I’m beginning to wonder if an American horse will ever win this race again. Americans won three of the first eight runnings from 1981-’88 and took a fourth Japan Cup when the Charlie Whittingham-trained Golden Pheasant won the 1991 renewal. But that was the last American victory in this major international race.

The Breeders’ Cup, inaugurated in 1984, has certainly had an impact on the Japan, with most of the best American turf horses staying home. So has the introduction of the early December international race meeting at Hong Kong. But there’s more to the story; Japanese runners have simply gotten better, the result of a concerted effort in the 1980s to improve the breed, when the American bloodstock market was in a down cycle and the Japanese yen was strong against the dollar.

We have a similar condition today.

THE DISAPPOINTMENT I have felt watching one American horse after another go down to defeat in the Japan Cup is nothing compared to the feeling I experienced Sunday morning at the Tokyo race course when a representative of the Japan Racing Association told me that Summer Bird was injured and would be forced to miss this Sunday’s Japan Cup Dirt.

The Birdstone colt, the probable 3-year-old male champion of 2009 in North America, is almost certainly the best horse sent from the U.S. to Japan for the Japan Cup Dirt. The race was inaugurated in 2000 and has been won just once by an American horse—the longshot Fleetstreet Dancer in 2003.

This is a race American horses should be able to win, since the best Japanese horses compete on turf and there have been virtually no European contenders in the Japan Cup Dirt. Yet the winner’s share of the $3-million prize is not likely to go to an American runner this year, unless the Tiznow colt Tizway, fourth in the Whitney and third in the Jockey Club Gold Cup, pulls off a big surprise.

Some horsemen go through an entire career without having the opportunity to train a horse the quality of Summer Bird. Tim Ice had the good fortune of having Summer Bird in his barn shortly after going out on his own as a head trainer. Ice took the injury in stride, saying you have to accept the bad with the good that comes along, but you know the injury had to hit him like a punch to the gut.

Ice did an outstanding job with Summer Bird all season long. Let’s hope surgery is successful on the colt’s injured leg and he returns as good as ever in 2010. If not, as Ice said, Summer Bird “owes him nothing.”

Japan Racing Association officials were devastated by news of the injury, too. Summer Bird was a heavily promoted international star in the Japanese media and his defection from the Japan Cup Dirt will have an impact on both on-track attendance and handle, two economic indicators that have been trending in the wrong direction for a dozen years in Japan.

Over the last several years, the JRA has added new bet types, and plans to introduce a pick five wager in 2011. But nothing the JRA has attempted so far has boosted business.

Despite the grim economic news (if attendance of 98,000 and handle of over $300 million for the Japan Cup is grim!), Japanese racing fans continue to show an incredible affection for the sport and its equine and human stars. On Japan Cup morning (and on almost all days when important Grade 1 races are run), the gates of the JRA tracks open at 8 a.m., and there is a ritualistic “mad dash” to desirable spots along the rail just past the finish line by hundreds of amateur photographers, many of whom have camped outside the track for several days to be first through the gate, The enthusiasm of these fans is infectious and can serve as a tonic to jaded souls who feel racing has lost its connection with the public.

Tomorrow, I’ll be heading to Osaka and Hanshin race course in anticipation of Sunday’s Japan Cup Dirt. I’ll report from there on Thursday.

A FINAL NOTE: There have been some unfortunate rumors floating through the internet that this reporter was spotted at a Tokyo karaoke studio on Sunday night, warbling with a trio of Japanese racing journalists. Unless you have pictures or a recording of the event, it is nothing more than a rumor. What happens in Tokyo…well, you know the rest.