A three-pronged international challenge led by Ireland’s Auguste Rodin, France’s Goliath and Germany’s Fantastic Moon will attempt to end Japan’s 18-year domination of the G1 Japan Cup (2400m) at Tokyo on Sunday (24 November).

Almost two decades have passed since US-bred, Luca Cumani-trained Alkaased, ridden by Frankie Dettori, nosed out Japan’s Heart’s Cry in record time to capture the 25th running of the Japan Cup.

On Wednesday morning (20 November), Aidan O’Brien watched Auguste Rodin, the seventh horse to be fielded by Ballydoyle trainer in a Japan Cup, go through his final paces. O’Brien, who has yet to win the race, is attending the Japan Cup for his first time.

The four-year-old Deep Impact colt breezed over the Tokyo turf, impressing O’Brien.

“He has speed and class, long strides and big action, and is great at the mile and a half distance,” O’Brien said. “I think the course here at Tokyo and the Japan Cup will suit him.”

The Japan Cup will be Auguste Rodin’s last race as he bids to add to his wins in the G1 Futurity Trophy (1609m), the G1 Derby Stakes (2400m), the G1 Irish Derby (2400m), the G1 Irish Champion Stakes (2000m), the G1 Breeders’ Cup Turf (2400m) and the G1 Prince of Wales’s Stakes (1993m).

The home team is talent-packed with four-time Group 1 winner Do Deuce, just off a win of the G1 Tenno Sho Autumn (2000m), considered the biggest threat.

Three-year-old filly Cervinia returns from acing the G1 Shuka Sho (2000m) on 13 October, her second win of a filly Classic.

Another son of Deep Impact, five-year-old Justin Palace, winner of the 2023 G1 Tenno Sho Spring (3200m), finished just two lengths behind Do Deuce with a fourth-place finish in the fall version.

Stars On Earth is last year’s Japan Cup third-place finisher behind Equinox and Liberty Island. She won two of the filly Classics in 2022 and has never missed the top three in her 12 starts in Japan, seven of them at the top-level.

And, there’s the globe-trotting French-bred Shin Emperor, returning for his second time over the Tokyo 2400m, where he finished third in the G1 Japanese Derby (2400m) on 26 May before jetting abroad.

Defending the home turf is something Japan’s horsemen don’t take lightly, something illustrated in a surprise visit by O’Brien and Ryan Moore to Miho Training Centre on Wednesday. They stopped in at the barn of Tomohito Ozeki, whose Japan Cup hopeful is last year’s G1 Kikuka Sho (3000m) winner Durezza, who, this August, finished fifth at York in the G1 International Stakes (2051m), a race won by O’Brien’s City Of Troy.

A bit taken aback by the unexpected visit, Ozeki said, “I never thought I’d see (O’Brien) at Miho,” he said. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m going to be doing my best to not lose on home turf.”

Win or lose, Auguste Rodin is going out a champion. He is set to be recognised in another first for an overseas-based horse with a retirement ceremony at Tokyo following the Japan Cup this Sunday.