![\"Francisco](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/6aebe8_2ec88539b1cc4306a4abc637e1f93441~mv2.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nThe Brazilian jockey currently sits third in the\u00a0Sapporo jockeys\u2019 championship, having also captured a conditional race<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Francisco Leandro Honored Following First Victory in Japan \/ JRA<\/p>\n
SAPPORO, Jap\u00f3n (Special for Turf Diario).- A day that will be etched in memory for Brazilian jockey\u00a0Francisco Leandro\u00a0came this Saturday (early morning in Argentina), as he notched his first win on Japanese soil while sitting third in the\u00a0World All Star Jockeys 2025\u00a0standings after the opening two stages of the tournament at\u00a0Sapporo, contested on a counter-clockwise track.<\/p>\n
All the hopes and expectations he brought from Buenos Aires were met with a warm welcome and excellent results, as the leader of the Palermo and San Isidro statistics quickly made his mark.<\/p>\n
After finishing ninth aboard\u00a0Dixie Vogue (Declaration of War)\u00a0in the day\u2019s second race, Leandro\u2019s moment came in the fourth, when he prevailed on\u00a0High Quality (Real Steel)\u00a0in a race for 3-year-olds and up over 1700 meters on heavy dirt. Leandro kept the 3-year-old prepared by\u00a0Teiichi Konno\u00a0within striking distance, accelerated into the turn, and seized control entering the short stretch, cruising to a comfortable six-length victory over\u00a0Riddle Trigger (American Pharoah).<\/p>\n
The jockey championship began immediately afterward, and the South American representative hit the ground running, finishing second aboard\u00a0Maru Puri (Mikki Isle)\u2014beaten by just a neck by\u00a0Heart Whip (Jo Cappuccino), ridden by local\u00a0Ryusei Sakai\u00a0on\u00a0Forever Young (Reel Steal). \u201cIt was an ideal race. He broke well and ran solidly. I thought we\u2019d get there at the wire, but we just came up a little short,\u201d Leandro said, pleased with the performance.<\/p>\n
In the second stage of the\u00a0World All Star Jockeys, Francisco finished sixth aboard\u00a0Sumi (Leontes), just 1\u00bd lengths behind\u00a0Patrick Handsome (Bago), with\u00a0Thore Hammer Hansen\u00a0in the irons. Reflecting on the run, Leandro commented, \u201cI think it was a good race. Maybe we could have done better if I\u2019d been able to position him a bit further back. My goal was to finish in the top five, but we got passed just before the wire.\u201d<\/p>\n
After day one, the standings show\u00a0Thore Hammer Hansen\u00a0leading with 42 points, followed by Sakai with 31, and Leandro with 28.<\/p>\n
With improved mounts lined up for Sunday, the Brazilian ace can dream of reaching the top and embracing glory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Brazilian jockey currently sits third in the\u00a0Sapporo jockeys\u2019 championship, having also captured a conditional race Francisco Leandro…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":88833,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[3004,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-88832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-racing","tag-racing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}