Koichi spent the rest of his time checking on the other racehorses scheduled to race at Hanshin.
Once he had more or less finished up,
he called the Assistant first, then had her put him through to Ayano Aoe.
"Thanks for your hard work today, Sasaki. How did things look?"
Ayano Aoe stood at her office window, looking outside.
It seemed they had not seen each other for two months.
"Things still felt quite different from before. Overall, he hasn't regained his old form. I feel like running the Spring Tenno Sho after the prep race might not end well."
Koichi thought for a moment before answering.
He could not be entirely sure, but he felt that even if the Hanshin Daishoten went smoothly, the Spring Tenno Sho would probably go wrong.
"So you're not very optimistic?"
"It's not really a question of optimism. Judging by Golden Masterpiece's performance in the Kikuka Sho, three thousand meters might already be his limit."
Koichi felt that running the Spring Tenno Sho just over a month after the Daishoten was not a good fit for Golden Masterpiece.
His patience could hold out over twenty-five hundred meters, but thirty-two hundred would still be a little difficult.
"Hmm, but the schedule has already been finalized. I'll have them work on getting Golden Masterpiece back into form as soon as possible."
Ayano Aoe thought for a moment before speaking.
They had already announced the Hanshin Daishoten as his next race. They could hardly pull out now.
Besides, there were only so many Grade 1 races for four-year-olds in the first half of the year.
They could not simply avoid competition right after winning Horse of the Year. Besides, the main aim for the first half of this year was to fine-tune his form in preparation for