Japan through the eyes of a Gaijin

For my first work placement in the Darley Flying Start, I am fortunate enough to be able to pack my bags and head to Japan for five weeks to experience the Japanese culture and industry. On the 27th of May, my fellow Flying Starter Cherry He and I set out to begin this adventure. Here is my bird's eye view as the “gaijin” looking in from the outside.

Arriving in Tokyo late in the afternoon, we took a bus from Narita Airport into Tokyo near the Roppongi district. At the hotel, we had enough time to put our bags down and quickly get cleaned up before meeting Harry Sweeney, newly appointed President of Darley Japan and owner of Paca Paca Farm; his manager, James Butler; and Paddy Byrne from Darley Japan. Harry took us to one of his favorite restaurants in the city–a quaint, authentic Japanese place nestled around the corner from a Hard Rock Cafe. Following a great meal, Harry led us to a 50's and 60's live music bar for the night's entertainment. It immediately became apparent that Harry was a regular after being warmly greeted by one of the lead singers with an enthusiastic “Harry-son.” When the band came on, you would have been hard pressed to find a person sitting down and not dancing. I turned a few heads with my dance moves and I am still not sure if it was because I was that good or that I am a gaijin–the Japanese word for foreigner.

The following morning, we left our hotel with bags in hand to head to the racecourse. Tokyo Racecourse is situated about 40 minutes from the city center. When I first entered the facility, I was immediately taken aback by the expanse of the place. It is massive, and can accommodate over 140,000 people comfortably. Walking through the clubhouse, it was typical to see iPads and purses saving the seat of a racegoer as theft is incredibly uncommon in Japan. There were over 130,000 people on hand for the day's racing and I was amazed at the lack of congestion throughout the racecourse. The strength of Japanese racing is widely known all over the world, but to experience it first-hand gave me a greater appreciation for the product they offer. While you would expect a full card of races on their biggest day, in the JRA, most races run with a full field of 18 runners regardless of the day.

The Tokyo Yushun Derby is run over 12 furlongs, and this year's instalment was very competitive as the top three finishers in the G1 Japanese 2000 Guineas ran to form in the Derby with Makahiki (Deep Impact) emerging victorious. The dominance of Deep Impact was asserted with his progeny accounting for the trifecta for the second Japanese classic of the year. The Tokyo Derby was a singular event. Never before have I seen 140,000 racing fans so enthralled and passionate about the sport. Standing in the paddock before the Derby, you could have heard a pin drop despite there being 80,000 people crowding around the paddock to get a view of the field. The crowd was mesmerized and so I was to the point where I felt compelled to whisper to those around me so as not to disturb the near silence. The day highlighted how racing in Japan thrives and it does so through the JRA offering a clean, high-quality product.

After the last race, we navigated our luggage through the crowd accompanied by Darley Japan Training Manager William Balding and Darley Flying Start alumnus Madoka Kamei we drove two hours from Tokyo to Darley's training center in Ibaraki. William picked us up from the hotel at 4:45 the next morning to watch his string of Darley horses train at the nearby Midway Farm. Midway is a privately owned training facility from which Darley leases two barns. The structure of the Japanese racing and the JRA is such that the trainers are limited in the number of stalls allocated to them at one of two official training centers in Miho and Ritto. Because of this, the importance of pre-training and breaking operations, or “gaikyu” are significant as they make sure that horses arrive at the training centers with a solid foundation of fitness so they can race shortly after getting to the trainer in order to not waste precious stall space. William has 35 horses split between two-year olds and older horses that were spelling or coming back from injury. Midway has a six-furlong dirt track and three-furlong uphill gallop. The morning training was quiet and a beautiful setting which was interrupted periodically by the rumble of F-16 jets practicing aerial maneuvers throughout the morning from a nearby Japanese airbase. William explained that the trainers would come check in on their horses from time to time and communicate a plan as to when they wanted the horses to ship into them at the training centers.

We drove to Miho Training Center the following morning and, as with all JRA facilities, it was an incredibly impressive operation. Miho stables just over 2,000 horses in training and offers trainers myriad options for how they want to train their horses. There are two tracks: North and South that consist of a 6.5-furlong dirt course, a mile woodchip, a 9-furlong turf course, 9-furlong Polytrack, and a 6-furlong woodchip uphill gallop. Looking out onto both tracks is like looking down upon a maze as it takes a minute to differentiate between all the different courses. Each track had a grandstand viewing area where trainers and JRA officials could monitor training. One of the drawbacks to the training center was that it is very strictly regulated who is granted access and racing fans are not permitted to watch morning training. My passport was scanned prior to being allowed on the grounds. The facility provided everything you could possibly think of from pools to an on-site veterinary hospital. The highlight of the morning was getting to see Sheikh Mohammed's Decipher, the seven year-old son of Deep Impact, training ahead of his run in the G1 Yasuda Kinen.

It was a whirlwind first couple days in Japan, but this adventure is off to a great start. My chop-stick prowess is progressing and I am constantly amazed by the beauty of this country and the patient and kind nature of its people. I am off next to Hokkaido where I will set up base camp at Darley Japan's farms in the area.

Conrad Bandoroff is a first-year trainee in the Darley Flying Start program. A Lexington, Kentucky native, he is a 2015 graduate of Sewanee University of the South. His parents Craig and Holly own and operate Denali Stud.