Lord Kanaloa threw himself into contention for horse-of-the-year honors as the defending champion won the Sprinters Stakes for his fifth consecutive Grade 1 win on Sunday.
The 5-year-old Lord Kanaloa lost in the Sprinters Stakes' Grade 2 trial, the Centaur Stakes, earlier this month but bounced back at Nakayama Racecourse in Chiba Prefecture with a 1-minute, 7.2-second victory over the 1,200 meters.
Yasunari Iwata's mount, who went off as the prohibitive favorite, held off second choice Hakusan Moon by three-quarters of a length, followed by Mayano Ryujin, the 15th pick out of 16, in third as Japan's fall Grade 1 season got underway.