'As close to a racing utopia as you can get': how Japan puts us to shame

On the second floor of the grandstand lots of men sit holding binoculars, their gaze fixed on the action taking place in front of them. On the fourth floor of the grandstand even more men holding even more binoculars are transfixed by the same constantly-changing scene, one in which thoroughbreds come, thoroughbreds go and thoroughbreds gallop, all the time watched by those studious men.

This, laid out before us in bewildering order, is a morning in the remarkable world of Japanese horseracing.

What is seen through the binoculars looks like a racecourse but it is not, even though the men on level two are racehorse trainers and the men on level four are racing journalists.