The Japan Racing Association’s Aid for Tohoku-Kanto Earthquake program conducted between March 19 and 27 resulted in public donations of 44,735,867 yen ($542,735), the association reported Wednesday.
The racing association itself has added 100 million yen ($1,213,200) to the 1 billion yen ($12,320,000) already donated from the total handle at association tracks during that period. Along with other measures, JRA donations to the earthquake fund total 1,138,140,000 yen ($14,012,778).
Japanese emotions ran high at Meydan on Saturday as Victoire Pisa and Transcend gave racing fans in the country so hard hit by a devastating earthquake this month something to cheer about with a one-two finish in the $10 million Dubai World Cup.
“I think this is a victory that can help put some life back into the people in Japan amid the darkness following the huge earthquake and tsunami,” said winning trainer Katsuhiko Sumii.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Long before he won the 2008 Japan Cup on Screen Hero or this past Saturday’s $10 million Dubai World Cup on Victoire Pisa, jockey Mirco Demuro spent part of the summer of 2001 riding at Del Mar, trying to achieve a career goal.
The first two Guineas preps at Leopardstown on Sunday proved to be rather inconclusive affairs as Dunboyne Express took a three-runner Group 3 Leopardstown 2000 Guineas Trial while Empowering and Wild Wind gave Aidan O’Brien a one-two finish in the Group 3 1000 Guineas Trial.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – Frankie Dettori already had won two races on Dubai World Cup night, but it was another Italian rider virtually unknown in the U.S., Mirco Demuro, who got the big one. And that was no conventional ride Demuro put on Victoire Pisa.
Last away and last into the first turn, Demuro steered out as the horses hit the backstretch, and whoosh – there Victoire Pisa went, passing 12 foes in a furlong. Unconventional but successful, as Victoire Pisa beat pacesetting Transcend to win the $10 million World Cup by a half-length.
Victoire Pisa pulled an upset in Saturday’s $10 million Dubai World Cup after jockey Mirco Demuro made a bold move to challenge for the lead about five furlongs from the finish.
It was the first win for a Japan-based runner in the world’s richest race.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – Rewilding hadn’t raced since last Sept. 11 in England, when he finished sixth in the Group 1 St. Leger Stakes, but the sleek, glossy 4-year-old colt who stepped onto the Meydan turf course for the $5 million Sheema Classic looked anything but rusty. And was he was not.
Rewilding, third in the 2010 English Derby, won the biggest race of his career in Saturday’s $5 million Sheema Classic at Meydan Racecourse in Dubai, giving jockey Frankie Dettori his second winner of the Dubai World Cup undercard.
The winner is trained by Mahmood Al Zarooni for the Maktoum family’s Godolphin Racing, representing Godolphin’s third winner on Saturday’s program.
