The Jpn1 Mile Championship Nambu Hai was a fifth win at the top level for Lemon Pop. The Champion Dirt horse has long been a fixture in the JRA dirt category, Lemon Pop will be making his final start in the G1 Champions Cup.

Sakai, Lemon Pop's main jockey, arrived from Ritto for his workout session on November 21st and posted a good time of 79.5 seconds on the Miho woodchip course. Sakai said, "He is a horse that always works well. He clocked well and there was no problem." Assistant Hokari, who usually rides the horse in training, also expressed his satisfaction, saying "The horse finished in good shape, and we had planned to put a good load on him in terms of time, but we were really able to train him as planned."

Last year, he annihilated the Mile Championship Nambu Hai field by two seconds, but this year he was only 0.1 seconds in front of Peptide Nile in a close race. Assistant Hokari added "His performance in the last race was more than 70 percent. It was a tough race with Peptide Nile racing him, but I thought he did a great job to win the race."

With almost a month and a half between races, he is ready for the next race. Hokari also commented "He has tightened up in a good way. He is a little tense, but I am not worried. I'm not sure if he can improve as he gets older, but he has a lot of potential. He is in good shape."

Lemon Pop brought the first JRA G1 title to the Hiroyasu Tanaka Stable, which only opened in 2018. It is no wonder the staff are so passionate about him. "He's such a good horse, so we want to send him off in good shape. In Japan, even if he loses, he can only finish second. We want him to have a race that lives up to the name of Lemon Pop."