Matsurida Gogh

Matsurida Gogh was foaled out of Paper Rain who was the half siblings to the 1999 Kikuka Sho winner, Narita Top Road.^[7] He was sired by the prominent sire in Japan for 13 consecutive seasons, Sunday Silence.^[8]

His name was a combination of Fumie Takahashi stable's crown name - Matsurida and Gogh which was taken from the famous Dutch artist, Vincent van Gogh.^[9]

Matsurida Gogh's first race was on August 21, 2005, at Sapporo, where he came in first by seven lengths.^[10]

The next year, his second victory came at his fourth races where waited at the back of the pack for most of the race before making a sudden move before the third turn, taking the lead at the start of the straight and winning convincingly by two and half lengths over Kanetoshi Steve.^[11] Three races later, he won the Hidaka Tokubetsu on August 19, 2006, and then won the Christmas Cup on December 23, 2006, to close the year.^[4]

He won the American Jockey Club Cup on January 21, 2007 with another dominant five lengths margin victory.^[12] and placed third behind Never Bouchon at the Nikkei Sho.^[13] Then he had some slumped in form before taking the first Sankei Sho All Comers win on September 23, 2007. On December 23, he would ran in the biggest race of his career which would be the Arima Kinen. For this race, he gained 19,172 votes from the public which placed him 19th in the rank.^[14] Since Admire Moon was retired at the Japan Cup, Agnes Ark was having a fracture after the Mile Championship and Asahi Rising got rested, Matsurida Gogh was eligible to run in the field of 16 in this Arima Kinen.^[15][16] Despite being the ninth favourite. Matsurida Gogh had a great race when he managed to tracked the front runner, Daiwa Scarlet in the early phase. At the final corner, Daiwa Scarlet moved to the outside whilst Matsurida Gogh went to the inside. It was a drag race to the finish line in which the final outcome was that Matsurida Gogh crossed the line first one and a quarters length in front of Daiwa Scarlet, for his first ever G1 win race.^[17][18]

The next year, He then won the Nikkei Sho on March 29, 2008.^[4] He went to the Queen Elizabeth II Cup at Sha Tin in April in which he finished at sixth place, four lengths behind the winner Archipenko.^[19] He returned to Japan and placed second at the Sapporo Kinen where Tascata Sorte overtook him at the last minute of the race.^[20] Then, He won the Sankei Sho All Comers for a second time on September 28 where he drew alongside King's Trail before reached the finish line first.^[21]

At the next four race reaching the 2009 calendar year, Matsurida placed outside of the podium before he proceeded to win the Sankei Sho All Comers for a 3rd time on September 27.^[5] In this race, Matsurida Gogh got off to a good start, took the lead, maintained his pace in the straight and winning by two lengths over the 1st favorite, Dream Journey who chased from the middle of the pack.^[5] His final race was on December 27, 2009, when he finished in 7th place at the Arima Kinen.^[22] After the race, he was being retired as a racehorse and moved on as a stud at Rex Stud in Shinhidaka, Hokkaido.^[23]

Matsurida Gogh won ten races, placed second twice and third once out of 27 starts. This data is available based on JBIS, netkeiba and Hong Kong Jockey Club.^[13][3][19]

Legend:
  Turf