Japan Diary - Early Morning Training

The town of Obihiro, on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, is known for its "Ban-Ei" races in which heavy horses, many of them Percherons, pull weighted sleighs over a short course with two "bumps" in it. Training starts in the dark at 4am, and the images at dawn and sunrise are quite stunning.









To my absolute surprise, one of the (few) women jockeys asked me if I wanted to try the sleigh and having sat me down on it (they stand but that was a little too much to ask of me...), handed me the reins of "Pegasus Pretty" and off we went for a long spin around the training ground!