California Memory typically is the deepest of deep closers, sitting at the back of the pack until the stretch, when he comes with a big slingshot run. But a change in tactics Sunday probably won California Memory the $2.57 million Hong Kong Cup at Sha Tin Racecourse.

Horses from all over the world have descended on Sha Tin Racecourse for the Hong Kong Cup meeting on Sunday. Well, not quite all over the world: Not a single North American runner has ventured to the Far East for any of the four Group 1 races worth a total of about $8.75 million.

The Group 1 stakes sequence gets under way with race 4 from Sha Tin, the $1.8 million Hong Kong Vase, with post time scheduled for 1 a.m. Eastern. Race 5 is the $1.8 million Sprint, race 7 the $2.57 million Mile, and race 8 - the nominal feature - the $2.57 Hong Kong Cup.

I’m Yours, a Falbrav filly who won the Fantasy Stakes last month, is expected to be favored in Sunday’s Group 1 Hanshin Juvenile Fillies at Hanshin Racecourse in Japan, the season’s main race for 2-year-old fillies in that country.

I’m Yours has won two of four starts, all for trainer Takahisa Tezuka, with the Group 3 Fantasy Stakes over about seven furlongs her most prestigious win. The Hanshin Juvenile Fillies is run over about a mile on a right-handed track, and will be I’m Yours’s first start at Hanshin. The race has an estimated purse of $1.73 million.

Transcend overcame an outside post to successfully defend his title in Sunday’s $3.5 million Japan Cup Dirt at Hanshin Racecourse in Osaka on Sunday.

After the two-length win, trainer Takayuki Yasadu said that Transcend will be pointed for the Dubai World Cup on March 31, a race in which he was second to the Japanese shipper Victoire Pisa earlier this year.

Transcend, second in the $10 million Dubai World Cup in March, is expected to be favored in a defense of his title in Sunday’s $3.5 million Japan Cup Dirt at Hanshin Racecourse in Osaka.

Espoir City, the 2009 Japan Cup Dirt winner, may be Transcend’s biggest threat in the field of 16 horses, all of whom are based in Japan.

Transcend will be ridden by Shinji Fujita for trainer Takayuki Yasuda, and breaks from the outside. The Japan Cup Dirt is run over about 1 1/8 miles on a right-handed track.

“He’s shown no sign of fatigue since his last start,” Yasuda said.

Snow Fairy, who was third in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe and the Champion Stakes before winning the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Commemorative Cup on Nov. 13 in Japan, was injured during routine morning exercise Monday morning at Sha Tin racecourse and has been withdrawn from the Dec. 11 Hong Kong Vase, her intended next start. English trainer Ed Dunlop, posting on his website, did not disclose the specific nature of the injury, and said Snow Fairy would be shipped back to England “when she is fit to travel.”

Four-year-old Snow Fairy has won seven of 19 career starts.

TOKYO - Zenyatta would have been jealous of the cheers that Buena Vista earned after her win in the $6.7 million Japan Cup at Tokyo Racecourse on Sunday.

For the second consecutive year, Buena Vista was first past the wire in the Japan Cup. Last year, she was disqualified and placed second in a controversial decision. This year, there was a genuine celebration from an ontrack crowd of 103,816.

TOKYO - Buena Vista won the $6.7 million Japan Cup at Tokyo Racecourse on Sunday with a stretch rally that left the wildly popular mare in front through the final sixteenth. She led long enough for jockey Yasunari Iwata to fully realize the magnitude of the moment as it unfolded.

TOKYO - So far in 2011, Japanese owner Teruya Yoshida has won the Dubai World Cup with Victoire Pisa and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe with Danedream.

Few owners in the world have stables that can win both races in a lifetime, let alone a season. The accomplishments are not lost on Yoshida, who is part of the first family of Japanese racing.

“It’s amazing that it’s happened in one year,” he said on Friday. “I’ve had a lot of luck this year.”

TOKYO – The winner’s trophy for the Japan Cup has not left these shores in six years, since Alkaased won the 2005 running for British trainer Luca Cumani.

That time frame is the longest drought for foreign-based runners in the 30-year history of the race, which includes 14 foreign winners and 16 from the home team.