Derby Disaster

Courtesy Miho Long

Mar-kun and Arayama-sensei are not to blame for the disaster, and fourth in an NAR S1 Classic is hardly a disaster anyway (bloody good actually), but for NAR, it was a very, very black day. Why? Because the race was stolen by a traitor of a trainer who had only won 17 races in two years, and then allowed a JRA horse to be registered at his stable - a horse that had never entered one NAR race before, yet was accepted in a Classic, a festival for NAR fans that has now been sullied beyond repair. JRA horses are not better - they have the benefit of multi-billion dollar training facilities, while NAR folks are lucky to have a poxy dirt track outside the actual race track. And now, an underhand trainer has opened the floodgates for a ton of JRA horses to try and claim what bit of money there is in the NAR pot, while the real NAR boys will struggle even more. Seriously, you would have to be an idiot to buy an NAR horse now, as the already remote chances of clawing some money back have been further reduced, while the asking price for yearlings keeps going higher and higher. This is the beginning of the end for NAR. For me, it is the end. I hereby declare, once and for all, officially and with no repeal, that I am finished with Japanese racing. I hate JRA, and how can you help NAR when it doesn't want to help itself? There will be a few (and I do mean a few) disgruntled heads shaking, but from what I've seen, most are patting the jockey on the back. Good, strong message that this sort of thing won't be tolerated next year, boys...