Hana Kicks a Goal for Aussie Owner

HANA KICKS A GOAL FOR AUSSIE OWNER 
By Kelsey Riley 
It is a fact of life that sometimes, even the best laid plans will fail to come to fruition. It is also true, however, that something just as sweet may be waiting right around the corner. 
On Apr. 26 at Randwick Racecourse in Sydney, Japanese-based Australian-expat Michael Tabart saw that prophecy come to life when his beloved 5-year-old mare Hana’s Goal (Jpn) (Orewa Matteruze {Jpn}) stormed down the center of the course to record her first Group 1 victory in the All Aged S. 
“It was fantastic–I think I was literally in tears for a couple hours after that,” Tabart said. “That’s what you dream about when you become an owner, to win a Group 1.” 
The A$400,000, 1400 meter handicap was the last of three outings for Hana’s Goal’s Australian campaign, during which nothing had yet gone right. Debuting Down Under in the G1 Coolmore Classic S. for fillies and mares Mar. 22, the chestnut missed the start and was never able to find running room, checking in a dismal 14th of 16. Next up was the A$3 million G1 Doncaster Mile on the first day of Royal Randwick’s inaugural The Championships Apr. 12, and while Hana’s Goal broke better on that occasion, the extremely heavy going was likely the undoing for the light-boned miss, although she made up ground in the lane to be a sneaky good sixth. Dismissed at 10-1 for the All Aged, Hana’s Goal was out of the barriers about a length slow and took up her customary position at the back of the pack. She and jockey Nash Rawiller traveled last early, about two lengths off the heels of their next closest rival Weary (Fr) (Astronomer Royal), and they followed him around the field on the turn into the straight. It appeared for a few strides in early stretch that the mare would be once again outdistanced, but she came alive inside the 200 meter mark, using a devastating kick to swallow up the opposition before being eased down in the final strides to win by two lengths. 
“It was really great to show people that she is a good horse,” said Tabart. “The ride by the jockey was fantastic. I rang him and told him she has a 350 meter sprint that will beat any horse in the world, but if you move too early she’ll stop. She’s only got that short sprint, and he just sat on her and waited. Coming into the straight I was so confident, and it was amazing when she just let go. The way she races always gives you a heart attack, but the last 200 meters was pretty exciting.” 
In 1:24.64, Hana’s Goal realized a dream for her 39-year-old owner, who has been a lifelong horse lover and has dabbled in breeding and owning Thoroughbreds for a number of years. Born in Sydney, Tabart spent much of his childhood in nearby Newcastle, where his grandfather, Frank Henley, was a stud manager for John Messara before the days of Arrowfield. Tabart admitted that his love of horses “was probably family influenced.” 
“I’ve been going to the races every weekend for as long as I can remember,” he said. “My grandfather used to work on a stud farm, so my grandparents used to love going to the races and they’d take me. But it wasn’t just the gambling part. I really liked horses and the excitement of the racing. I grew up always wanting to own horses.” 
As such, Tabart dabbled in a few syndicates in Australia, but his dream of racehorse ownership really came alive when he made the move to Japan to attend Kyoto University, where he studied economics. He bought into a few horses “over the internet” while studying, and once he entered the workforce, was able to fully indulge his passion. One of his first endeavors, in 2001, was purchasing the stallion Moon Rocket and sending him to stand at stud in Australia. 
“I’d been doing some breeding in Australia, but the stallion died before his first crop raced, so it didn’t work out that well financially,” Tabart noted. “So I thought I’d give breeding a miss for a while.” 
Tabart’s desire was to race horses in his own colors in Japan, but first came obtaining an owner’s license for the Japan Racing Association, the country’s elite and rich racing program that was once restricted to Japanese residents. Aspiring JRA owners are put through a rigorous process. At that time of Tabart’s application in 2010, the potential owner had to reside in Japan, and other requirements included a salary of $200,000+, in addition to $1 million in assets. Applicants are also put through a rigorous interview process and require recommendations. 
“The hard thing is probably the financial aspect, so I was lucky I had a good job,” noted Tabart, who is now a partner at Deloitte in Osaka, a city about 300 miles West of Tokyo. “And I had been here for a long time and was married, so I had permanent residency in Japan.” 
Thus, Tabart became one of very few non-Japanese nationals to be granted a JRA license. The Irish-born Harry Sweeney, who owns and operates Paca Paca Farm on the island of Hokkaido and bred 2012 G1 Japanese Derby winner Deep Brillante (Jpn) (Deep Impact {Jpn}) was the first, and others include Sheikh Mohammed, whose main Darley Japan stud is also in Hokkaido, and his wife Princess Haya and son Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed. 
Once granted his license, Tabart was in the market for racehorses. He had run a few in his name and colors by the time Hana’s Goal came along, but nothing of much acclaim. That changed when a friend alerted him to a 2-year-old filly in Hokkaido that was for sale. 
“I heard of this horse and a friend of mine sent me a photo of her, and she looked good,” Tabart said. “So I flew up there and looked at her and another horse, and liked them both so I bought them both.” 
He added: “In Japan, all the big sales are for yearlings and sometimes weanlings, so to be not sold as a 2-year-old basically meant everybody had finished buying horses and she was leftover. I had just become an owner and I was looking for more horses and I wanted some horses that were going to run soon, so I didn’t care if they were 2-year-olds.” 
The next step for Tabart was naming his new filly, a process he took to heart. All his horses are named after his wife, Hana, and the name Hana’s Goal was chosen because the winning post in Japan is referred to as the ‘goal.’ 
Hana’s Goal is the third foal out of the winning Shanghai Jell (Jpn) (Shanghai), and is the lone black-type winner in three crops (numbering 77 foals) for her sire Orewa Matteruze (Jpn), a stakes-winning son of Sunday Silence from the family of local champions Air Groove (Jpn) and Admire Groove (Jpn), as well as G1 QEII Cup winner Rulership (Jpn) (King Kamehameha {Jpn}). 
Entrusted to trainer Kato Kazuhiro, Hana’s Goal won at first asking at Tokyo in October 2011, rewarding Tabart at near lightning speed, as far as racehorses are concerned. 
“I bought her in March and she ran in and won her first race in October,” Tabart said. “It was only a six month wait between buying her and winning, so it was pretty amazing.” 
Hana’s Goal stamped herself a Classic favorite early the following season with a 2 1/2-length victory in the G3 Tulip Sho–with none other than Gentildonna (Jpn) (Deep Impact {Jpn}) back in forth, but an injury two days before the G1 Oka Sho (Japanese 1000 Guineas) meant she would have to sit out that contest, won by eventual fillies Triple Crown victress Gentildonna. Hana’s Goal failed to hit the board in her next five starts before winning a pair of stakes–including the G3 Kyoto Himba S.–over the winter, but failed to flourish against loftier competition last year. By late 2013, it had become difficult for Tabart to plan a campaign for the filly he knew had ability. 
“You get to a point in Japan where to get into a Group 1, you need to have enough prize money,” Tabart explained. “So we got to the point where we couldn’t really plan for any big races because we didn’t know whether she’d get in.” 
“We knew she had the ability, and she had beaten horses like Gentildonna, who has won [Group 1s] around the world and has won two Japan Cups,” he added. “She beat her easily, so we knew she had the ability. We were just looking for a preparation where we’d be guaranteed to find a race that suited her and then be able to be prepare for it.” 
Tabart found the opportunity he was looking for in December when Racing New South Wales and the Australian Turf Club unveiled the inaugural The Championships, two days of racing at Royal Randwick in April worth more than A$18 million. Tabart had examined the world’s greatest race meetings in search of a spot for his mare, and in The Championships’ A$3 million G1 Doncaster Mile, he knew he had found it. 
“I looked around the world, thinking her best distances are probably between 1200 meters and 1800 meters, and the Doncaster was a handicap,” Tabart explained. “Because she hadn’t had much luck here and she hadn’t won a Group 1, we thought we’d get a good weight, and for an A$1.8 million first prize, it seemed like the perfect race for her. So we said, ‘let’s aim for that, and we’ll have one race in Australia before she races there.’ The aim was always to try to win the Doncaster with her.” 
One of the challenges plaguing overseas contenders for The Championships was the lengthy quarantine periods required to enter Australia, and thus, just one other international, the Irish sprinter-miler Gordon Lord Byron (Ire) (Byron {GB})–winner of the G1 George Ryder S. during his visit–made the trip. Tabart noted the quarantine restrictions weren’t a cause for concern, however, as Hana’s Goal had few other race alternatives in Japan, and the time to acclimatize would be to her advantage. 
“She’s not a very good traveler, even in Japan,” Tabart noted. “She doesn’t like new environments, and she stops eating and loses a lot of weight. I think she had to spend two weeks in quarantine in Japan and two weeks in Australia, but we went early so she’d have a month or so before her first race in Sydney to get used to the place. In her case, we’d already given up on other races for the first half of the year, so we didn’t really mind about the quarantine.” 
Tabart made the trip from Japan to watch Hana’s Goal in both the Coolmore Classic and the Doncaster, and watched in frustration as his beloved mare met with bad luck on both occasions. He explained that the decision to re route to the All Aged came after Hana’s Goal failed to receive a desired invite to the G1 Champions Mile in Hong Kong May. 4. 
“We knew we had to finish in the first three in the Doncaster [to get an invite],” Tabart said. “We obviously wanted to win it, but we were hoping to finish at least third so we could go to Hong Kong, then come back [to Japan]. She finished sixth and didn’t get an invite. And we can’t race her in Japan when she gets back for two or three months because she’s been gone so long, she’ll be treated as an Australian horse for quarantine purposes.” 
He added: “I looked around to see what there was, and there was a 1400 meter Group 1 that looked perfect. Our only concern was that she had 57 [kilograms, 125 pounds]; she had 52 in the Doncaster and she’d never raced with 57 kilos before and she’s a small horse. So we were a little bit worried about the weight, but apart from that we were very confident. We still think she would have won the Doncaster if it was a decent track, but she’s a little horse and trying to get through that track was not easy for her.” 
Unable to make the trip to Australia, Tabart tuned into the All Aged on his laptop in Japan. Reliving his most important victory as an owner, he said: “We knew she was that good, but nobody else believed us, because if you look at the formlines she hadn’t won a race for a while. It was really great to show people that she is a good horse and we didn’t want to take her to Australia just for a trip–we really thought she was a winning chance.” 
Hana’s Goal is now earning a much-deserved rest, but that hasn’t stopped Tabart from mapping out the rest of her campaign. Her next outing will likely come in the Oct. 5 G1 Sprinters S. going 1200 meters at Niigata, followed by a 1400 meter Group 2 that will serve as a springboard to the G1 Mile Championship at Kyoto Nov. 23. And if all goes well, Tabart is hoping for another chance at an invite to Hong Kong. 
“We’d love to get her a Japanese Group 1,” Tabart noted. “We’ve won overseas, but now everyone’s like, ‘she couldn’t win in Japan, so it must be really easy to win overseas.’ But our thinking is that she should have won a Group 1 here easily, but nothing has gone right. We’d like to show that she is a Group 1 horse in Japan. 
“We’ve always thought that Hong Kong’s 1600 meters would be perfect for her, so hopefully this time she’ll get an invite,” he added. “If we could have those four runs for the rest of the year, I’d be over the moon.” 
Looking long term, Tabart said he looks forward to breeding and racing the progeny of his prized mare, but that he may take a bit more time to enjoy her on the racetrack first. 
“The last six months or so she’s grown and put on about 20 kilos,” he noted. “She might be a late bloomer, so maybe we should keep her racing. Now that she’s a Group 1 winner she’ll start getting more weight [in races], but maybe that’s not a problem if she won with 57 kilos. I think the Doncaster is the perfect race for her if we got a good track. If we’re still racing then I think next year we’d love to have another shot.” 
While the remainder of Hana’s Goal’s 5-year-old campaign will be concentrated in the East, that hasn’t stopped Tabart from dreaming of more global travels. 
“I’d love to go to the Breeders’ Cup Mile, but I think that’s out for this year,” he said. “I don’t know if she’s done enough to get an invite and she’s not qualified breeding-wise. For the rest of this year we’d like to keep her Japan and try to make her a Group 1 winner here. It’s fun to look at the racing calendar around the world and try to pick out which races she could race in. I don’t know if I’ll ever have a horse like this again, so I’ll try to enjoy it while I can.” 
If Hana’s Goal’s recent exploits are anything to go by, Tabart could be enjoying her for a while yet.