This year's edition is a bit of a family affair.

Not just for the horses but the jockeys – there's the Iwatas father and son and the Yokoyamas father and two sons all riding!  Yasunori Iwata is on Desierto on 63.3 and son Mirai on Ask Wild More on 38.9.  For the Yokoyamas father Norihiro is on Matenro Orion 35.5, older son Kazuo on Matenro Leo 133.1 and younger son Takeshi on Killer Ability on 30.3.

However they are not the favourite runners at this stage – that tag is being closely disputed between Do Deuce, a son of Heart's Cry and the mount of Yutaka Take, and Danon Beluga, also by Heart's Cry, with Yuga Kawada riding.

We are hoping that Geoglyph, the Satsuki Sho winner, can do it again and we will have a triple crown in play.  He's by Drefong and will again by ridden by Yuichi Fukunaga and is on 6.9 which looks very generous to us.  He and Equinox, the runner up in the Satsuki Sho with Chrisophe Lemaire riding, have drawn wide gates but in a race over 2400m we don't think that matters so much.  Equinox is on 4.9 as he comes from gate 18.

As usual it will be a matter of which horse can manage the trip on the Tokyo track with its uphill at the start of the straight.  Two who could be worth a small investment are Ask Victor More on 21.6 and Damian Lane's mount Lord Les Ailes on 42.0.

The weather is supposed to be hot with a top of 32 and that will make for a great crowd – we understand that 70,000 will be admitted, which is about half of what would be there pre-Covid.  It is one of the great days in racing so good luck to all.

If you need to get out the last race is the Meguro Kinen over 2500m and there are three runners hovering around the 6.0 mark – Baji O, Boccherini and Paradise Reef.