Blackstairmountain

On Saturday morning as I was browsing the Irish Times online, I came across the following intriguing headline: "Ruby Walsh travels to Japan to team up with Blackstairmountain". I was, well, intrigued, so I read on. Seems that Blackstairmountain (who is a horse by the way, lest some of you were thinking that a mountain range from south Carlow had relocated to Japan) had come east to take part in next month's Nakayama Grand Jump, the richest grand national in the world. On Saturday he was running in the Pegasus Jump Stakes, the designated 2 mile and a furlong qualifier for the big race. Trained by Willie Mullins. And Ruby (sings "Ruby, Ruby, Ruby!") had made the 20 hour journey to ride her.
Like I said intrigued. Patriotically so. Years ago, I used to take quite an interest in the horses; summer evenings spent with Aunty May at Leopardstown, the big days out at the Curragh, the stop everything for the Cheltenham Gold Cup, and even working as a security guard at the final fence at the Irish Grand National in Fairyhouse.
So I called up to Sanae, "Are they showing the racing from Nakayama on television today?" They were, but only from three o' clock and the Pegasus Jump Stakes was off from two.
But that wasn't going to put Sanae off. The girl likes her horses too. How much so I was about to find out.
She gets on the internet, tap-tap-tappity-tap, makes a phone call to 'some people she knows'.
Who are?
'In the know', is all she replies.
By now she's got this slightly manic gleam in her eyes.
Turns out that the race is being screened at the Japan Racing Association's (JRA) off-track Tote facility here in Muroran. So, yes we can see the race.
More importantly though for Sanae is that we can also bet on the race.
Down to the JRA we go.
As soon as we enter the complex you could physically see Sanae's heart begin to race as a excited blush spread across her cheeks, her breathing quickened and her hands started trembling from the sudden surge of adrenaline. The manic gleam in her eyes had been replaced by one of complete obsession.
"Is Mammy alright?"
"I think so Cian, but I have only seen her like this once before. At Limerick Junction when we were on our honeymoon and she was pregnant with you. I thought it was just her hormones, but now I am not so sure..."
I turn to confirm this with Sanae, and she is ... gone.
Disappeared.
We scan the hall and can't see her anywhere.
Ten minutes later she returns clutching a betting slip. In those ten minutes she has learned how to use the Tote and put a three thousand yen each way bet on Blackstairmountain.

Without a word to the rest of the increasingly unsettled Gaynor-Takahashi family. We have a few minutes before the off so we sit down. And then the comments start coming from her.
"This would be a good place to come in winter when the weather is too bad to go anywhere else. You could spend the day here. It would be good fun".
I look around at the overwhelmingly male, overwhelming over 60 clientele, crunched into hard, uncomfortable chairs, chewing on pencils, the pages from the racing papers strewn around them, fueled on diet Pepsi and Lipovitamin D (the Japanese equivalent of Red Bull).
"Yeah, fun".
A few minutes later.
"Lot of old people here. It must be fun when you are retired to be able to spend the whole day here, enjoying the races".
I am not sure but I think 'enjoying' for Sanae means "gambling with your weekly pension".
And finally;
"You know, you can gamble online too. And on races overseas".
I looked long and hard at my wife then, or rather who I used to think my wife was. This was a different  Sanae, a Sanae from the dark side.
Darth Sanae, the gambler.
And Cian is Luke. Which means I am the, eh, Queen of Naboo.
Throughout all of this I have been explaining to Cian that Blackstairmountain is an Irish horse, he has come all the way to Japan for this race, and if he has come all this way his trainer must think he has a good chance of winning.
Cian wants to know if horses get jet lag.
Good question.
No idea.
Really should ask the experts. Barry?
Anyway, amongst the three of us there is a lot of talk about Blackstairmountain. Now this isn't lost on the regular punters scattered around us. Nor the fact that I am the only foreigner in the place; I could well have been the first foreigner there ever. As the clock ticks down to two o'clock there is a slow but steady stream of regulars heading to the betting windows.
The odds on Blackstairmountain started out at 7.2 - 1 (yes, they decimalize the odds here. It's Japan after all). With Sanae leading the way, the Muroran money starts flowing down from the north and the odds begin to shorten. This spooks the big boys down in Tokyo and more money goes on the Irish challenger. So that by the off she is the favorite with her odds down to 4.3 - 1, ridiculously short odds for a horse that has never run on this course before, a fast right hand course too, out of stalls and she may well have jet lag.

I try explaining this to Sanae but she is in the grip of a passion that obliterates all else and her world is now Blackstairmountain, 2 miles one furlong and the finishing post.
They're off! (You can watch the race here).
Well, the other 12 horses are off. Blackstairmountain doesn't seem to really want to leave her stalls, ambles out and within five seconds of the start I can tell that we've just blown three thousand yen. As have numerous other punters around us who have immediately begun to glare in our direction and snarl.
The horse finishes 9th out of 13 and if I had my way she would be for sale in Tesco's meat section on Monday morning.
I take Cian's hand and pull my wife out of there before a mob of increasingly irate pensioners turn on us.
"That was fun", says Sanae. "We should do it again next month".