Established in 1981, and run over 2,400 metres, or just shy of 12 furlongs, on turf at Tokyo Racecourse on the last Sunday in November, the Japan Cup is one of the most prestigious and valuable races staged in the ‘Land of the Rising Sun’. A Grade 1 contest, open to horses aged three years and upwards – although entry is, and always has been, by invitation only – the race boasts total prize money of ¥1,085,000,000, or £6.9 million, of which ¥500,000,000, or £3.2 million, goes to winning connections.
In recent years, the Japan Cup has been ‘farmed’ by locally-trained horses, with the last foreign winner being the five-year-old Alkaased, trained by Luca Cumani, in Newmarket, and ridden by Lanfranco ‘Frankie’ Dettori, who prevailed by the narrowest possible margin, a nose, in 2005. Indeed, Alkaased has been the only winner trained in Great Britain or Ireland since the turn of the twenty-first century but, in 41 runnings of the Japan Cup, so far, a total of five such horses have claimed the lucrative first prize.
The first of them was the remarkable five-year-old mare Stanerra, trained by the late Frank Dunne, in Dunboyne, County Meath, and ridden by Brian Rouse, in 1983. The winner of both the Prince of Wales’s Stakes and the Hardwicke Stakes at Royal Ascot that year, and what is now the Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown in September, Stanerra came from an unpromising position to beat home favourite Kyoei Promise by a head.
The other three winners from the British Isles were all bred in Ireland, but all trained in Newmarket. They were the seven-year-old Jupiter Island, trained by Clive Brittain and ridden by Pat Eddery, in 1986, the four-year-old Singspiel, trained by Michael Stoute – in the days before his knighthood – and ridden by Dettori, in 1996 and the five-year-old Pilsudki, again trained by Stoute, but ridden by Michael ‘Mick’ Kinane, in 1997.