The situation stayed much the same down the second and third straights.
Band, the third favorite, still set the pace.
Yuga Kawada stopped trying to box him in.
If he could hold Epiphaneia back, he would certainly do it. But with little chance of that now, he was better off focusing on securing a higher placing.
There were still horses ahead trying to disrupt Epiphaneia's pace, but Koichi Sasaki clearly had the situation under control.
The pace over three thousand meters was fairly slow. After all, none of them dared run the entire race at a particularly high speed.
That allowed the horses to recover fully along the second and third straights. They would only begin accelerating in the latter half of the third straight.
Huh?
On the third straight, Koichi watched Kenichi Ikezoe suddenly lose speed.
He quickly gave Epiphaneia a cue with his whip, asking him to move a little farther out.
A collision would be bad.
Epiphaneia reacted quickly, immediately yielding his spot on the rail.
Still, he glanced over curiously.
How had that horse just faded away while running?
The other horses on the inside did the same, all giving up a little space.
Kenichi Ikezoe could only smile wryly.
Nothing was wrong with his horse, but he had suddenly decided he did not want to run. Ikezoe dropped straight from second to the very back of the field.
His race was over.
Meanwhile, Epiphaneia had been completely freed, with nothing blocking his path.
Koichi smiled at that.
Who would have thought he'd get a break like this!
He did not know exactly what had gone wrong, but it did not look serious.
He still had a race to run.
"Meow Meow Taisho has lost speed, and Kenichi Ikezoe has dropped straight to the back of