All of our horses arrive in the autumn of their yearling year, after being raised freely on breeding farms. From there, we begin breaking them in—helping them get used to human contact, being handled and washed, saddled, and eventually ridden—so they’re ready for racing.

By the early summer of their two-year-old season, we usually send them to off-track stables near racetracks such as Hakodate, Tokyo, or Niigata. If they pass the gate test there, they make their debut in a maiden race. That’s the typical process.

As you know, Hokkaido’s been getting hotter in recent years—the summer temperatures now are clearly different from ten or twenty years ago. It used to be “cool Hokkaido,” but that’s just not the case anymore. These days, in July and August, it’s not unusual for the daytime temperature to top 30°C. Honestly, it’s hotter than people on Honshu (Main Island of Japan) might think.

That’s a real problem from a training perspective. And on Honshu, a lot of stables already have mist cooling systems. So we decided to put in a mist cooling system too—it’s essential not just for training, but for the horses’ rest.

Before racing, the horses we raise are transported to off-track training centers or racetracks. And let me tell you, transportation is a lot more stressful for horses than most people realize. Even just moving them in a specialized horse transport vehicle can cause them to lose 20 to 30 kg from stress and sweating.

So, we can’t just send them at their peak racing weight. We have to account for that expected loss and send them a bit above their racing weight. But if a horse is suffering from summer fatigue, they just won’t eat enough in the first place.

And with race schedules to keep, sometimes we have no choice but to send them even if they’re showing mild signs of fatigue. But then the stress of transport piles on top of that, and their condition drops even further. Honestly, we’d rather not send fatigued horses to the off-track training centers at all.

On top of that, to race, they have to pass the gate test. You’ve got to ask yourself: will the horse go into the gate properly? Can it stand still and wait? Will it burst out when the gate opens? If the horse is still struggling with summer fatigue, it can’t stay focused during practice, and that causes problems.

Accelerating from zero to top speed is already a huge burden on the horse, and they lose even more weight. If they pass the test, they go straight into the race, but if not, they’re sent back to the training center, and the whole cycle of preparation and retesting starts all over again. It just means more burden for everyone, and nothing good comes out of it.

Mist Has Lightened the Load for Staff, Too