Mihono Bourbon was one of the standout Japanese colts of the early 1990s, a chestnut stallion foaled on 25 April 1989 and bred by Keiji Haraguchi. He was by Magnitude out of Katsumi Echo, a daughter of Chalet, and emerged from Haraguchi Farm to race at the highest level in Japan. His published earnings reached ¥437.30 million in JRA racing, with Wikipedia listing total earnings of 525,969,800 yen, underlining the scale of his success.
Racing in the colours associated with U.Mihono International and trained at Ritto by Shigeki Matsumoto, Mihono Bourbon quickly established himself as a top-class juvenile. His 1991 season brought victory in the Asahi Hai Sansai Stakes and ended with him being named JRA Best Two-Year-Old Colt. That championship title marked him out as one of the most important young horses of his crop before he had even turned three.
He went on to an even bigger year in 1992. Among his principal wins were the Fuji TV Sho Spring Stakes, the Satsuki Shō, the Tōkyō Yūshun, and the Kyoto Shimbun Hai. Wikipedia summarizes his race record as 8 starts for 7 wins and 1 second, a remarkably compact and brilliant career that still produced one of the strongest championship résumés of the period.
Those performances brought Mihono Bourbon the highest honours in Japanese racing: JRA Best Three-Year-Old Colt and, above all, JRA Horse of the Year for 1992. That combination places him in rare company, as a horse who dominated first at two and then rose to national supremacy at three. Even in a brief career, he left a very strong historical impression as a classic-winning colt whose peak came on the biggest stages.
After racing, Mihono Bourbon was retired to stud. The available source material also records that he died on 22 February 2017. His profile remains that of a horse whose reputation rests not on longevity alone but on concentration of excellence: an elite juvenile, a classic winner, and ultimately Japan’s Horse of the Year.
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