The Group 1 Japan Cup enters its fifth decade this year, and the autumn showpiece will once again be run Sunday at Tokyo Racecourse in Fuchu, the home of many of Japan’s top-flight horse races, including the Oaks and the Japanese Derby, also run over 2,400 meters.

Once again, regrettably, the on-track attendance figure (normally somewhere in the region of 100,000) will be drastically cut to around 10,000, the number given at the current time of writing. Only pre-reserved online tickets will allow racegoers to witness the action live on the day, and for those who haven’t already done this, showing up without a reserved ticket on race day will not gain access to the course.

Established back in 1981 (the first Japan Cup winner was the American mare Mairzy Doates), the race was, to a large extent, set up to allow Japanese horses to compete with their overseas counterparts, and with a view to getting some of the foreign horses to stay in the country after they retired to improve the quality of Japanese bloodstock. Some might argue the scales have been tipped way too far in Japan’s favor now, with the home team having won 26 times in the 40-year history of the Japan Cup. The last foreign winner of the race was Alkaased in 2005. Just a year later, Ouija Board became the last overseas runner to gain a top three finish by placing third. This year there have been 11 nominations from other countries for their horses to run in the race, and it looks like there could be three runners from overseas in the final line-up, namely Japan and Broome from Ireland, and Grand Glory from France. They will certainly have their work cut out in taking on the best Japanese horses, but that is what the race is all about.