Remembering Gentildonna: The ultimate clutch player

Next Sunday’s 70th running of the Arima Kinen (G1), Japan’s “All-Star” event at the end of the year, will have a special poignancy. Exactly 11 years ago to the day, on Dec. 28, 2014, Gentildonna crowned her Hall of Fame career in the Nakayama feature.

Gentildonna sadly died at the age of 16 in late November, and the news cast a pall over the Japan Cup (G1) weekend. Fans expressed their grief and condolences at formal memorials set up to Sunday Racing Co.’s legendary distaffer, herself an integral player in Japan Cup history.

There was an eerie synchronicity about Gentildonna’s passing on Nov. 25. That precise date marked the 13th anniversary of perhaps her greatest triumph, her first Japan Cup, when she outdueled reigning Horse of the Year Orfevre.

In a characteristic display of her toughness in physical combat, Gentildonna gave as good as she got in the no-holds-barred battle to the wire. She won the photo by a nose, but had to survive a stewards’ inquiry before she officially became the first three-year-old filly to defeat older males in the Japan Cup. 

Adding to her accomplishment was the historic stature of her rival, Orfevre. The 2011 Japanese Triple Crown champion, the four-year-old Orfevre, had just missed in the 2012 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe (G1) in his start prior to the Japan Cup. 

For her part, Gentildonna was coming off a sweep of Japan’s Triple Crown for fillies, the Triple Tiara, where her implacable attitude proved decisive. Indeed, trainer Sei Ishizaka was relying on that quality to help her transcend her own division. 

"Although the Japan Cup was a big challenge for a three-year-old filly," Ishizaka said at the time, "I was confident that she was up to the competition, and she proved that today. 

"She had maintained her form to her best and I knew, being a fighter when contested in a duel, that she would pull through and claim her victory."

As that description suggests, Gentildonna lived up to her name in a very particular sense – if by “noblewoman,” you mean an aristocrat with a taste for war, not one relegated to the drawing room.

If Gentildonna were less of a warrior, she’d never have won the Triple Tiara. She just scraped home by a half-length in the first jewel, the Oka Sho (G1), over a metric mile trip that she didn’t attempt again. 

Up to the about 1 1/2-mile distance that would become her wheelhouse in the Yushun Himba (Japanese Oaks) (G1), Gentildonna crushed them by five lengths in 2:23.6 (then a stakes record) at Tokyo. Her mark stood until Loves Only You, the future Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf (G1) heroine, zipped in 2:22.8 in 2019.

Gentildonna barely got up by a nose in the final jewel, the about 1 1/4-mile Shuka Sho (G1) at Kyoto. You have to feel for near-misser Verxina, the runner-up in all three classics, who played the role of “Alydar” to Gentildonna’s “Affirmed.” Verxina did garner a major title eventually, becoming a two-time winner of the  Victoria Mile (G1) as an older horse. 

Gentildonna’s Triple Tiara made history for her sire, the great Deep Impact, who remains the only Japanese Triple Crown winner to have his offspring complete a classic treble. Deep Impact would also have a male successor in Contrail, the star of the 2020 Triple Crown. 

The first sophomore filly to be voted Japan’s Horse of the Year, Gentildonna lived to see Almond Eye match her feat in 2018. Ironically, neither was unable to retain her crown at four, but both reasserted themselves as Horse of the Year at five.

Gentildonna’s four-year-old campaign was limited to four starts. Making her 2013 debut in the Dubai Sheema Classic (G1), her first international foray, she was runner-up to St Nicholas Abbey in course-record time at Meydan. Gentildonna returned home to run third in the Takarazuka Kinen (G1) on a rain-affected track at Hanshin. 

Freshened for the fall, Gentildonna was upset by Just a Way in the Tenno Sho Autumn (G1). That reverse would take on greater significance when the streaking Just a Way went on to rank as the world’s best racehorse the following year. 

Gentildonna regained the winning thread for her main target, her Japan Cup title defense. Under new rider Ryan Moore, she settled better, kicked on, and just staved off sophomore filly Denim and Ruby. 

Moore paid tribute to Gentildonna’s generous response:

“She's just so honest, and being a top horse she just kept giving that little bit more and just had enough (to win).

"She has an awful lot of gears to hold her position, and when the leader was getting off the fence – I was always looking towards the inside with her – and it opened up nicely, but I was having to ask her for some effort, and she hung in there well.”

Gentildonna was making Japan Cup history again, as the first two-time winner. (Buena Vista would have had that distinction, if not for a bitterly unfortunate disqualification in 2010). Later, Almond Eye would win the Japan Cup twice, but in 2018 and 2020, leaving Gentildonna as the only one to take the trophy in consecutive years.

While Gentildonna’s Japan Cup repeat secured her champion older female honors, she lost the 2013 Horse of the Year title to the dazzling sprinter Lord Kanaloa. 

Gentildonna regained Horse of the Year status for 2014, on the strength of two marquee victories. Although she lost more often than she won as a five-year-old, she still had the knack of delivering when the stakes were at their highest.

Taking another swing at the Sheema Classic, this time with Moore in the saddle, Gentildonna scored with dramatic flair. She overcame desperate traffic trouble to defeat the top-class French gelding Cirrus des Aigles and, in the process, set a new course record.

Moore again spoke of her toughness:

“It's hard to know just how good she is, because when she gets to the front, she doesn't do a lot. But she's very tough, and a hard horse to get to the bottom of.”

Gentildonna followed a familiar itinerary until her grand finale. The Takarazuka Kinen was once more her nemesis, as she wound up ninth behind the repeating Gold Ship, and she settled for second again in the Tenno Sho Autumn.

Fourth, when bidding for an unprecedented three-peat in the Japan Cup, Gentildonna made her last hurrah in the prestigious Arima Kinen. It was as if she knew that this would be her final opportunity on the racecourse, and like the clutch player she was, she delivered on the big occasion. 

Gentildonna had the satisfaction of exacting revenge on the top two from the Japan Cup, Epiphaneia and Just a Way. Old foes Gold Ship, Denim and Ruby, and Verxina were also in her wake at Nakayama, in a fitting summation of her career.

Ever the history-maker, Gentildonna enhanced her legacy further in the Arima Kinen. She equaled Deep Impact’s JRA record of seven Grade 1 wins on turf. Upon her retirement, she ranked as the top-earning female of all time with a bankroll exceeding ¥1.3 billion (approximately $18.4 million, according to Equibase’s calculation). 

By the canonical standard of “who did they beat,” Gentildonna stacks up well. Fellow JRA Hall of Famer Orfevre is the best of her compatriots in this category, while her most notable European rival, Cirrus des Aigles, gives her collateral form with unbeaten world phenom Frankel.

Bred by Northern Farm, Gentildonna became a valuable producer, in circle-of-life fashion, for Japan’s iconic nursery. All her named foals are fillies, chief among them Grade 1 vixen Geraldina (by Maurice), who scored her signature win in the 2022 Queen Elizabeth II Cup (G1). 

Hope endures that Gentildonna’s last two fillies can make their mark on the racecourse as well. Her current two-year-old, Argentera (by Drefong), just missed by a neck in a Dec. 13 newcomers’ race at Hanshin. Her final yearling, appropriately enough, is by Epiphaneia, who traded decisions with Gentildonna in her last two starts. 

Gentildonna was pensioned from broodmare duty this past summer. Few would have imagined that she had only four months left.

The final word belongs to Ishizaka, a retiree himself.

“It's too soon,” her trainer said at the news of her passing, according to en.netkeiba.com. “She was a horse I would think about whenever the classics or the Arima Kinen came around. 

“We pushed to run her in the Arima Kinen, and she still delivered. And in the Dubai Sheema Classic, she traveled all that way and won spectacularly. She was tremendously strong as a three-year-old as well. 

“It's the fate of a racehorse, but I believe she gave everything, she really ran her heart out. That's why I hoped she could enjoy a long life afterwards. It hurts whenever any horse I trained passes away, but she was truly one of the special ones.”