Japan Bashers Can Make Hay on This

Trade watchers say they hate to nag, but there’s another industry where the Japanese don’t compete fairly: horse racing.

In 1990, Japan led the world in money awarded to winners of horse races--$765 million.

However, Japan limited to 35% the number of races where foreign horses could compete this year. The United States has no such limits, the General Accounting Office said in a report to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

“Horse racing in Japan is a big, lucrative and tightly protected industry that has been difficult for foreign interests to penetrate,” the GAO said.

Japanese breeders like the protectionist policy because their “racehorses are of relatively low genetic quality,” the GAO added. Only two Japanese-bred horses have won a high-prize race open to foreign horses in the last 11 runnings, the GAO said.

The Japan Racing Assn. last year proposed a five-year plan to reduce barriers to foreign-bred racehorses. But stud farmers and politicians got it shelved.