Hayayakko, a popular 9-year-old white horse owned by Makoto Kaneko, ran his final race June 1 and will enjoy a pensioned life at Northern Horse Park in Hokkaido, Japan. The news was announced by Sakae Kunieda, who trained the horse racing icon in Japan.
King Kamehameha, Marshmallow, Kurofune, and Shirayukihime, who are the sire, dam, broodmare sire, and second dam of Hayayakko, were all owned by Kaneko. Marshmallow and Shirayukihime are white horses as well.
Hayayakko, born at Katsumi Yoshida's Northern Farm in 2016, was a versatile racehorse as he raced successfully on both dirt and turf. On dirt, he won the 2019 Leopard Stakes (G3) at 1,800 meters (about 1 1/8 miles) at Niigata Racecourse and the 2020 Brazil Cup at 2,100 meters (about 1 5/16 miles) at Tokyo Racecourse. On turf, he won the 2022 Hakodate Kinen (G3) at 2,000 meters (about 1 1/4 miles) at Hakodate Racecourse and the 2024 Copa Republica Argentina (G2) at 2,500 meters (about 1 9/16 miles) at Tokyo.
Hayayakko, who stayed in training for eight seasons, won seven races from 45 starts and earned ¥306,140,000 (approx. US$2.09 million).
In his final start, the Meguro Kinen (G2) at Tokyo, he suffered an incomplete rupture to his superficial flexor tendon on his foreleg, which led to his retirement.
