Justify’s Yuttitham Impressive In Japan

For the second straight weekend, leading freshman sire Justify scored a winner in Japan when Yuttitham (2c Justify x Zipessa, by City Zip) blew the field away at Hanshin.

Racing over 1 1/8 miles on the dirt, Yuttitham broke strongly and took up a spot pressuring the leader by immediately settling at his hip. The Justify look-alike didn’t let up the pressure down the backstretch before taking over the lead with three furlongs left to run.

He quickly had a few lengths on the field and by the time they turned into the stretch had five lengths in hand with jockey Yuga Kawada never pushing him as he won by eight lengths for owner Kaneko Makoto Holdings.

Trained by Naosuke Sugai, the colt was making his second start after finishing second on debut.

Bred by Shadai Farm, Yuttitham was a ¥200,000,000 ($1,815,520) purchase at the 2021 JRHA JRA Select Yearling and Foal Sale by his owner.

The colt is out of the Grade I winner Zipessa, who is a half-sister to the stakes winning duo of Majestic Code and Yukio and the dams of two other stakes performers.

Justify now has 27 winners with three of those coming in Japan. In the past two weeks, he’s had five winners led by the stakes winning Justique.