For most of us, the Grand National is the one race a year where everyone has an opinion. People who've never watched a race in their life will back a horse because they like its name, or because their nan's birthday is the 14th and there's a horse wearing their favourite number.
That's part of the charm, honestly.
Aintree attracts plenty of serious racing fans, but it also pulls in people who might place only one or two bets all year.
Office sweepstakes appear, families compare their selections, and suddenly someone who has never studied a racecard is passionately supporting a 25/1 outsider because it shares a name with their dog.
Japan does racing rather differently.
Racing Is a Year-Round Obsession in Japan
The Japan Racing Association runs some of the biggest race meetings in the sport, including the Japan Cup, the Arima Kinen and the Tokyo Yushun, better known internationally as the Japanese Derby.
These aren't events that only capture attention once a year. Major races are spread throughout the calendar and attract a huge domestic audience.
In 2025 alone, betting turnover across JRA racing topped ¥3.5 trillion, which is a staggering £16.1 billion pounds.
That helps create a different betting culture. Many Japanese fans follow horses, trainers, jockeys and training centres closely throughout the season rather than suddenly arriving at one major race armed with a newspaper, a lucky number and a feeling about a horse's name.
Of course, plenty of British racing fans are every bit as serious about their form study. The big difference is that the Grand National reaches far beyond racing's normal audience. It is one of those rare sporting events where having a bet is almost part of the occasion.
Even the Way Bets Are Placed Is Different
There is another major difference between betting in Britain and Japan. British punters are used to bookmakers offering fixed odds.
If you take 10/1 about a Grand National runner, those are generally the odds attached to your bet when you place it. JRA betting works on a pari-mutuel system instead.
Money goes into a pool for each type of bet. After deductions, the remaining money is divided between the winning tickets, so the final return depends partly on how everybody else has bet.
There is also a much wider focus on combination bets. Alongside simple win and place bets, Japanese punters can bet on exactas, quinellas, trios and trifectas.
That can mean trying to pick the first two home in the correct order, the first three in any order or even the exact first three, which encourages bettors to think about a race in a slightly different way.
Instead of simply asking, “Who is going to win?”, someone studying a Japanese race may be looking for three horses they believe will dominate the finish and then building their bets around several possible outcomes.
That is quite a contrast to the once-a-year Grand National punter putting £5 each-way on the horse with the funniest name.
Workout Times, Trainer Quotes, and a Word for “Peaked at the Right Time”
Japanese racing fans have built up a fairly specific vocabulary around reading a horse's condition.
One term that comes up a lot is ‘meichi'. It comes from an expression meaning something close to giving something your full effort and, in racing, refers to a horse being prepared right up to its peak for a particular target.
In other words, this is the race the trainer really wants the horse ready for.
That does not mean a meichi horse automatically wins. It is more about trying to work out the intention behind the preparation.
Racing fans can study the final pre-race workout, compare times, look at how strongly the horse was asked to work and then read comments from the trainer about how the preparation has gone.
A throwaway “he's fine” can read very differently to “we've been building towards this race all year.”
Japanese racing sites covering horse racing betting go into workout times down to fractions of a second and treat a trainer's pre-race comments as another important part of the form study.
Watching the Horse Before the Race
There is also plenty of attention paid to what happens shortly before the race.
The parade ring gives bettors another chance to assess a horse before committing their money. Is the horse relaxed? Is it sweating heavily? Does it look fit after a break? Is it walking calmly, or does it appear to be using up too much energy before it even reaches the starting stalls?
British punters do this too, particularly regular racegoers, but it fits neatly with the wider Japanese approach of combining traditional race form with very recent clues about a horse's condition.
A National runner might have the right handicap mark, proven stamina and form over the Aintree fences, but it still needs to arrive on the day in the right physical condition to produce its best.
What This Means Compared to Aintree
None of this is to say Japanese punters have cracked some secret formula. Luck, pace, positioning and ground conditions still decide plenty of races, just as they do at Aintree.
There are also thousands of serious Grand National bettors who spend weeks studying form, jumping records, stamina, handicap marks and previous performances over the National fences.
The real contrast is with the huge casual audience the Grand National attracts. A once-a-year bettor might choose a horse because of its name, colours, jockey or some completely random family connection.
A more data-focused Japanese racing fan may arrive at a major race having looked at recent training, physical condition, trainer comments and several different betting combinations.
They are playing the same basic game, but coming at it from rather different directions.
Aintree will keep doing what it does best regardless, with 30 jumping efforts, a big field, changing fortunes and the chance of a result that sends millions of betting slips into the bin.
And long may the lucky-name bets and office sweepstakes continue. They are part of what makes Grand National day different from almost every other race of the year.
But when you're trying to find the winner, perhaps there is something to be said for adding a little Japanese-style homework to all that British optimism.
