Japan look to end heartbreak at Arc horse race

Japanese racing fans will hope they finally achieve their dream at Longchamp of winning Europe's most prestigious flat race the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe after two agonising runners-up spots.Australian turf followers too are likely to postpone their bedtime plans as former home-based champion So You Think bids to set matters straight in light of the bitter memories of their previous star runner Strawberry Road in 1984. Japan have been trying for 31 years to win the race with 10 runners trying their best and failing, though El Condor Pasa, in 1999, and Nakayama Festa last year, both trained by 48-year-old Yoshitaka Ninomiya, have finished second. Given that only eight winners (seven Italian and one German) in the 88 runnings of the Arc have been trained outside the traditional strongholds of England, Ireland and France it is not a record to be ashamed of. However, Shingo Soma, from the Japan Racing Association, said that second best was no good to them."It is a Japanese dream to win the Arc and every year we try to have runners. Last year we almost won. Hopefully this year we can do it." This time round Nakayama Festa is back for another tilt and will face last year's winner Workforce, who edged him after a thrilling duel down the straight. Nakayama Festa, whose owner Shinichi Izumi fulfilled his late daughter's wish for the horse to run in the Arc last year, will be joined by Hiruno D'Amour in the field. But this year's Dubai World Cup winner Victoire Pisa is an absentee after suffering an injury. Both the Japanese runners have a run under their belts with Hiruno D'Amour having finished second and Nakayama Festa fourth and last - behind last year's Arc third and this year's favourite Sarafina - in the Prix Foy. Mitsugu Kon, trainer of Hiruno D'Amour, believes that Sarafina showed a weak spot in the Foy and that his stable star can beat her. "The winner is the likely favourite for the Arc, but to have had to go up the inside like she did, I'd say she was having a rough time of it," said Kon. "I think we can expect to turn the tables next time out." Ninomiya also believes Nakayama Festa has a lot more in him especially as the Foy was his first race in nearly a year since finishing a disappointing 14th in the Japan Cup "It's raining but I'm feeling like blue skies," he said after the Foy. "Since the Japan Cup, I've only tuned him with work. We needed this race. Considering the condition he was in after arriving from Japan, we absolutely had to give him a sharpener." Ireland's Coolmore Stud may have bought a majority share in So You Think for a reported 25 million Australian dollars, but should he win Australia will try and claim him as one of their own after he plundered two Cox Plates, their most prestigious middle distance race. While there is a certain amount of bitterness expressed by So You Think's Australian trainer Bart Cummings that he was sold for too little all that will be forgotten should he prevail. Certainly the Australians are hoping that it wil be a happier ending than when Strawberry Road was heavily-fancied but ended up fifth in the 1984 Arc with the late Greville Starkey bearing the brunt of the blame for his ride. "We tried to get Lestor Piggott to ride Strawberry Road but he was injured," said part-owner John Singleton back in 2004. "In the end we got a Pommy jockey, Greville Starkey. We stood to win millions of pounds if we won. We definitely would have run a place if we'd had an Australian jockey. "No horse had led into the straight and won the Arc but the Pommy jockey took Strawberry Road to the front at the turn and passed all the pacemakers and faded at the end. "I called the race (for radio station 2KY) and remember saying, 'This jockey is a genius or the greatest crook of all time'."