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Video scrutiny could pay off with emerging Japanese Emperor

Exciting three-year-old ready to step up to Guineas Prelude after dominant Sandown victory

Professional agents’ dedication, meticulous research and assessment is what sets them apart but in January 2021 Paul Moroney and his partner Catheryne Bruggeman, unable to travel to New Zealand, went above and beyond to assess yearlings available at the Karaka National Sale.

Stranded in Australia due to the hard international border of Moroney’s home country, he and Bruggeman spent countless hours assessing video footage of the 918-lot New Zealand Bloodstock auction to determine their short list.

On Saturday, that diligence and attention to detail could start to pay off with the untapped Japanese Emperor – a now three-year-old gelding by exciting shuttle stallion Satono Aladdin (Deep Impact) – set to line up in the Caulfield Guineas Prelude (Gr 3, 1400m) for his trainer Mike Moroney.

A first crop southern hemisphere-bred son of the Rich Hill Stud sire and the most expensive yearling by the stallion sold in 2021 at NZ$360,000, Japanese Emperor made a big impression at Sandown on August 24, reeling in his rivals to score by two lengths and land a long odds plunge ($41 to $14) in the process.

“An interesting sidelight to Japanese Emperor is that neither Catheryne nor I have yet to lay eyes on him in the flesh,” Paul Moroney said yesterday.

“We did all of our selections online that year as we couldn’t go to Karaka due to Covid. We locked ourselves in an apartment on the Gold Coast for a week and split the catalogue online and we treated it like any sale. 

“We did our second looks together and those which we believed did not have good enough footage, we had re-videoed at the complex and then those which made our third look list – around 85 – we had videoed again in HD for five minutes walking side on, front on and back on.

“If there were any question marks, we had a couple of trusted eyes check things like feet and heights.”

Out of the unraced Inthespotlight (O’Reilly), a sister to the dam of Newgate Farm’s Group 3-winning sire North Pacific (Brazen Beau), Japanese Emperor’s physique reminded the agent of his late champion grandsire.

“It was an exhausting process but we bought 19 yearlings and Japanese Emperor was the most expensive,” he said. 

“We simply loved the way he moved and how much Deep Impact there was about him as we saw Deep Impact in Japan in 2015.”

Japanese Emperor, a rig at the time who was later operated on as he was striking himself behind, passed all Bruggeman and Moroney’s selection criteria, but he still had to earn the tick of approval from trainer-brother Mike before the decision was made to bid on him over the phone via Ballymore New Zealand’s co-trainer Pam Gerard who was on the ground at Karaka.

“He was one the riders always liked even at slow pace and even they all said he was a lovely mover. He showed little glimpses of being quite good on the track and then other times you wouldn’t know,” Mike Moroney said yesterday.

“He really took my eye in one particular jumpout and I actually said to Anthony Feroche, my racing manager, ‘he’s got it that one, he’s definitely got it’ and then the next time he was a bit disappointing.

“He’d been mixing around a bit, hence probably why he opened at big odds, and I know he was backed in when he won at Sandown. I said to the owners that I know he’s got talent but there’s some question marks going into it.

“We don’t normally start them off in town, we normally go out of town, but he showed enough to warrant going to town and he was certainly impressive when he won.

“I don’t think it takes a lot of money to shift them from those long quotes, but it would have been owner-inspired. They all had a little bet on him.”

Moroney indicated that Japanese Emperor had learnt a lot out of the Sandown victory when ridden by Jamie Mott, who stays on board on Saturday.

“I think it was a good education for him as it turned out. He was on the fence and in a tricky spot, having to push his way out, and he was a little bit reluctant to do it for a couple of strides but when he did eventually work it out, he took those couple of strides and really quickened up,” the trainer said.

“We weren’t sure about the ground [Heavy 9] because most of those horses from Japan race on concrete tracks, they’re very firm tracks over there, but I could see when they turned that he was still going easily. 

“I knew then that if he could just get out, he could really quicken right up and that’s what he did.”

Bookmakers aren’t being as generous ahead of the Caulfield Guineas Prelude, opening him at $8 in all-in betting markets behind Aft Cabin (Astern) at $2, and Osipenko (Pierro), who was rated a $6 chance upon release of nominations yesterday.

Moroney, though, holds some reservations about the three-year-old racing at Caulfield as opposed to the spacious Sandown circuit.

“It is a pretty tight track at Caulfield. I know they’ve cambered it now and it’s easier, but it still gets a few, that last corner, it’s quite sharp, which would be my only question, as compared to rolling around a track like Sandown. It’s chalk and cheese, really,” he said. 

“But he’s not overly big, he’s a neat little guy, and you would think looking at him on type that he should be all right. He’s not a big gangly horse.”

Japanese Emperor has been nominated for the Caulfield Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) and while he will also be entered for the Victoria Derby (Gr 1, 2500m), Moroney was cautious about extending the gelding too far in distance in his maiden racing campaign. 

“His father was a mile, 2000-metre horse and you’d expect him to be the same,” the trainer said. 

“If he does get 2000, he’s a chance to get to the Derby trip against his own age, but we’re not going to go there yet. We will just take it one race at a time and, after watching that first run, he looks more like a mile, 2000-metre horse.” 

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