2011 Arima Kinen (G1)

TVG will be showing this race beginning at 1am ET. This will reportedly be Orfevre's "swan song" --I will be staying up to watch one of my favorite horses race for, according to Racing Post, last time. And oh yes, stuffing stockings too!

This is going to be a fun race to watch. And I agree with you annmatt, eventually the huge purses run in Japan, HK, Singapore, and Macau will draw the world's top horses and lead to worldwide recognition as prestigious racing venues (at least I hope). I look at racing in Asia as up-and-coming on the world scale, even though they've been doing it for centuries!!

I love Tosen Jordan and Orfevre.. it´s going to be a great race !

I must say I'm starting to enjoy checking in on Japan racing, and watched the Hong Kong races last week. The Hong Kong Jockey Club's site was great, and the Japan Jockey Club's web site is absolutely the best I've seen, and they post the English versions of the race replays usually within a day. The web site in English is a pleasure to navigate. Has anyone noticed that some of the biggest purses anywhere in the world are for Japan races, along with the ones in Hong Kong? The juvenile that just won the Asahi Hai Futurity will take home almost $1 Million as his share of the $1.8 Million USD Purse. At the Hong Kong International last week, they passed out over $8 Million in purses for 4 races! The 14 hour time difference puts a crimp in trying to watch the races "live".