First choice Espoir City was crowned the 10th champion of the Japan Cup Dirt on Sunday at Hanshin Racecourse, going wire-to-wire from the No. 1 post to finish comfortably ahead of Silk Mobius for his first international Grade 1 victory.

The 4-year-old Espoir City, the narrow favorite ahead of the race’s 2007 winner Vermilion, seized the lead over American raider Tizway after leaving the inside gate and never looked back under Tetsuzo Sato, who rode the colt with bulletproof confidence.

Espoir City, by Gold Allure out of Eminent City, crossed the line three and a half lengths ahead of Silk Mobius, the 3-year-old fifth pick ridden by the young Hiroyasu Tanaka, who won last month’s Queen Elizabeth II Commemorative Cup aboard long-shot Queen Spumante.

The winning time on firm going over the 1,800 meters was 1 minute, 49.9 seconds, 0.7 seconds off the race record set by Kane Hekili last year. Espoir City, trained by Akio Adachi who won his first Japan Cup Dirt title, took home 130 million yen in prize money for the Yushun Horse ownership team. The horse’s earnings topped 390 million yen, and is now 9-for-17 for his career.

Trailing Silk Mobius by a length and a quarter was another 3-year-old colt, Golden Ticket, the 12th choice under last weekend’s Japan Cup winner Christophe Lemaire. Yutaka Take’s Vermilion, who was third in 2008, had a disappointing afternoon, finishing eighth in the full field of 16. The reigning February Stakes champion Success Brocken kept up with Espoir City most of the way before running out of steam on the straight to hit the wire fourth.

The Harold James Bond-trained Tizway, the only entry from overseas after Belmont Stakes champion Summer Bird pulled out last week because of a fractured leg, came in 12th as the 11th pick.

Sato, who won his first Grade 1 race in five years in lifting his first Japan Cup Dirt, said Tizway was the only horse he was remotely worried about as Espoir City, who won his fourth straight since finishing fourth in the February Stakes, left his competitors in the dust on the home stretch.

“I was a little concerned about the horse from overseas,” Sato said in the post-race interview. “I didn’t expect to draw the inside barrier, and I only decided on taking the lead after we left the gates.

“The horse ran a heck of a race. He settled perfectly, but I wasn’t worried about that because we’ve been working on it a lot in training. I had all the faith in the world he would travel well. I never looked back when we turned for home because I knew we wouldn’t lose with the race we were running. He tends to get distracted at Hanshin, but he was so locked in today.”

Next for Espoir City could be the 1,600-meter February Stakes – perhaps followed by a trip to Dubai in March.

“I’ve been working with the horse hand in hand for a while now, and to win this race means a lot to us because the Japan Cup Dirt had always been the one we wanted to win,” the 39-year-old jockey said. “The stable and I have bigger plans for him abroad, but if we’re not good enough to win here, then it wasn’t going to happen. So I’m really glad he came through for us today.

“He’s such a tremendous horse, and he’ll only get better and better from hereon. I met him when I was coming back from my injury, and this victory is the fruit of all the hard work everyone associated with him has put in.”