FUNABASHI RACE TRACK
With our occasional racehorse profiles, jockey profiles, trainer profiles, and so on, we may as well take a look at some of the tracks, too - both the JRA and NAR facilities. My local racecourse is Funabashi - an NAR-run facility with weekday racing on a pair of dirt tracks. As this is the closest to my home, and the one I visit the most, this is where we'll start...

The original track was based at Kashiwa in 1928, hence the big Kashiwa Kinen race, but following the war, plans were put in place to build a new track at Funabashi, with a motorcycle racing facility contained within.

Funabashi track duly opened its gates for the first time in August 1950, with Kashiwa closing down in 1952. In November 1953, Nihon TV made a live broadcast of the meeting held on the 27th - the first ever NAR meeting to be televised.

Yomiuri Land took over the running of the site in 1968, and still administer it to this day. Also in 1968, the motorcycle racing side of the business was separated from the horse racing, moving to its own dedicated circuit situated closer to the port.

The major earthquake that hit Japan in 2011 stopped racing for a little while, as the water table rose causing flooding. Indeed, the land is quite boggy on the inside of the Funabashi Keiba track, which explains why there's a natural lake off to the right as one looks from the grandstands. It also explains why my request for a greyhound track may never go through - it would cost a fortune to prepare the land!

There are no less than 37 racing stables based at Funabashi, along with 32 full-time jockeys listed for 2012. If you can read Japanese, the link for the Funabashi Keiba website can be found to the right-hand side of the page, as well as another link for the track's official blog.