We think they should come up with a full name for this event –competition, challenge, cup ?

It's a competition between a team of six international jockeys and six locals in four races over two days, and it takes place these days in Sapporo which is a great town for more than skiing trips.

This weekend we were blessed with great weather, great jockeys, great horses and great people.  There was a cool breeze on Saturday but just a warm gentle version on Sunday with perfect conditions for racing on both the turf and dirt tracks.  The JRA does these events very well and everything (that we could see or were aware of) went well.

In between the Jockeys comp races on Sunday we had the G2 Keeneland Cup where we saw a nice Tower of London 3yo colt Panja Tower win comfortably over the 1200m turf journey and nice to see a full field of 16 runners.  Kohei Matsuyama was the jockey on board.

The Jockeys comp went to Germany's Thore Hammer Hansen who impressed us with his cool judgement even when in the thick of traffic.  He was leading after Saturday's two legs and consolidated that winning the first of Sunday's two legs on Bergun with Craig Wiliams getting second on Cosmo Opinion.  Williams went on to win the fourth leg on Pink Jin to the delight of his many Japanese fans and his Aussie family who had come to Japan with him so he was second overall with Japanese star Ryuseu Sakai third.  The winner gets 3 million yen, second 2 million and third 1 nillion.

There was a crowd of over 18,215 in attendance and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves.  There is a large children's playground in the infield as well as the usual special marquees.

Just as a follow on Aussies may be able to judge Hammer Hansen's skills for themselves as he is due to visit Australia at the end of October!  Watch this space!