The Jockey Club has listened and corrected the two complaints from Japan about the Champions Mile, but once again the Japanese have stayed away in droves from this Sunday's spring-time feature meeting.
The Champions Mile was upgraded in 2005 after extensive discussions with the Japan Racing Association. Prizemoney was almost doubled, from HK$4.5 million to HK$8 million, and the two premier race clubs in the region jointly launched the Asian Mile Challenge (AMC) on these two events - the Champions Mile at Sha Tin and the Yasuda Kinen at Tokyo racecourse.
Having loudly trumpeted its participation, Japan has basically gone missing for the four runnings of the Champions Mile under the AMC banner and will be unrepresented again on Sunday when Good Ba Ba attempts to win the race back-to-back and shore up a second Horse of the Year award as well.
There has only been one Japanese runner of merit since the happy AMC union was announced in early 2005, and that was Cosmo Bulk in year one. Cosmo Bulk went on to become a Singapore Airlines International Cup winner the following season but that year he went around at 20-1 and ran according to the market.
There was no Japanese representation in either 2006 or 2007, with the drought being broken only by Meiner Segal last year.
However, if we remember it correctly, Meiner Segal only came as a travelling companion for high-profile stablemate Matsurida Gogh (winner of the Arima Kinen) in the Audemars Piguet Queen Elizabeth II Cup and ran as the market suggested he would - last of 10 at 75-1.
The Jockey Club has not sat on its hands wondering about this. It has engaged in discussions with the JRA and accepted the feedback it was given. The major complaints were that the HK$8 million prizemoney was a bit low - about 55 per cent of the purse offered for the Yasuda Kinen - and the timing was too tight, being run in early May and some four weeks before Japan's feature mile.