Chapter 123.
When Shuta An first stepped onto the racecourse for the Breeders' Cup Classic, his initial tactical agenda was to corner Pat Day and deploy a few choice psychological barbs before they loaded into the gates. However, Pat Day, while perhaps lacking a formal higher education, possessed a razor-sharp, street-smart wit. He completely ignored the young Japanese jockey's bait, leaving Shuta An with a cold shoulder.
Shuta wasn't particularly bothered by the snub. The psychological warfare was just a bonus; its failure didn't alter the tactical geometry of the race.
Pat Day's psychological resilience has to be completely fractured by the previous four engagements by now.
Shuta deduced clinically. Day's increasingly erratic pushing mechanics in the earlier races were clear biometric evidence of his crumbling composure.
For the marquee event, Day was piloting Tabasco Cat, the overwhelming favorite and the reigning American Triple Crown winner, boasting odds that completely eclipsed the second choice, Dramatic Gold.
Conversely, Shuta An's mount, Concern, inspired significantly less awe.
Although Shuta's individual performance today had been mathematically superior to Day's, the undeniable reality was that Tabasco Cat was a monster. Even accounting for Tabasco Cat's slightly underwhelming fourth-place finish in the recent Gold Cup, its baseline parameters still theoretically eclipsed Concern, who had only managed a second-place finish in the Super Derby.
However, when reviewing historical telemetry specifically for Churchill Downs, Tabasco Cat completely collapsed during the Kentucky Derby, finishing a dismal sixth.
Factoring in that his primary rival had a documented history of catastrophic failure on this exact dirt profile, Shuta An felt a solid core of tactical confidence—even though Concern had absolutely zero historical data on Churchill Downs prior to today.
The Breeders' Cup Classic, the undisputed crown jewel of the American racing calendar, had once again captivated an international audience of millions.
Under the suffocating pressure of the stadium crowds and the global broadcast, Shuta An calmly, methodically guided Concern into Gate 9.
With a full, chaotic field of fourteen horses, Gate 9 represented an outer-middle draw. It wasn't an absolute death sentence, but it wasn't ideal either.
Personally, Shuta was satisfied with the positioning. He calculated it was mathematically viable for executing a rapid, aggressive break to secure an early, leading position.
But just as Shuta locked his posture, the starter hit the button. The gates slammed open.
And Concern practically froze. His initial stride out of the gate was horrifyingly, inexplicably sluggish.
Caught completely off guard by the mechanical failure, Shuta's heart spiked. He instantly drove his weight forward, aggressively pushing Concern's neck and snapping his whip once in the air, a sharp auditory signal demanding immediate acceleration. Fortunately, he didn't need to strike the colt; the sheer kinetic energy of the jockey's push forced Concern to instinctively engage his engine.
But despite Shuta's microsecond reaction time, the catastrophic break had already sealed their fate. Concern plummeted to the absolute rear of the fourteen-horse pack.
Mercifully, the scramble for the vanguard wasn't a suicidal bloodbath. Cezanne smoothly broke from Gate 2 to seize the lead, before obediently deferring the position to the defending champion, Bertrando, as the massive field thundered toward the first turn.
"This is a catastrophic scenario."
Yutaka Take muttered in the lounge, his brow deeply furrowed as he watched Shuta An already engaged in a strenuous, aggressive push just to keep contact with the rear of the pack.
"A starting gate malfunction of that magnitude—the Trainer bears a massive share of the responsibility for that negligence."
Shuta An was running the exact same calculation. While furiously driving Concern forward, he mentally cursed the colt's conditioning team.
This is an absolute joke. Did they even run gate-break simulations during his prep?
However, placing blame was a luxury for after the race. The immediate, terrifying tactical reality was that Shuta had to somehow navigate Concern through thirteen horses. The homestretch at Churchill Downs is a brutal 380 meters. If he remained trapped in the rear echelon when they banked into the straight, they were mathematically dead.
Shuta An had just accepted a direct system mandate. Surrender was not an option.
Even with this catastrophic break, I am going to force Concern to break Tabasco Cat!
Shuta An's eyes darkened into an icy, predatory glare. He locked his core and pressed ruthlessly against Concern's hind neck, demanding an impossible surge of speed.
Up in the VIP stands, Concern's trainer, Richard Small, had already buried his face in his hands, completely devastated by the horrific start.
However, Concern's owner, the stoic art collector Robert Meyerhoff, betrayed zero emotional fluctuation. He simply stood at the glass, his cold gaze locked onto Shuta An and his trailing colt, refusing to speak a single word.
Banking into the backstretch opposite the grandstands, Shuta's aggressive, relentless pushing finally yielded a micro-advantage. He dragged Concern up to eleventh place. While still terrifyingly deep in the pack, they had successfully re-established contact with the main peloton.
My absolute tactical imperative on this straight is to drag Concern back into the leading echelon.
As for initiating the final, zero-sum duel at the absolute front of the pack, Shuta was saving that calculation for the 380-meter crucible of the homestretch.
Watching Concern relentlessly, brutally grind his way forward under Shuta's guidance, Meyerhoff finally broke his silence.
"It appears the mathematical probability of salvaging this race has not entirely reached zero."
"We can only place our absolute faith in Shuta. We have to believe he can still outmaneuver Pat Day."
Trainer Small replied, his voice thick with bitter anxiety. He knew the absolute truth: even if a miracle occurred and Concern won the Classic, simply witnessing that catastrophic gate-break meant Meyerhoff would likely never entrust him with a thoroughbred again.
Meyerhoff easily diagnosed the trainer's internal panic, but offered zero comfort.
Small's professional future would be entirely dictated by the numbers on the tote board.
—
Ignorant of the corporate politics playing out in the VIP suites, Shuta An maintained his hyper-aggressive push.
Concern's position systematically improved, grinding forward with agonizing, physical effort. From eleventh, to ninth. Then to seventh. Sixth.
As the thundering pack prepared to violently bank into the final turn, Shuta An and Concern had miraculously battered their way into fifth place.
At the absolute vanguard, Pat Day had not registered Shuta An's presence for the entire 2000 meters. He hadn't felt the familiar, suffocating aura of the Japanese jockey. As the race entered its critical, terminal phase, Day suffered severe tunnel vision; he had absolutely zero tactical bandwidth to check his rearview mirror.
Who cares where he is!
Pat Day thought, his competitive fire burning with desperate intensity.
As long as Tabasco Cat and I cross that wire first, the rest is irrelevant!
Pat Day was desperate to salvage his dignity. Having suffered a humiliating shutout across the entire undercard, he needed this marquee victory to justify his existence to the American racing public.
As they straightened out into the final 380 meters, Tabasco Cat finally seized the absolute front of the pack, accelerating furiously toward the finish line.
But in that exact microsecond, a horrifying, neon silk flash registered in Pat Day's peripheral vision.
How the hell is it YOU again?!
Day's mind fractured in absolute panic. It mathematically defied logic. How had Shuta An—who had been buried so deep in the pack he was practically invisible—managed to drag a horse that routinely lost G1s by multiple lengths all the way to the front?
But Day didn't have time to process the physics. Because Shuta An and Concern violently surged past Tabasco Cat.
At the exact fraction of a second they crossed the wire, the young Japanese jockey aggressively threw his weight forward, pressing down brutally on Concern's hind neck, forcing the colt to extend its nose to the absolute anatomical limit. He mathematically manufactured a neck's-length victory, shattering Pat Day's desperate fantasy and cementing a nightmare the veteran jockey would carry to his grave.
"CONCERN COMPLETES THE IMPOSSIBLE COMEBACK!"
The commentator's voice shattered the stadium audio, delivering the final, euphoric blessing of the Breeders' Cup Classic.
[System Prompt: Target Task 'Perfect Shutout' Completed.]