3 minute read

She was very unlucky as her horse in the 4th leg broke down.

She looked to be in about 7th place as they turned into the straight and in a good position to go forward when unfortunately her horse suffered a dislocated pastern.  He was able to get into the horse ambulance but later had to be euthanised.  7th would have won her the top money but there is nothing in the rules about a horse breaking down except that all jockeys from tenth and below get one point.  So she had to settle for 2 million yen instead of 3 million but after said she was happy with that and she had enjoyed the enthusiasm of the fans and the opportunity to race against some top jockeys.

So it was young Mirai Iwata who followed in his father's footsteps to win the challenge by one point, despite not winning any of the legs.  And last year's winner Yutaka Take was another point back in third.

It was a good result for the girls when Marie Velon won the third leg on an outsider and the last leg made our Hong Kong colleagues happy when Alexis Badel came first.

Team Japan won the teams comp although they didn't win any of the legs but had enough higher placed finishes to get that trophy.

There was a thunderstorm around lunch tine or around Race 5 and one of the loudest claps of thunder we've ever heard and the rain came bucketing down and there was a lot of thunder and lightning around for a couple of hours but presumably the stewards could see where the storm was on radar and racing was not interrupted except for one race starting 10 minutes late.

Sapporo is a nice track and despite the traffic disruptions for the Marathon we managed to get there in about 20 minutes from down town although colleagues who had left earlier had more transit difficulty.

As usual the JRA and the JAIRS looked after us splendidly and the closing ceremony was very well run.