The NHK Mile Cup (NHKマイルカップ, NHK Mairu Kappu) is a Grade 1 flat horse race in Japan for three-year-old thoroughbred colts and fillies, run over a distance of 1,600 metres (approximately one mile) on the turf at Tokyo Racecourse in May.[1]

NHK Mile Cup
Grade 1 race
The 14th NHK Mile Cup
(第14回NHKマイルカップ)
LocationTokyo Racecourse, Fuchu, Tokyo, Tokyo
Inaugurated1996
Race typeThoroughbred
Websitejapanracing.jp/
Race information
Distance1600 meters
(About 8 furlongs / 1 mile)
SurfaceTurf
TrackLeft-handed
Qualification3-y-o, colts & Fillies only, Thoroughbreds
Weight57 kg
Allowance: Fillies & SH-bred 2 kg
Purse¥ 281,300,000 (as of 2024)
1st: ¥ 130,000,000
2nd: ¥ 52,000,000
3rd: ¥ 33,000,000
The 6th (2001) winner Kurofune

The NHK Mile Cup is sponsored by the Japanese public broadcasting organization NHK, and as such, it is broadcast not only on Fuji TV (one of NHK's competitors) but on one of the NHK channels that cover horse racing (NHK General TV; the other, BS-1, covers certain other races such as the Japan Cup). (In Japanese horseracing, "Sponsor" does not mean that an individual or organization provides prize money. They provide only the prize, cup, trophy etc.)

Before the year 2001, this was the only G1 race for colts and fillies that non-Japanese bred three-year-olds could participate in, which led to this race being considered informally as the "Japanese Derby for non-Japanese bred horses" until foreign-bred entry restrictions were lifted in 2001. Until 2010 it was limited to domestic-trained horses, but this restriction was removed that year (as for the Japanese classics). A maximum of nine foreign horses are allowed entry in the NHK Mile Cup. It is considered one of the prep races for both the Yushun Himba (the Japanese Oaks) and the Tokyo Yushun (the Japanese Derby).[2]

Step races

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Race name Grade Racecourse Distance
1 Mainichi Hai GIII Hanshin Turf 1800m
2 Margelet Stakes OP Hanshin Turf 1400m
3 New Zealand Trophy GII Nakayama Turf 1600m
4 Oka Sho GI Hanshin Turf 1600m
5 Satsuki Sho GI Nakayama Turf 2000m

Of the above races the New Zealand Trophy is the only formal trial for the NHK Mile Cup. The first three finishers in the former gain the right to participate in the latter. If a horse from the National Association of Racing (NAR) finishes in the first three in the New Zealand Trophy, at most two extra participation rights will be issued for runners in the other four races.

Winners

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(Winners in italic are also later winners from either Yushun Himba or Tokyo Yushun that year)

Year
Winner
Jockey
Trainer
Owner
Time
1996 Taiki Fortune Yoshitomi Shibata Yoshiyasu Takahashi Taiki Farm 1:32.6
1997 Seeking the Pearl Yutaka Take Hideyuki Mori Tomoko Uenaka 1:33.1
1998 El Condor Pasa Hitoshi Matoba Yoshitaka Ninomiya Takashi Watanabe 1:33.7
1999 Symboli Indy Norihiro Yokoyama Kazuo Fujisawa Symboli Bokujo 1:33.8
2000 Eagle Cafe Yukio Okabe Futoshi Kojima Kiyoshi Nishikawa 1:33.5
2001 Kurofune Yutaka Take Kunihide Matsuda Makoto Kaneko 1:33.0
2002 Telegnosis Masaki Katsuura Hiroaki Sugiura Shadai Racehorse co. 1:33.1
2003 Win Kluger Koshiro Take Shigeki Matsumoto Win Co. Ltd. 1:34.2
2004 King Kamehameha Katsumi Ando Kunihide Matsuda Makoto Kaneko 1:32.5
2005 Rhein Kraft Yuichi Fukunaga Tsutomu Setoguchi Shigemasa Ohsawa 1:33.6
2006 Logic Yutaka Take Kojiro Hashiguchi Koji Maeda 1:33.2
2007 Pink Kameo Hiroyuki Uchida Sakae Kunieda Kaneko Makoto Holdings Co., Ltd. 1:34.3
2008 Deep Sky Hirofumi Shii Mitsugu Kon Toshio Fukami 1:34.2
2009 Jo Cappuccino Kota Fujioka Kazuya Nakatake Keiko Ueda 1:32.4
2010 Danon Chantilly Katsumi Ando Kunihide Matsuda Danox Co. Ltd. 1:31.4
2011 Grand Prix Boss Craig Williams Yoshito Yahagi Grand Prix Co. Ltd. 1:32.2
2012 Curren Black Hill Shin-ichiro Akiyama Osamu Hirata Takashi Suzuki 1:34.5
2013 Meiner Ho O Daichi Shibata Yoshihiro Hatakeyama K Thoroughbred Club Ruffian 1:32.7
2014 Mikki Isle Suguru Hamanaka Hidetaka Otonashi Mizuki Noda 1:33.2
2015 Clarity Sky Norihiro Yokoyama Yasuo Tomomichi Tadakuni Sugiyama 1:33.5
2016 Major Emblem Christophe Lemaire Yasuhito Tamura Sunday Racing 1:32.8
2017 Aerolithe Norihiro Yokoyama Takanori Kikuzawa Sunday Racing 1:32.3
2018 Keiai Nautique Yusuke Fujioka Osamu Hirata Kazuhiro Kameda 1:32.8
2019 Admire Mars Mirco Demuro Yasuo Tomomichi Riichi Kondo 1:32.4
2020 Lauda Sion Mirco Demuro Takashi Saito Silk Racing 1:32.5
2021 Schnell Meister Christophe Lemaire Takahisa Tezuka Sunday Racing 1:31.6
2022 Danon Scorpion Yuga Kawada Takayuki Yasuda Danox Co. Ltd. 1:32.3
2023 Champagne Color Hiroyuki Uchida Tsuyoshi Tanaka Yoichi Aoyama 1:33.8
2024 Jantar Mantar Yuga Kawada Tomokazu Takano Shadai Race Horse Co. Ltd. 1:32.4

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "2011.05.03 2011 NHK Mile Cup (G1) - Preview - News - Horse Racing in Japan". Japanracing.jp. 2011-05-03. Retrieved 2011-12-24.
  2. ^ "Japanese Derby hopefuls look to cement credentials in NHK Mile Cup". Thoroughbred Times. 2010-05-07. Retrieved 2011-12-24.
  3. ^ "NHKマイルC". Netkeiba.
  4. ^ "NHK Mile Cup". Netkeiba.