In Japan, Deep Impact needs no introduction. Last year the 4-year-old won the Japanese Triple Crown undefeated–a feat so rare, the colt has sparked hopes of a revival of horse racing, which peaked as a spectator sport in Japan 10 years ago. Worldwide, the rise of online poker and other forms of betting have cut horse racing’s share of gambling revenue from 55 percent in 1965 to 9 percent today, and Japanese tracks have been particularly hard hit. Deep Impact’s Triple Crown run slowed the decline in 2005, and now the beleaguered Japan Racing Association is hoping a victory in Paris will restore its lost growth. London bookies currently make Deep Impact a co-favorite, alongside Hurricane Run of France, to win the Arc.
It’s something of a mystery as to why no foreign horse has ever won. One explanation is the slow, soggy turf of Northern Europe, a disadvantage in particular to American horses, which typically run on dirt. Japanese horses, however, do run on turf, and with growing investment from Tokyo billionaires like Zenya Yoshida and Fusao Sekiguchi, who owns Deep Impact, they are increasingly bred with an eye to winning on the growing global circuit. Premier international races–from America’s Breeders’ Cup to the Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and Dubai World Cups–are working to attract global audiences with higher stakes (the highest is now $6 million, in Dubai), older (and therefore faster) horses than the formerly standard 3-year-olds, and more online and mobile-phone betting. “International competition has never been what it is today,” says Dominique de Wenden, general secretary of the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities.
Nowhere is the global turn more apparent than in Japan. Despite the recent slippage Japanese still bet more at the racetrack–$27 billion in 2005–than any other nation. So there is money to be made, and to invest. Late last year the Ministry of Agriculture, which controls national racing, threw open large numbers of races to foreign horses for the first time. Earlier this summer, a Japanese horse, Heart’s Cry, nearly won Britain’s Royal Ascot, which would have been another first. Both Heart’s Cry and Deep Impact were sired by Sunday Silence, an American champion who became Japan’s most legendary stud ever after Yoshida bought him in 1995. (To date, his offspring have won roughly $500 million.)
If Deep Impact wins the Arc, his siring fees could double, to about $100 million. Japanese fans are in a frenzy, booking out Paris hotels and flooding online betting parlors. International horse-racing expert Paul Haigh says Deep Impact’s trainer, Yasuo Ikee, told him in Paris recently that he feels like “a representative of Japan,” obligated to “struggle, and win, with the spirit of a samurai.” Wherever he may happen to be.
