Anybody who was at Tokyo Racecourse for Sunday’s Japan Cup will likely have the same sound ringing in their ears for days after the race: the roar of 79,000 fans, followed by the chant … “Yu-ta-ka, Yu-ta-ka, Yu-ta-ka”.
Twenty-five years since Yutaka Take won his first Japan Cup on Special Week, the legendary jockey won his fifth, aged 55 – this time on five-year-old Do Deuce – in exactly the same time as that famous 1999 victory: 2.25.5. The winning time and prevalence of fives weren’t the only parallel.
In the lead-up to Sunday’s showdown there had already been comparisons made between Special Week’s Japan Cup win and this clash of the titans: in 1999 the Take and Special Week combination had been dubbed 日本総大将 (Nihon sōdaishō) – meaning “General of Japan” – as the horse and jockey were depicted as a defender of Japanese racing pride. In 1999, facing the might of Montjeu, Special Week and Take prevailed in a star-studded contest.
One quarter of a century later, Take and Do Deuce repelled one of the strongest challenges to Japan’s dominance since that famous victory.
American owner John Stewart was just another crazy racing fan who walked away from the racecourse with the Take chant on loop in his head. This week Stewart got more than he bargained for, both on and off the track. He talked a big game in the pre-race build up and generated some free publicity too: he brought top contender Goliath to town and after preaching for the need for international competition and fan engagement, he got plenty of both.
On race eve Stewart came good on a social media promise to hand out Goliath trading cards to racing fans. The request was to meet at the Godzilla statue at Yurakucho at 10am on Saturday morning. Trouble was, thousands more fans than expected showed up. Then the police did.
“We didn’t actually expect this to happen,” Stewart told Idol Horse in between signing cards, after he re-convened his merchandise handout outside of the nearby hotel he was staying at. “The local newspaper put a story together and next thing we knew there were police involved. We were just trying to give away things for free but the Japanese fans are very passionate.”
Stewart found out just how passionate those fans were when the field rounded the home turn in the Japan Cup a day later, as Take and Do Deuce were met with a wall of sound. The home fans were riding the race favourite in full voice as he surged to the front.
Credit to Stewart for trying to stimulate a sense of true competition at the top end of a sport too often dominated by a privileged few. Stewart’s antics might have seemed a circus at times – and even a little dangerous when it came to the crush of fans following him through the Tokyo streets – but among it all the Japan Cup may have just regained a distinct identity. This was what the race was meant to be and maybe can be again: a truly international event, a clash of racing cultures and an annual test of Japanese racing’s strength.
Behind Do Deuce was not only Goliath, who was ideally positioned in the run by Christophe Soumillon but could only manage sixth, but also fellow foreign raiders Auguste Rodin (eighth) and Fantastic Moon (11th), along with a stellar field that featured nine individual Group 1 winners. Those unfavoured by a slower-than-usual race tempo have no excuses: Do Deuce came from last and looped them all to win. No pacemakers here, sorry.
There was no better way to restore some national horse racing pride than this result. Take and Do Deuce were greeted with a raucous reception as a vocal crowd reveled in an atmosphere dripping in nostalgia. Even the worn and pockmarked surface, its summer grass trampled and brown close to the inside rail, resembled the Tokyo Racecourses of old.
When Take and Do Deuce won the 2022 Tokyo Yushun there was a similar ‘pop’ from the crowd as fans went wild: that victory came in front of a crowd capped at 60,000 – but the biggest in two and a half years – after Covid restrictions had kept the fans away from their beloved raceday experience.
Take winning a Group 1 in front of a big crowd at Tokyo makes Japanese racing fans feel like everything is okay in the world. It is by now as regular as clockwork: in 2022 Do Deuce gave the jockey a Derby victory in five different decades and in his 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s. He now has a Japan Cup in four different decades following victories aboard Deep Impact (2006), Rose Kingdom (2010) and Kitasan Black (2016).
While Do Deuce’s Tokyo Yushun win marked a return to the racetrack for fans, this time the normalcy restored was Japanese on-track dominance. Results around the world of late have made it feel that perhaps the unstoppable rise of Japanese racing has stalled, and this influx of truly high calibre opposition had fans nervous.
Japan had sent 19 runners to the recent Breeders’ Cup meeting at Del Mar and a Japanese horse has not won a turf race abroad in nearly 20 months (Equinox, 2022 G1 Sheema Classic).
That winless streak for Japan included a close third in the Irish Champion Stakes and an Arc failure for Shin Emperor, who was a narrow second on Sunday after racing on speed.
Shin Emperor’s owner Susumu Fujita had also placed in the Kentucky Derby and Breeders’ Cup Classic with Forever Young this year. Despite the frustration, Fujita, of all people, would appreciate that this win seemed written in the stars for Take. Part of Fujita’s fortune is fueled by the mobile phone game and franchise Umamusume Pretty Derby, of which the theme is ‘destiny’.
In the Umamusume anime series the protagonist is Special Week (who in another parallel is depicted in the show as having a voracious appetite and propensity to gain weight rapidly, similar to Do Deuce’s famous gluttony).
After the race Take stood on a podium, took a microphone and as the sun set over the snow-capped Mount Fuji, which had been visible earlier in the day, he gave thanks to a crowd that was completely in awe of the living legend.
“Thank you very much, it means so much … this is my best Japan Cup memory, for sure,” Take said, before confirming that Do Deuce will retire after the Arima Kinen on December 22. “I hope he can retire as a winner. This year, there were good horses from overseas, and so I wanted to let the world know that Do Deuce is a great horse. He certainly did that.” ∎
