Ho O Biscuits, the third favourite, won his first graded stakes victory with an impressive performance in Sunday's G3 Hakodate Kinen. Gran Dia, the fourth favourite, finished second, while the longshot Auswahl, the 14th favourite, took third.

Immediately after the win, jockey Yasunari Iwata, who guided Ho O Biscuits to victory, said with a smile, "I'm really glad I came to Hakodate." The race saw Auswahl taking the lead with Ho O Biscuits settling just behind in second. "I knew there would be one horse going to the front, so I decided to follow right behind," Iwata explained. Executing the plan perfectly, Ho O Biscuits overtook the leader in the final stretch and surged ahead to win decisively.

Iwata remarked, "Even though it's the last day of this Hakodate meeting, the track was in great condition, making it easy to run. Creating a safety lead and forcing the horses behind to use their legs worked well." Celebrating his second graded stakes victory of the year, Iwata added, "He won two in a row as a 3-year-old and ran decent races in the G1 Satsuki Sho and G1 Japanese Derby, so I knew he was a very good horse. I always thought he had the potential to compete on a bigger stage, so I'm just grateful for the opportunity."