Japs jump the National with worlds richest race!

Nakayama hosts world's richest jumps race


Preview: Japan, Saturday

Nakayama: Nakayama Grand Jump (Grade 1 jumps) 2m5f (4,250m) chase

THE world's richest jumps race takes place on Saturday, in the early hours of the morning UK time, with the 11th running of the Nakayama Grand Jump in Japan.

Worth a total of 170 million yen (£1.15m), this idiosyncratic contest has leapt back in front of the Grand National in prize-money terms owing to the declining value of sterling.
Indeed, only the Nakayama Daishogai, Japan's domestic jumping championship event, rivals the Grand Jump in purse terms.

For all that, in recent years the race has suffered from a lack of European runners, perhaps deterred by the likelihood of fast ground and a breakneck pace as a big field hurtles around a twisty circuit on the interior of the Flat track at Nakayama, featuring uneven gradients and a bewildering array of obstacles.

Australia has won four Grand Jumps with St Steven (2002) and the celebrated Karasi, formerly trained in Britain by Sir Michael Stoute, and a three-time winner between 2005 and 2007.

Once again, Australia provides the only foreign contender in Ginolad, who has won both the Grand Annual and Grand National Steeplechases in Japan.

But he could finish only tenth to Saturday's rival Open Garden in the Pegasus Jump Stakes, last month's designated Grand Jump trial.

Ginolad ought to be suited by the step-up in trip to a race more than half a mile longer. Trainer Aaron Purcell said: "He'll be ridden a little further back and hopefully he can be stronger in the finish.

"Obviously the field will be a lot stronger, but he's strongest at the distance with the extra 1,000 metres."

As well as Open Garden, the best of the local runners include last year's champion jumps horse King Joy, multiple graded-race winner Spring Ghent and TM Toppazure, who finished first first, fourth and third in the Nakayama Daishogai last December.

In an open race, the up-and-coming four-year-old Towa Hiyoshimaru, winner of the Hanshin Spring Jump, must have a chance

Winter going in south africa would suit the jumpers?

Nakayama: Nakayama Grand Jump (Grade 1 chase) 2m51/2f (4,250m)

THE Nakayama Grand Jump, the world’s richest jumps race, has been won by domestic hope Spring Ghent (Akihiko Nomura/Yuzo Shirahama).

Worth a total of 152 million yen (£1.04m), this idiosyncratic contest has leapt back in front of the Grand National in prize-money terms owing to the declining value of sterling.

Indeed, only the Nakayama Daishogai, Japan’s domestic jumping championship event, rivals the Grand Jump in purse terms.

A multiple graded-race winner, Spring Ghent is a nine-year-old son of Opera House.

In a race run on firm ground around a meandering circuit on the interior of the Nakayama Flat track involving a weird-and-wonderful array of obstacles, he beat fellow Japanese-trained contender King Joy by a neck with Pegasus Jump winner Open Garden back in third.

Australia’s Ginolad, the only foreign-trained runner, finished sixth of the 15 runners.