A week after the heroics of Abel Tasman were the talk of Saratoga, the unquestionably handsome Yoshida made a sparkling debut on dirt when annexing the $750,000 G1 Woodward Stakes at the same venue.
Already a G1 winner on grass courtesy of his dominant display in the $500,000 Old Forester Turf Classic Stakes on the Kentucky Derby undercard, Yoshida lifted the tally of G1 wins for CHC in the United States alone to 13 – an average of one G1 win every seven weeks since Yellow Agate announced herself in the $400,000 G1 Frizette Stakes in October 2016.
It has been a heady ride propelled by the achievements of Abel Tasman (5), Justify (4), Yoshida (2), Audible (1) and Yellow Agate (1) and there is every reason to believe it could carry on before the end of 2018.
On the back of the Woodward Stakes, Yoshida’s trainer Bill Mott has the enviable opportunity to consider targeting G1s on both dirt and turf for the Breeders’ Cup, including the flagship race, the $6 million Breeders’ Cup Classic.
“Well we got our answer. I had a wait-and-see attitude (about the switch from turf). The horse had worked well on the dirt,” Mott said post-race.
“As I said before, he’s got a lot of pedigree for the dirt. His mother won the Ballerina here, and (his sire) is a son of Sunday Silence. But I don’t think you every really know how they’ll run on a surface until you try them.
“Yoshida has been running so well on the turf, and he’s a Grade 1 winner on the turf, so you can’t say we made a mistake by not running him on the dirt. We were going to do it, it was just a matter of the opportune time, and right now there was no turf race that we had in mind for the next 30 days, so we thought ‘Let’s do it’.”
Yoshida is raced by a syndicate including WinStar Farm, CHC, SF Racing and Heads of Plain Partners.
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