Twin Turbo (horse)

Twin Turbo (Japanese: ツインターボ; April 13, 1988 – January 15, 1998) was a Japanese thoroughbred racehorse and stud horse. His main victories were at the 1993 Tanabata Sho and Sankei Sho All Comers. Despite few high placements in races, he was widely popular with fans throughout his career for his extreme front-running style, which led to him burning out and losing miserably more often than not. He has become just as well-known as Silence Suzuka among Japanese front-runners.

Twin Turbo was foaled in 1988 in Shizunai, Hokkaido. He had a powerful spring in his legs from a young age, but he didn't eat much and was extremely small.^[3] He was reared and trained at Nikko Kentucky Farm at one year old, and in the spring of the following year he entered Takehisa Sasakura's stable at Miho Training Center in Ibaraki prefecture.^[4]

He was a docile horse while in the stable, but he would thoroughly rebel against anyone who mounted him, making him difficult to train. It took four months for him to pass the gate test^[5]—required for him to make his racing debut—so his first race wouldn't be until 1991, the next year.

Twin Turbo made his debut in a maiden race at Nakayama Racecourse on March 2, 1991. Sasakura's only instructions for his jockey, Nobuhiro Ishizuka, were "Let him run how he likes. Put him in front. Then just hold onto the reins."^[6] Ishizuka did as instructed, having the horse run to the front out of the starting gate, and won the race by three lengths. He went on to win a second race, a condition race called the Mokuren Sho.

After the horse's two consecutive victories, he was on the verge of earning the right to run in the Tokyo Yushun (Japanese Derby). The team switched his jockey to Shoichi Osaki and entered him into the Aoba Sho (then an open stakes race) that served as a Derby trial race. Halfway down the final straight, Twin Turbo lost speed and was defeated for the first time, placing 9th to Leo Durban. He then entered another condition race, the Komakusa Sho, where he placed 5th jockeyed by Masato Shibata.

In his next graded race, the G3 Radio Tampa Sho, Osaki took the reins again, pushing Twin Turbo far out in to the lead on the back stretch and giving the horse his first graded win. This was also Sasakura's first graded thoroughbred victory.

After a midsummer recuperation, Twin Turbo's autumn season started by contesting the St Lite Kinen. With Osaki jockeying once again, he held fast in second place a neck from Strong Kaiser. Near the end, Leo Durban—who had beaten him in a showdown at the Aoba Sho and who would win his next race, the Kikuka Sho—surged up the field, but Twin Turbo held him to a neck's length to finish 2nd.

Twin Turbo didn't contest the final race of the thoroughbred classic year, the Kikuka Sho, instead opting for the Fukushima Kinen, a G3 race held at Fukushima Racecourse just like the Radio Tampa Sho. There, he came in 2nd for a second consecutive time, this time to Yagura Stella.

He then contested the Arima Kinen, a grand prix race and his first G1, but only managed to place 14th. After the race, it was discovered that he had a nosebleed.

At the beginning of the year, Twin Turbo's physical condition worsened, forcing him into a long hiatus until November to recover. His comeback race was the Fukushima Minyu Cup (an open stakes race), his only race of the year, where he was the number-one favorite. However, he finished in 10th.

Twin Turbo's poor results continued into 1993, with a 6th place finish at the Kimpai (East), 6th at the Nakayama Kinen, and 8th at the Niigata Daishoten.

In July, he contested the Tanabata Sho, a Grade 3 race at Fukushima Racecourse, where he'd previously done well. Twin Turbo had always been slow out of the gates, and to fix that, Eiji Nakadate came in. The jockey was a specialist when it came to front-running and skillful at coming out of the gates.^[7] Nakadate is reported as saying that he'd always wanted to ride Twin Turbo at least once.^[7]

The day of the race saw a record 47,391 attendees at Fukushima Racecourse, and Twin Turbo was third-favorite to win. He pulled out far into the lead at a high pace of 57.4 seconds in the first 1000 meters, and he maintained that speed all the way to the finish line, beating Ayrton Symboli by four lengths and achieving his first victory in about two years. Nakadate commented that "I just held the reins. The horse won a brilliant victory by himself."^[8]

After a break, Twin Turbo came back two months later to compete in the G3 All Comers, once again with Eiji Nakadate at the reins. The field included strong racers like Rice Shower, who had won 2 G1 races including that year's spring Tenno Sho. Twin Turbo was the third favorite behind Rice Shower and Sister Tosho, winner of the 1991 Oka Sho.

As always, Twin Turbo pulled far out ahead at the start, getting about 10 lengths from second-place White Stone; the front pack was also ten lengths in front of the rear pack. Twin Turbo ran alone, never slowing down on the final straightaway and reaching the finish line five lengths ahead of Hashiru Shogun, earning his second graded victory. Masato Shibata, who jockeyed White Stone (4th) during the race, said "If I'd chased any deeper, White Stone would have collapsed."^[9] He would indeed go on to see distastrous results in a later race by pushing too hard. Still, Twin Turbo's pace in the front 1000 meters was relatively fast at 59.5 seconds. While watching the patrol film after the race, Nakadate commented that "I was in disbelief. How were we that far ahead?"^[9]

Twin Turbo's next attempt at a G1 race was the autumn Tenno Sho, where he was first favorite the day before and third favorite the day of. His rival horses were cautious of his extreme front-running style, though, and he was unable to pull into a lead. He finished last in the race at 17th, finishing 2.8 seconds behind the winner Yamanin Zephyr.

The next two years for Twin Turbo saw a string of nine races where he would create a huge lead at first, then lose speed on the final straightaway, ultimately becoming unable to win another JRA race after his All Comers victory. Nakadate commented "I feel like he might have burned himself out at the All Comers,"^[9] but even during this slump, the horse continued to receive fan support for what they saw as honorable defeats.

Later in 1995, he transferred to a new public stable at Kaminoyama Racecourse. While he won his first race there, he then had an 11-race losing streak. At eight years old in 1996, he entered his last run at the Cluster Cup before retiring. While he became a stud horse at Saito Bokujo in Miyagi Prefecture in 1997, he only foaled five children in a single generation before dying of heart failure on January 15, 1998.

In 2014, the JRA held a sixtieth-anniversary memorial race at the year's Tanabata Sho on July 13, featuring the "Idaten Twin Turbo Cup" as a semi-main race that day. The race's name was determined based on a fan vote, but Twin Turbo had over twice the number of votes as the second-place horse, Miyabi Ranveli.^[10]

The following form is based on information from JBIS-Search and netkeiba.^{[11][12][Note 1]}

The term "oo-nige" (huge lead) came to be synonymous with Twin Turbo.^[13] His manner of either winning by an overwhelming margin or losing speed and losing miserably made him a unique type of front-runner. When the Japan Racing Association's PR magazine, Yushun, ran a "ten most unique racehorses" poll in 2014, the voting for front-runners in the 1980s to 2000s ended with Twin Turbo at second place behind Silence Suzuka both in terms of fan vote and expert vote.^[14] Silence Suzuka had gained fame as one of the strongest front-runners of all time, and the judge Shohei Shimosaka said that there had been a fierce debate before the expert panel cast their votes about whether to choose Silence Suzuka or Twin Turbo.^[15]

As part of his commentary on Twin Turbo for this project, writer Takuya Sanga wrote that even if Turbo burned out ninety-nine times in a row, everyone still hoped he would escape to the finish on the hundredth try. "The audience would all be relaxed, wondering when he'd stop. And the moment he lost speed and began to fall behind, both those who had bet on him and those who hadn't would all burst out laughing. He burned out without it feeling tragic or grim. Have there been any other horses like him? No. Only Twin Turbo has managed that."^[16] Horse-racing manga-ka Miho Yoshida talked about him in his own work, saying "When his front-running style worked, it felt amazing, and when others caught up to him it was good too." "He didn't win the big races, but horseracing wouldn't be fun without horses like him. He was a widely-loved horse."^[17] In 2000, when the JRA selected its most famous racehorses, Twin Turbo's popularity garnered 848 fan votes, and he was chosen as 91th favorite.^[18] The only other horses selected for this who hadn't won a single Grade 1 race (or any of the big eight races before the introduction of the grading system) were Stay Gold (34th, though he won a G1 after this project) and Nice Nature (71st).

During the commentary panel for Dream Horses 2000, author Makoto Yoshikawa commented about Twin Turbo's selection that "Horseracing nowadays has grown boring, and I think responsibility for that lies with jockeys for everyone riding their horses the same way," criticizing it as a widespread problem among jockeys.^[19] In addition, the only race in Twin Turbo's career in which he didn't adopt a front-running strategy was at the Teio Sho, when he got out of the gates late and started in last place. Yutaka Take, his jockey for the race, made comments to the effect of not having planned to run to begin with. In response, writer Sakae Kato criticized the jockey for betraying the expectations of the hosts and fans, saying "Take ran an incredibly dull race." He also lambasted the man: "Twin Turbo is no longer a lifelong front-runner. He put a blemish on the horse's history."^[20]

On the other hand, Take claimed that after the late start, he had desperately grappled with the horse's reins, but he ran poorly and could barely even keep up with the pack. While looking back on this Teio Sho during a variety TV show, he said that "(Late out the gate and covered in dirt) he was in no shape to race. Naturally that meant we were bringing up the rear."^[21]

An anthropomorphized version of Twin Turbo appears in Umamusume: Pretty Derby, voiced by Miharu Hanai. ^[22]

In a chapter of Miho Yoshida's manga Umanari 1-haron Gekijo (馬なり1ハロン劇場; Horse Racing One Furlong Theater), there is a scene at the Arima Kinen where Mejiro Palmer—another unique front-runner from Twin Turbo's generation—takes the lead and Twin Turbo picks a fight with him.