The stakes winner Luxor Café will have a new rider when he starts favored in Saturday’s $226,400 Fukuryu Stakes at Nakayama Racecourse in Japan, the fourth and final race in that country’s Kentucky Derby qualifying series.
Joao Moreira, a former leading rider in Hong Kong, has the mount on Luxor Café, who has won three consecutive starts since last fall. Australian-based Rachel King rode Luxor Café to wins in an allowance race at 1 1/8 miles at Nakayama on Jan. 11 and in the Hyacinth Stakes at a mile at Tokyo Racecourse on Feb. 23.
King’s temporary license to ride in Japan expired on March 4. She resumed riding in Australia the following day.
Moreira has a short-term license to ride in Japan that begins Saturday and continues through April 28. Moreira, who rode briefly in Japan in 2023 and 2024 has won a remarkable 192 races from 648 mounts at Japan Racing Association tracks in his career, a 29 percent winning average.
Luxor Café’s win in the Hyacinth Stakes was worth 30 qualifying points for the Kentucky Derby and left the Kentucky-bred colt by American Pharoah at the top of the standings in the Japanese qualifying series.
The first five finishers of the Fukuryu Stakes receive qualifying points on a scale of 40-20-12-8-4. The runner with the most points in the series earns a berth in the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs on May 3.
Luxor Café is the only entrant the Fukuryu Stakes who has earned points from the first three races of the Japan qualifying series.
In early betting on Thursday, Luxor Café was 11-10 to win the Fukuryu Stakes, with Imhotep at 5-2. Imhotep is unbeaten in two starts, including an allowance race at 1 1/8 miles at Nakayama on March 15.
Luxor Café was nominated to the American Triple Crown earlier this year.
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In the Fukuryu Stakes at 1 1/8 miles, Luxor Café is expected to have 10 rivals, including four others that have been nominated to the Triple Crown – Berber Compass, Coche Deli, Golden Cloud, and Isana.
Isana and Golden Cloud were first and third in an allowance race at Chukyo Racecourse on Jan. 26. Berber Compass and Coche Deli were first and seventh in an allowance race at 1 1/8 miles at Chukyo on Jan. 18.
Golden Cloud, a Kentucky-bred colt by Cloud Computing, was listed as sold for $60,000 at the 2024 Ocala Breeders’ Sale March sale of 2-year-olds in training.
Luxor Café, trained by Noriyuki Hori, has won 3 of 5 starts. The winning streak began with a maiden race win at a mile at Tokyo last November. Hori had his first starter in the United States last November, when Satano Carnaval finished ninth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint at Del Mar.
Last year, T O Password won the Fukuryu Stakes at 13-1 against 10 rivals and finished fifth by 6 1/2 lengths behind Mystik Dan in the Kentucky Derby.
Post time for the Fukuryu Stakes is 1:40 a.m. Eastern on Saturday or 10:40 p.m. Pacific on Friday.
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