A Visit to Hokkaido and Paca Paca Part 2

By Lucas Marquardt 

The day after the Japan Cup, I took an early-morning bus to Narita Airport, about 20 miles east of Tokyo and caught a short flight to Hokkaido. At New Chitose Airport I met up with Paca Paca Farm head honcho Harry Sweeney, Communications Manager Kate Hunter, an American and two more guests, both Irish. There was Pat Keogh, CEO of Leopardstown Racecourse near Dublin; and Charles O’Neill, CEO of Irish Thoroughbred Marketing. Pat and Charles were in Japan recruiting for the 2015 G1 Irish Champion S. at Leopardstown. I was keeping better company than I was accustomed to, but everyone couldn’t have been nicer. 

After an 1 1/2-hour drive, Harry put us up at Paca Paca’s newly renovated guest quarters. The two-story building was a converted elementary school with living quarters for the staff, a separate (and beautifully appointed) three-bedroom section, and several small outlying houses that, formerly for teachers, is home to yet more staff. On the first morning at the farm, Harry loaded us into his bright-red Toyota Land Cruiser–townsfolk reportedly very much associate the SUV with Harry–and drove us around the 400 acres that comprise Paca Paca’s main property. 

With an intern named Amy kindly jumping out every few minutes to open gates for us, we made our way through the farm’s huge paddocks, driving right up to unimpressed broodmares who didn’t bother to stop grazing. There were some familiar names in the bunch. The GII Black-Eyed Susan winner Payton d’Oro (Medaglia d’Oro) was paling around out with a sister to Classic winner Ruler of the World (Ire). The 2009 GIII Arlington Oaks runner-up Sweet and Flawless(Unbridled’s Song) grazed contentedly by herself. Kitten Kaboodle (Kitten’s Joy), winner of the GIII Jessamine S. at Keeneland in 2013, was a new arrival, having been purchased for $300,000 at Fasig-Tipton November. 

“We absolutely need to have group quality,” Harry said when I asked about the caliber of mare necessary for commercial success in Japan. “If they’re not group winners, then they have to be group placed, and several times.” 

The reason why became evident during a PowerPoint presentation Harry made that night. Originally created for a talk Harry gave for a group of Irish veterinarians, it provided an in-depth look at Japan’s racing and breeding industry. As you likely know, Japan’s racing is split between the Japanese Racing Association (JRA), the major league here and with mostly turf racing, and the National Association of Racing (NAR), the minors and with racing exclusively on dirt. The two organizations aren’t tied together and different trainers train in each, but there is some fluidity with the racing stock. If a horse isn’t good enough for the JRA, a relegation to the NAR might do the trick. 

All of the JRA trainers are based at one of two training centers–Miho or Ritto. No one is based directly at a track. The training centers are massive, virtual cities where trainers live with their families and grooms and exercise riders zoom around on scooters. But stall space is limited. The roughly 200 JRA-registered trainers are allotted a minimum of 20 stalls, but can have no more than 28 stalls. Trainers can and do have horses at pre-training farms, where they might spend as much as seven months out of the year, but to compete, horses must be at the training centers at least two weeks in advance of the race. The result is a sometimes mad shuffle to figure out what horses need to be where, and when. Kate explained the routine of one leading trainer, who once a week stands before a massive white board and, switching out magnetized name plates, plots with the intensity of a general in the war room. It’s hard to imagine a Pletcher or an Asmussen limited to 28 stalls, but, for better or worse, it certainly spreads the horses around. 

We were all a bit incredulous as Harry got to the financial aspects of Japanese racing. He flashed a slide comparing an owner’s rate of return versus training costs. For instance, in the States, on average, owners recoup an average of 45% of training costs. The United Kingdom doesn’t surpass the 25% mark. Only three jurisdictions were north of 100%: Hong Kong (a bit of 100%); India (about 125%), which relies on an incredibly cheap labor pool; and the JRA, which saw a 210% ROI on training investments. That’s pretty incredible, considering monthly bills in Japan, including transportation costs and vet bills, can run upwards of $6,000. 

The JRA also goes out of its way to protect owners. I did the proverbial double take when I learned that owners are compensated if their horse fatally breaks down at an JRA track…to the tune of roughly $55,000. Owners receive the same amount for horses retired due to injury. Injuries that keep a horse away from the track for three months are subject to an $18,000 stipend. For six months, it’s $24,500. For a year, it’s $33,000. These are financial incentives that would seem to invite, to put it mildly, willful mismanagement, but people don’t take advantage of the system, said Harry.

Driving all this is a massive betting handle and the huge purses it funds. Japan, with 127 million inhabitants, wagered some $27 billion in 2012, for instance. That was more than the 385 million-strong populations of the U.S., Britain and Ireland combined. The majority of Japan’s 22 Group 1 races are seven-figure affairs. Maiden races go for $110,000; condition races for up to $330,000. 

As we wrapped up for the day and headed out for sushi, I thought it’s no wonder that it’s tough to gain access to Japan’s Thoroughbred industry. 

(Oh, one additional point of interest: whereas trainers and jockeys each get 10% of purse money won in the U.S., trainers get 10% in Japan and jockeys 5%. Owners still depart with 20% of winnings. Where does the other 5% go? To the grooms.) 

The next day, Pat and Charles made visits to Darley, Big Red Farm and the North Hill, while I made a separate trip to Darley. There, stud director Willie Brogan showed me around, stopping first at the stallion barn. 

Here’s a trivia question that will win you $10 the next time you’re hanging around your horse friends. Who is Sheikh Mohammed’s all-time leading money earner? My guess was the $8.4 million winner Fantastic Light, hero of, among others, the G1 Breeders’ Cup Turf and the G1 Japan Cup. Close, but no. It’s Furioso (Jpn) (Brian’s Time), a hard-knocking homebred chestnut who racked up earnings of $8,933,051 racing not at Japan’s premier JRA tracks, but at second-division NAR tracks on dirt. The four-time NAR Horse of the Year now stands at Darley Japan, along with the likes of Classic-sire King’s Best and Admire Moon (Jpn), a son of End Sweep who somewhat improbably stayed 2400 meters in the 2007 G1 Japan Cup and is now the sire of a quartet of graded winners. Also here is the very good American miler Pyro, who, I’m guessing from the attention paid to him, has a bit of a fiery temperament. He was a gentlemen when I visited, however, and looked terrific, still well-muscled and shining five years after winning the GI Forego S. 

The cold Hokkaido winds whipped the flurrying snow as Willie drove me around the broodmare and weanling divisions. The Pacific isn’t far away, only a mile or so to the south, and you could hear the breakers in the distance. Darley hasn’t thrown the same resources at Japan as it has in Europe and America, but it’s still an impressive operation. Because large tracts of land are hard to come by, the farm is split into six distinct sections, each about 10 or 15 minute drive from the other. Darley Japan is home to about 130 mares, a number Willie expects to stay static, and with its oldest homebred runners in Japan now about to turn seven, it will be interesting to see the impact Darley will have in Japan in the face of such imposing Yoshida competition in the coming years. 

Later, I joined up with Pat, Charles and Kate at the JBBA’s stallion station. The wind had picked up and the temperatures dropped further, and it was in the single digits as they led out a familiar string of stars: Johannesburg, Charismatic, Aldebaran and Empire Maker. I was especially interested in seeing the latter, since, after his departure, and following a well-worn plotline of Japanese-bound ex-pats, he began to throw some seriously good racehorses (including Royal Delta, Bodemeister and Pioneerof the Nile). The 2003 GI Belmont winner looked a picture–big and strong and seemingly happy. Frozen, we ducked into the stallion barn to see some others, including the 2004 G1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner Bago (Fr) and the likeable California Grade I winner Came Home. The highlight came at the next barn over, though. That was were the terrific racehorse and sire Forty Niner, now 29 and pensioned, is living out his days. The old man is showing his age a bit around his head, but his body and in particular his hind end still look great. We all gave him a pat. 

We closed things out in proper fashion with a tour of Shadai Stallion Station, which is owned by the three Yoshida brothers. We started with one of the world’s top stallions, Deep Impact (Jpn), who was turned out in an unassuming paddock next to Symboli Kris S, sire of last week’s G1 Japan Cup winner Epiphaneia (Jpn). 

I thought of him as a hulking monster–not the case. Just a very handsome, medium-sized horse who doesn’t carry a ton of mass. What he has in spades is class, however, and it was fun to watch him tear around the paddock after his handler let him loose. 

Next up were two of my international favorites of recent years, Orfevre (Fr) and Lord Kanaloa (Jpn). It was much the same for the 2011 Japanese Horse of the Year Orfevre–not a huge, imposing horse, but a very well-made chestnut. The brilliant two-time G1 Hong Kong Sprint winner and 2013 Horse of the Year Lord Kanaloa, a grandson of the U.S. champion Saratoga Dew (Cormorant), looked like he’d be well enough to defend his titles again this weekend at Sha Tin. Click accompanying link for video of the Shadai stallions. 

It was probably fitting that we said our goodbyes in front of a statue of Sunday Silence at the Shadai office. Sunday Silence changed everything for Japan, and drew a lasting link between Japan and the U.S. breeding industries. The Shadai stallion roster reveals plenty of links to other countries, too–Canadian, Irish, British, French and German pedigrees abound–and it all just goes to show: the racing world is getting ever smaller. 

Thanks to everyone I met in Japan who helped make this an unforgettable trip. A special thanks to Harry at Paca Paca, and to Kate, who did a lot of shuttling us around. I am in their debt.