11 Year Old Oju Chosan goes for 6th Grade 1 Nakayama Grand Jump 16 April 2022

he won 5 in a row before losing last year.

This year he has a better prep for this race.

Closing stages of the JG1 4250m Nakayama Grand Jump won for the 6th time by the highest earning jumps horse in the worldwide history of the sport, 11yo OJU CHOSAN #freak

With the retirement of CHUWA WIZARD today OJU CHOSAN becomes the highest earning active horse in Japan

He is the highest earning Jumps horse in the history of the sport worldwide with ￥915,457,000 in the kitty, watch him fly on Sunday!

Monster 11yo Jumps star OJU CHOSAN final fast ahead of his return in JG2 Tokyo High Jump on Sun

He has won it twice, his prep for a tilt at a 4th JG1 4100m Nakayama Daishogai in Dec

9x⭐️s on his saddlecloth, one for each JG1 he has won

OJU CHOSAN finished well back, safe and sound the main thing but it was a dissapointing run, maybe had enough?

The Legend of Oju Chosan

On the date when, fable has it, Father Christmas’s antlered coursers spring magically into flight, it is fitting that Japan’s greatest jumps horse will leap the Nakayama fences one last time.

Christmas Eve at Nakayama will have an extra layer of magic and poignancy when the living legend Oju Chosan steps out to jump fences at racing pace for the final time.

Retirement beckons for Japan’s greatest steeplechaser, who will attempt to sign off with a fourth win in the Nakayama Daishogai. Yet whilst a quartet of wins in the December Group 1 would be something special, it would not be altogether out of the ordinary for a horse that last April won the Nakayama Grand Jump for a phenomenal sixth time.

Jumps racing has its own small niche in Japan, being a side act to the JRA’s main business of exquisite flat racing that showcases some of the best races and racehorses in the world. Statistics for 2021 showed that 485 individual horses competed in 127 jumps races under JRA rules, compared with 11,062 individual horses contesting 3,329 flat races that year.

But Oju Chosan is no small pond hero, he is a horse of serious credibility and established cult status, as well as world record earnings for a ‘jumper’ of close to US$7million.

His image will soon be one for wistful reminiscence: the strong, nimble bay, white blaze poking from beneath blue hood, embellished by blue cheek-pieces and matching reins, his rider decked in the red and white silks of his owner/breeder Naoyoshi Nagayama.

full house to say goodbye