Kikuka Sho ? Race Details:
When:	October
Track Location:	Kyoto Racecourse, Fushimi-ku
Race Distance:	3000metres
Race Status:	Grade 1
Race Conditions:	3YO Colts & Fillies at Set Weights
Weights:	Colts- 57kg / Fillies- 55kg
Stakes:	?269, 750, 000
Inaugurated:	1938

The Kikuka Sho, or Japanese St. Leger, is the third and final race in the esteemed Japanese Triple Crown and is the Japanese version of the English St. Leger Stakes. Raced over a distance of 3000m, it is the longest and most testing of all three Triple Crown races. A Grade 1 flat race, the Kikuka Sho is open to three-year-old thoroughbred colts and fillies at set weights and excludes geldings. It is held annually in October at the Kyoto Racecourse in Fushimi-ku and is worth ?269, 750, 000. The inaugural race was held in 1938 and won by Tetsumon.

As the last Triple Crown race the stakes are high for runners coming into the event having won the first two legs of the series, the Satsuki Sho and the Tokyo Yushun. The last horse to win the coveted Triple Crown was Deep Impact in 2005. The following year in 2006, Meisho Samsun came close to a Triple Crown sweep. He won the first two races and then failed to win in the Kikuka Sho.

Punters backing the favourites in the Kikuka Sho in recent years have not seen much success as Deep Impact in 2005 was the only favourite to win the race in the last decade. Also, when betting on the Japanese St. Leger look for entries who have participated in a couple of prep races, as all the victors in the last ten years have had at least one Autumn race before taking out the Kikuka Sho. A good lead-up race is the Kobe Shimbun Hai (2400m) in September, having produced half the Japanese St. Leger winners since 2000. Another Kikuka Sho trial race is the St. Lite Kinen (2200m) held at Nakayama Racecourse in September.

The race record for the Kikuka Sho was set by Song of Wind in 2006 with a time of 3:02.7.

Kikuka Sho ? Recent Race Results:

Year	Winner	Jockey	Trainer	Owner	Time
2008	Oken Bruce Lee	Hiroyuki Uchida	Hidetaka Otonashi	Akira Fukui	3:05.7
2007	Asakusa Kings	Hirofumi Shii	Ryuji Okubo	Keiko Tahara	3:05.1
2006	Song of Wind	Koshiro Take	Hidekazu Asami	Shadai Racehorse Co.	3:02.7
2005	Deep Impact	Yutaka Take	Yasuo Ikee	Kaneko Makoto Holdings Co.	3:04.6
2004	Delta Blues	Yasunari Iwata	Katsuhiko Sumii	Sunday Racing Co.	3:04.8
2003	That’s the Plenty	Katsumi Ando	Kojiro Hashiguchi	Shadai Racehorse Co.	3:04.8
2002	Hishi Miracle	Koichi Tsunoda	Masaru Sayama	Masaichiro Abe	3:05.9
2001	Manhattan Cafe	Masayoshi Ebina	Futoshi Kojima	Kiyoshi Nishikawa	3:07.2