin's debut.

Although it was the final start of the year for the Racehorses under my ownership, rather than feeling relaxed, I was somehow even more nervous.

That morning, with plenty of time left before the race, I arrived inside Hanshin Racecourse.

Before heading to the paddock to meet the people from the stable, I first took a detour toward the area behind the paddock where Horsehead Kannon stood.

Before Sawin's first race, Trainer Wada had deliberately had different Jockeys ride him during training.

"If the same person rides him for too long, he may develop certain habits or even bad ones. And when gathering opinions, hearing several people's views is more helpful for future training than relying on a single person's subjective assessment."

Apparently, this had originally been a training approach Trainer Arayama recommended after Chongli returned to the stable, but it had ended up being used on Sawin first.

Starting with Duman Lai, his scheduled main Jockey, then Haruki, Kawada, Sakai, and even Trainer Wada himself, whose weight had not changed much since retiring, the stable had rotated Jockeys almost every morning before Sawin's debut.

After being ridden in turn by Kansai's top riders, Sawin received unanimously positive evaluations.

Everyone said the same thing: "He's a good horse."

From training footage, many two- and even three-year-olds looked somewhat tense when they first began climbing the slope, but Sawin had gone up it smoothly.

The last time I had felt that way was several years ago, when I first watched Sakuya train on the hill.

As I thought about this while heading toward Horsehead Kannon, I spotted a familiar back.

Under the thick shade of the trees stood Yutaka Take, gazing at the memorial to Jockey Fujioka.

"Morning—Mr. Take?"

Yutaka Take