Christmas comes early, as common, for followers of horse racing in Japan. This Sunday as soon as once more sees the Group 1 Japan Cup run at Tokyo Racecourse in Fuchu, only a brief distance away from the hustle and bustle of the capital.
This yr marks the forty fourth time for the autumn showpiece, and it’s a part of the Japan Racing Affiliation’s Autumn Worldwide Collection of races, which includes 4 weekends of Group 1 races.
First run again in 1981, the Japan Cup began as a problem for Japanese horses to see how they’d measure up in opposition to different high horses from totally different international locations world wide. The primary Japan Cup was gained by the 5-year-old American-bred mare named Mairzy Doates, and was ridden by globe-trotting American jockey Money Asmussen. It took the native horses a couple of years to match as much as the would possibly of the international runners, however positive sufficient, in 1984 — the yr the race grew to become formally acknowledged as a global Group 1 — Katsuragi Ace stunned at huge odds and carried off the spoils for Japan.
