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LEGENDSOF JAPANESE RACING
Ceremony after the 2022 Satsuki Sho

REAL RACING ARCHIVE(documented racing history)

GREAT RACE · Nakayama Racecourse

Satsuki Sho

皐月賞 — Japanese 2,000 Guineas

2000MRight-handedGI

The first leg of the Triple Crown; “Satsuki” is the old name for the fifth month.

Satsuki Sho ceremony, Nakayama Racecourse, 2022 — Photo: ジョンドウ / CC BY-SA 4.0

02

Current conditions

These are today’s conditions; past runnings may have differed.
Distance
2000m
Grade (current)
GI
Racecourse
Nakayama Racecourse
Direction
Right-handed
Eligibility
Three-year-old colts and fillies
Surface
Turf
First run
29 Apr 1939

03

Historical context

  • Held in early May when it took its current name; moved to April from 1952.

04

Runnings in the archive

Race records are taken from the “Racing record” tables of each horse’s Japanese Wikipedia article (which cite netkeiba.com and JBIS-Search) and cross-checked against the career start count. Grades are shown as printed for that year’s running — current grades are never applied retroactively.

1984

1991

  • 1stTokai TeioTakayuki YasudaGI · 2000m · 2:01.8

1994

  • 1stNarita BrianKatsumi MinaiGI · 2000m · 1:59.0 R

1998

1999

  • 1stT.M. Opera ORyuji Wada2nd: オースミブライトGI · 2000m · 2:00.7

2005

2011

2012

  • 1stGold ShipHiroyuki Uchida2nd: ワールドエースGI · 2000m · 2:01.3

2015

  • 3rdKitasan BlackSuguru HamanakaWinner: ドゥラメンテGI · 2000m · 1:58.8

2022

05

The venue

The grandstand and lawn at Nakayama Racecourse

Nakayama Racecourse

中山競馬場

Stage of the Arima Kinen and the Satsuki Sho, and one of Japan’s four major racecourses.

SOURCES & REFERENCES

Sources & References

  1. 01
    皐月賞 — Wikipedia(日本語版)

    Wikipedia · Reference · Accessed 2026-09-26

  2. 02
    Satsuki Shō — Wikipedia (English)

    Wikipedia · Reference · Accessed 2026-09-26

IMAGE CREDITS

Image credits

Each photograph was checked on its individual Wikimedia Commons file page for author and licence.