Vela Azul

Vela Azul (ヴェラアズール, foaled January 19, 2017) is a retired Japanese thoroughbred racehorse. The horse's name is Spanish for "blue sail", and was derived from his dam's name. The horse underwent surgery at age one to remove bone fragments from his left fetlock, and suffered from osselet on his left forearm at age two. As a result, the horse was not entered into any races until March 20 of 2020, where he finished 2nd at a 1800m long debut race held on the dirt course of the Hanshin Racecourse, with Yuichi Fukunaga as his jockey. According to the horse's trainer, Kunihiko Watanabe, Vela Azul was entered in to dirt races initially due to concerns of his legs as he had at one point weighed nearly 600 kilograms. After several starts, Vela Azul won his first race on June 28, an 1800 m long dirt race at Hanshin with Damian Lane as his jockey. He was able to win his second race at an allowance race on January 10, 2021, held at Chukyo Racecourse. After this win however, he was unable to win any more races for the rest of the 2021 season. Watanabe had talks with Carrot Farm that he wished to send the horse to a turf race, but "he lost a good timing to send the horse to such race as the horse did pretty well at dirt races", by which point the horse had already turned 5 years old. He was initially set to start the season in the Yahagigawa Tokubetsu (Dirt 1800m) on March 19, but 36 horses had registered to run in the race, meaning the horse would be barred from running due to there being too many horses.