HORSES IN THE JRA HALL OF FAME 
There are quite a few 'Hall of Fame' organizations in Japan, such as one for baseball, and even an automotive one that I myself was involved with for a while. However, the one that interests us today is the one found in the museum at the Tokyo-Fuchu racecourse - the JRA Hall of Fame.

These are the horses that have been inducted into the Hall of Fame so far, listed in the order they were accepted for entry: Kumohata, Tokino Minoru, Kurifuji, Tokitsukaze, Tosa Midori, Haiseiko, Shinzan, Hakuchikara, Tosho Boy and St Lite (1984), Grand Marches and Seiyu (1985), Mr CB (1986), Mejiro Ramonu and Symboli Rudolf (1987), Maruzensky, Speed Symboli, Meiji Hikari, Kodama and Ten Point (1990), Oguri Cap (1991), Mejiro McQueen (1994), Tokai Teio (1995), Narita Brian (1998), Taiki Shuttle (1999), Takeshiba O and TM Opera O (2004), Deep Impact (2008), and Vodka (2011).

One wonders if a certain chestnut, favourite for the Japan Cup today, will secure a place in the Hall of Fame as soon as he's allowed to qualify? The rules are such that nothing is guaranteed if several exceptional horses are present in a given year.

Anyway, there are also a number of jockeys and trainers that have been inducted, but we will deal with them at a later date. For now, at least the names of the horses are available in English, as this part of the JRA website is in Japanese only.

As an aside, you may be interested to know that the blog is now pulling in over 100 visitors a day (175 is the record so far), the audience coming from just about everywhere - all the continents have been covered, leaving only the North and South Pole to go. With modern communications, you never know! Even research scientists get free time...

AUTUMN COLOURS
Although it's seriously cold, the autumn leaves and golden light of the late afternoon always provide a spectacular backdrop for Jaguar, his colouring - passed on by Sakura Yutaka O - showing up to best effect at this time of year.

With his niggling leg problem behind him, Jaguar was back in top form, ready to race again if you'd have shown him a starting gate I reckon! Louis was smiling a lot, but reported that he was getting tired constantly trying to rein in the power. Didn't stop him going round and round the outer track at a cracking pace, though...

After Jaguar, the chance was taken to ride another Thoroughbred - Machikane Ukon, the full brother
of Hishi Amazon. 'Ukon' is an option for Louis' show-jumping debut, depending on who's riding what and when, as being an experienced campaigner, he'd give the boy a somewhat gentler introduction into his latest equine adventure. Despite the wet rather conditions, all went well - no injuries, and not even any dented pride.

JRA, NAR... WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?
With no 'translation team' around again, I was trying to figure out what I could write about Japanese racing with material either coming from within my head (not much in there!), or being easy to research. Luckily, I'd done some useful work already for a book proposal, and the thing that springs to mind should help visitors to the blog from abroad put things into perspective - today, we'll look at what's behind the JRA and NAR initials...

Horse racing has been around in Japan for 150 years now, but in the early days, it was largely the British contingent living in Yokohama that was responsible for the meetings. The sport flourished during the Meiji Era, and had already become quite professional by the turn of the century. In 1923, 11 clubs were formed to handle racing, which duly came under the control of the Imperial Racing Society. This, in turn, was merged with the new Japan Racing Society in 1936, bringing about the birth of modern Japanese horse racing.

Naturally, the war threw the racing world into disarray, but a batch of new laws passed in 1954 led to the formation of the JRA (Japan Racing Association), established as a new controlling body, continually investing profits from gambling to further improve the sport and the numerous JRA facilities spread throughout the country.

Interestingly, racing conducted by local government bodies was left largely to its own devices. However, new legislation passed in 1962 led to the creation of the NAR (National Association of Racing), allowing all local government events to be run under the same rules, with a nationwide standard set on all manner of things, from those allowed to qualify for trainer and jockey licences, through to the registration of owners.

The Sapporo and Chukyo tracks are shared with the JRA, although there are no less than 17 racecourses run solely by the NAR, namely Tokyo-Oi, Funabashi, Kawasaki, Urawa, Nagoya, Kochi, Saga, Sonoda, Himeji, Morioka, Mizusawa, Kanazawa, Kasamatsu, Obihiro, Mombetsu, Arao and Fukuyama.

Sadly, the future of the Fukuyama facility is in doubt, and support is needed at all the local tracks to stop others going the same way. It's time people started to realize that horse racing is a fun day out, full of special characters, and not just about betting. If you've never been to a racecourse before, try it! With JRA racing at weekends and NAR events usually scheduled for weekdays, there's no excuse for not being able to go...

FAIRY ROBE NEWS
Today, Fairy Robe had a run alongside a three-year old at the Kawasaki racecourse. The jockey, Seiji Yamazaki, reported that he was pleased enough with the horse's action, although a little more gate practice will be needed before the official test on the 29th. All being well, Fairy Robe should make her debut at the Kawasaki Keiba track on the 17th of December. If so, I'll be there...

PS. In other news relating to Yamazaki Stable, I've just heard that Hiro Sato isn't feeling too good. I'd like to take this opportunity to say 'Get Well Soon'! There are certainly a lot of people looking at his profile, including new visitors from Hong Kong, so I'm obviously not alone in wishing him well.

FORGET ANY THOUGHTS OF MICKEY...
Even at Disneyland, the kids can't stay away from horses for long. This is Sophie pictured yesterday with a couple of new friends. And yes, Louis jumped on another horse on the same ride!

With the weather reminding me of an English winter, I think I'll forget going to the stables today (I went yesterday for cookie and brushing duties) and concentrate on framing a few more prints up. Supposed to be a much better weather outlook tomorrow, so for now, working on something in the warm sounds good...

HIRONORI SATO
Now my 'translation team' is back on the scene, we can continue our series on Japanese jockey profiles once more. Today, we'll take a look at Hironori Sato...

Based at the Kawasaki Keiba track, Hiro was born in Yokohama in June 1979. Hiro's father was a horse racing fan, so he was exposed to Keiba from an early age. He clearly remembers being inspired by an NHK TV programme on racing, but his high school era was dominated by studying electrical engineering and playing rugby.

Courtesy Shinsuke Ogawa

Things started to come together after he became bored with studying and told his rugby coach he wanted to be a jockey. As it happens, the coach was a friend of Hiromi Yamazaki's. The pair tried to sway him away from the game, telling him how hard it was and that he was better to continue with his studies, but he came away even more determined to ride - he wanted to be in the photos on Yamazaki-san's wall, just like his heroes.

After shedding no less than 7kg in a short space of time, he entered jockey school, and ultimately made his debut in October 1998 with the Nakajima Stable. His first of 454 wins (so far!) came five months later, and in 2000, he moved to the Yamazaki Stable following the retirement of his former boss.

Dedicated to honing his skills, there was a time when he would take out 20 horses in a morning, with image training and visits to the sports gym on days off. This led to him being held up as a young star at Kawasaki at the turn of the millennium. Still not satisfied, he has now moved into the Joba arena, further improving his level of communication with the horses he rides.

In the picture, we can see Hiro's wife, Satomi, who is well-known in the equine world, and his son, Shoma, who's already making an impression in the Jockey Babies series, looking set to proudly wear the white/blue silks made famous by his father for the next generation of Keiba fans. He's not keen on the idea of his daughter Miku becoming a jockey, but I wouldn't rule it out just yet - with horses running this deep in the family bloodlines, you never know!

ANOTHER RACE SOON
Mistoffelees has been confirmed to race on the 2nd of December at Nagoya. With Genki Maruyama as jockey, as per the colt's debut, he'll line up for the fourth race of the day (1600m on turf), which starts at 11:25am. In the following week, Miracle Rouge takes to the tracks again, once more with Yoshitomi Shibata in the saddle for the Nakayama 4R on the 8th. Both of these horses have the potential to win!

RUFFIAN POSTSCRIPT
I mentioned the existence of a film when writing about Ruffian the other day, and I've since found this. Means another bill from Amazon in a minute! It's a shame there aren't more videos like this. There are a handful on the current crop of top JRA racers, as well as recent past-masters, but very few on the horses that gave them their bloodlines. I saw a documentary on Sunday Silence at Tokoro, but haven't been able to get my own copy as yet. In reality, though, I'd like to go back even further, to the heroes of the fifties, sixties and seventies. If anyone has a list of what's readily available, please pass on the details and we can add them to the blog.

In the meantime, we've breezed past 6000 visitors while I was grabbing some breakfast, and we had our first folks from Australia drop in while I was at Urawa. Welcome! This means that yesterday we had people from all over Europe, Asia, North America, South America and
Australasia tuning in - it seems we've finally gone global...

PS. Canada and Algeria were added to the list of countries that have visited the blog today.

URAWA DEBUT
Spent the day at Urawa Keiba today and I must say, I really liked the place. It was so compact it reminded me more of a greyhound track than a racecourse, but that's part of its charm - that and the friendly atmosphere. Perhaps this is one of the benefits of the layout, as faces soon become familiar, like living in a small village rather than a big city.

Anyway, can't do anything more on the blog tonight, and my 'translator' is away all day tomorrow, so the Urawa track profile will have to wait for a little while. For the time being, here's a taste of today's meeting...

MAI BEPPU
Today, it's time to bring some glamour to the blog with another look at the lady jockeys of Japan. We'll return to Akane Yamamoto soon, but seeing as we wrote more about her in the original article, let's take this opportunity to profile another heroine, Mai Beppu.

Born in Kochi in December 1987, Mai (the initials used in the name taken to stand for 'Mad, Alluring and Invincible' - I like that!) was born into the racing world, with her father, Shinji, being a trainer. Indeed, the pair are featured in a current NAR advert emphasizing continuity.

Courtesy Wikipedia/Cake6

Mai obtained her jockey licence in September 2005, and won on her maiden outing in the following month - a remarkable achievement. She'd already clocked up 50 wins by 2006, setting a record pace for lady jockey victories as the fastest and youngest to reach this landmark.

In 2008, Mai won the Japanese 'LJS' series for lady jockeys, and was invited to ride in the international version in Korea in the following year. As it happens, she went back to Korea in 2011 to ride there for a while, but has since returned to NAR racing in her native country.

Looking at her blog, which is always full of food, one wonders how she manages to keep her weight down! But her 10.2% win rate proves there's no problem, with another LJS title and 384 NAR victories to her credit so far, including 33 this year. Ganbatte, Mai!

FUNABASHI IN FOCUS
The official NAR website Keiba Go! currently carries a nice feature on the Funabashi track, including an interview with Kawashima-sensei talking about Furioso, a different interview with legendary jockey Takayuki Ishizaki, and a mention of the Tokoro shop. Please click on this link keiba.go.jp/gokeiba/arukikata/ to guide you there now, or use it and go to Volume 16 if you're tuning into the blog at a later date.

JAPAN CUP
When we spoke about Japan's classic races the other day, we ought to have mentioned another important one that ranks alongside the Arima Kinen and Takarazuka Kinen. In other words, it's not a true classic, but it's certainly a race of note, and the timing for this piece couldn't be better, with the 32nd edition being held at Tokyo-Fuchu on the 25th of November.

Always held at the JRA Tokyo track (usually over 2400m), this is an invitational race, allowing Japanese-bred horses to compete with other international heroes and heroines of the turf. As well as having huge appeal for Keiba fans, it is one of the richest races in the world (with a purse of almost $6m US at today's exchange rates), so it naturally holds appeal for all involved, including the various owners, trainers and jockeys. 

Looking down the list of past winners, a few of the current racers listed at the bottom of the page have links with them - Special Week, Jungle Pocket, Zenno Rob Roy and El Condor Pasa spring straight to mind without even having to look through notes. So far, no horse has managed to win the race twice.

Took this snapshot on the train en route to Tokyo this morning. My money, and that of Louis the Keibaholic as it happens, is on Orfevre to win this Sunday, assuming he behaves himself on the day...

THE STORY SO FAR
As I'm writing this, there are 85 people currently viewing the blog, which has to be a new record for TD&T? I'm glad, not only because of the volume of traffic involved, but also because it shows there's an interest in the Japanese racing scene outside the Land of the Rising Sun, as half of the viewers are tuning in from abroad.

Anyway, I just wanted to do a brief recap of what's happened in the racing programme so far. Tenshinramman was second in her first race, but clocking 33.1 for the last three furlongs singled her out as something special. She duly won her next race, and had a shot at the big time after that in the Artemis Stakes. Unfortunately, she had no chance to show her speed, and finished way down the field. But like Schwarzenegger, she'll be back...

The Sadler's Wells cross Miracle Rouge was next up, coming fourth after a terrible start. A 33.5 3F time shows real potential, and I've no doubt this horse will be in the winner's enclosure in the near future.

Mistoffelees, after I don't know how many delays, finally made it to the track and showed his mettle. Having led all the way from the gate, the horse marking him and using him as a pacemaker pulled away at the end, leaving him to finish second. But again, this was an impressive performance by the Northern Dancer cross, as it's rare to see a breakaway horse not get swamped by the pack in the last couple of furlongs. 

And today, Harmony Fair brings another win, and yet more hope to the Long camp. Both Mistoffelees and Miracle Rouge are set to race again in early December. Please show your support for these promising horses...

PS. The current viewing figure just hit 121 people, mainly from the States. 

HARMONY FAIR V1
Just got back from watching Harmony Fair on the big screen at Nakayama. Wish I'd have dragged myself across to Tokyo-Fuchu now, as the little darling won! And not only did she win, she did it in impressive style, too, completing the last three furlongs in 33.6 seconds, which is quite remarkable for such a petite two-year old filly...

Starting off third favourite (she was second favourite for a time, until she had a wild moment in the paddock), Masayoshi Ebina calmed her down and did a great job of guiding her round, staying close to the rails after a splendid launch from the gates. Somehow he found a gap on the inside, and 'Harmony' (fittingly wearing #1) blasted past the favourite in what became a two-horse race. She won by a head as Hiruno Qualia weakened at the end, with the rest of pack over three lengths behind.

If you want to watch the race, please use the following JRA link: 201205050605h.asx.