European Stars Revive Japan Cup’s True Purpose
Auguste Rodin and Goliath are bringing it for the overseas raiders after years of the Japan Cup relying on its renowned home-trained stars to maintain the race’s status as an international feature.
AT LAST, we have two real-deal European challengers in the Japan Cup again, and how refreshing that is. Auguste Rodin and Goliath are exciting throwbacks to when the mile and a half contest still fulfilled the measure of its creation, when genuine top-tier Group 1 horses shipped in from overseas to challenge the buttressed might of the Japanese defence.
The Aidan O’Brien-trained Auguste Rodin, with six Group 1 wins including a couple of Derbies, the Breeders’ Cup Turf, Irish Champion Stakes and Prince of Wales’s Stakes, is the most decorated overseas runner to tackle the Cup in more than a decade, going back to the likes of the Arc heroine and eventual King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes winner Danedream, sixth at Tokyo in 2012.
As Ryan Moore told the media this week, Auguste Rodin has form “similar to horses that have won the Japan Cup” from Europe in the old days.
Such is the JRA’s (Japan Racing Association) gratitude and relief that a real star has shown up, it has announced that Coolmore’s Auguste Rodin, as the best foreign-bred son of Japan’s late great champion galloper and stallion Deep Impact, will have a retirement ceremony held in his honour after racing. That will be a remarkable first for a foreign-trained horse: retirement ceremonies usually are reserved only for the most respected of local heroes.
Meanwhile, the Francis Graffard-trained Goliath is the first horse to arrive on the premises with a King George win under his belt since Conduit was fourth behind local heroine Vodka in 2009.
Goliath’s King George form, defeating the subsequent Arc winner Bluestocking, with this autumn’s Breeders’ Cup Turf victor Rebel’s Romance and Auguste Rodin behind, is the best Europe can offer at the distance. That being so, the powers that be at the JRA know they need at least one of the two stars to run a big race to help get the Japan Cup back on track.
It’s been about a dozen years since the Japan Cup began to lose its way. The number of international participants dropped off and so did the overall quality of those that did show up. The JRA doubled the bonus available to a Japan Cup winner that had also won one of its designated global bonus races to US$2 million in 2017. When that didn’t work, it upped it to US$3 million for overseas-trained contenders and set about expanding the race’s incentive system to entice the top-line Europeans back to the party. That in and of itself was an admission that the race, despite being a fantastic spectacle won by some of Japan’s finest champions, was failing to be what it was meant to be.
This year, the stars mentioned above – and their solid ‘support’ runner, champion German colt Fantastic Moon – will earn US$3.5 million should they win, plus a bonus of US$3 million. Even the bonus for second is a whopping US$1.2 million, with US$750,000 on offer for third and a sweet US$200,000 for fourth, as well as the place money.
The Japan Cup was established back in 1981 as a contest specifically designed to attract the world’s eyes to Japan, to bring in high-class runners from overseas to compete against the best Japan could muster. It was a way to measure the progress of Japan’s bloodstock and to assess the quality of its champions against those from the sport’s traditional strongholds.
This was a race that would enhance Japan’s domestic programme, too, positioned between the treasured 2000m Tenno Sho Autumn and the mighty end of year grand prix, the 2500m Arima Kinen. It would not replace them, nor ever overshadow them. It was very much a race with an international purpose.
It worked. The North American Mairzy Doates took the first edition, another American Half Iced won the second, then Ireland’s Stanerra took the third before Japan figured it out and nailed the 1984 and 1985 contests with Katsuragi Ace and Symboli Rudolf. But, as expected, nine of the first 11 Japan Cups went offshore.
After that, the home team and the raiders traded blows: three wins on the bounce for Japan, four in a row for the internationals, four more for Japan, one to the foreign cohort, two back-to-back for Japan, and then in 2005 one more for the raiders as the British galloper Alkaased triumphed for trainer Luca Cumani. Since then, it’s been 18 straight wins to Japan.
The situation is in large part due to the impressive strength of Japan’s elite middle-distance runners since the turn of the century. The winner’s list in these 18 years is a who’s who of Japanese champions: Deep Impact, Almond Eye, Contrail, Gentildonna, Kitasan Black, Equinox.
Tied into that phenomenon is the diminished standard and number of overseas runners that have attempted to win the race, particularly in the last 11 years.
From 1995 to the last overseas winner in 2005, the number of international runners totalled 73 – averaging about six overseas runners per year – for four victories plus seven top three finishes besides the winners. The 18 contests from 2006 through 2023 attracted only 57 international contenders for no wins and only one top three placing – Ouija Board way back in 2006 – averaging three overseas runners per race.
In the last 11 years, 27 horses have tried at an average of less than 2.5 runners per race, with Grand Glory, Idaho and Dunaden faring best with fifth-place finishes. Since four runners showed up in 2018, the number of foreign challengers each year diminished to two, none, one, three, three and one.
It is not difficult to argue that the quality of international raiders dipped markedly as this century advanced, from the days when multiple Group 1-winning stars like Singspiel, Pilsudski, Helissio, Fantastic Light, Montjeu, Falbrav and Oujia Board were turning up from Europe, and even the likes of Indigenous from Hong Kong, Chief Bearheart and Johar from North America, and the Australian Fields Of Omagh.
The last genuinely top-line Group 1 winner from overseas to attempt the Japan Cup was the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner Solemia in 2012: in fact, given the shock nature of Solemia’s sole Group 1 win on heavy going at Longchamp, it can be argued that the last fully proven top-tier Group 1 horse to attempt the race was Danedream one year earlier. The rest since have been a notch and more below the level of a European star, never mind a champion.
Having your day in a middling edition of the Prix d’Ispahan or Grand Prix de Paris, or bagging ‘soft’ Group 1s in Germany, is one thing, but winning races like the Arc, the King George, the Breeders’ Cup Turf, that’s something else altogether. Unfortunately for the Japan Cup, the latter type of runner has been glaringly absent from Tokyo in November for too long.
Auguste Rodin and Goliath are indeed throwbacks, yet they still face a difficult task: even if the Japanese contingent does not have a champion like Equinox in the line-up this year, it does have a top-line Group 1 stalwart in Do Deuce, the star three-year-old filly Cervinia and a proven performer like Stars On Earth, as well as Durezza, Shin Emperor and Blow The Horn.
The home team is far from weak, and while Auguste Rodin’s six Group 1 wins are not to be dismissed lightly, his one from five record this year shows that he has frailties as well as brilliance, suggesting he’s no outstanding champion, not in the pure sense.
The French gelding Goliath is more untapped and comes in with two wins on the bounce, but this will be his toughest test yet in a big field on the type of ground he will not have encountered before.
Whatever the outcome, having bona fide top-line Europeans in the Japan Cup again is something of a welcome revival and one that gives hope that the cream of international runners will become an annual feature, just as the JRA planned it in the old days ∎
