Hakusan Tsukimitei powers wire-to-wire in Kanazawa JBC trial win

Hakusan Tsukimitei did not leave room for debate at Kanazawa. Drawn in gate 1, the 5-year-old colt controlled the 1,700-meter dirt feature from start to finish and held Ryuno Break to 2 1/2 lengths in 1:56.9, turning the JBCイヤー記念 into a statement run with bigger targets in view.

That matters because this was not just another local stakes result. The race, run as the eighth at Kanazawa Racecourse on Sunday, April 12, carried first-prize money of 2,500,000 yen and served as a stepping-stone toward the JBC series. Hakusan Tsukimitei answered that assignment with authority, setting the pace and never giving the field a chance to build pressure. He went 1-1-1-1 under 57.0 kilograms on a track listed as slightly heavy, while the JBIS result page described the footing as good dirt. Either way, the shape of the race was the same: he was gone before the others could get organized.

Shoma Kato rode the trip exactly the way it needed to be ridden. The pace-pressing approach kept Hakusan Tsukimitei in full command, and once he found the front, the others were chasing a horse that never looked like coming back. Namidano Kiss was third, but the real story was the ease of the win and the margin. For a horse trying to move from strong regional form into deeper dirt company, that is the kind of performance that changes how the next race is framed.

The profile behind the run is just as interesting. Hakusan Tsukimitei is by Hakusan Moon out of Oak Hills, was trained by Kazuyoshi Kato in Kanazawa, and is bred by Mikita Stud. He finished at 505 kilograms, up 4 kilograms from his previous start, a March 16 A1 race at Kanazawa in which he was third over the same 1,700 meters. He had already shown he belonged on the track, including a Kanazawa win on December 24, 2024 over Escamillo, but this was his first stakes or graded-race victory.

That is why this one lands differently. Local wins are useful. Wire-to-wire wins in trial races for the JBC series tell you whether a horse can carry speed, absorb pressure, and still finish with authority. Hakusan Tsukimitei checked every box, and he did it in a way that suggests Kanazawa was not the ceiling, only the launch point.