Horse racing: Top-favorite Contrail streaks to Hopeful Stakes victory

Jockey Yuichi Fukunaga steered Contrail to the horse's first Grade-One victory on Saturday at the 36th running of the Hopeful Stakes, the final major race of the year.The top-favorite finished the 2,000-meter turf race for two-year-olds in 2 minutes, 1.4 seconds, beating third-pick Weltreisende by a length and a half at Nakayama Racecourse outside Tokyo. Contrail was fourth in the 13-horse pack for the majority of the race, but came from behind in the final sprint to end the year on a winning note. The colt, sired by seven-time G1 champion Deep Impact, has now won all three career starts s…READ FULL ARTICLE