heck, it's actually outright impossible to race both Mile Championship and Japan Cup in the same year in game because they take up the same time slot. Even with the "regular trio" of Tenno Sho (Autumn), Japan Cup, Arima Kinen, only two Japanese horses have ever achieved a sweep (TM Opera O and Zenno Rob Roy, latter of which still holds the Arima Kinen record time), because a month of average downtime between those 2000m+ G1 races is generally considered the limit and maybe pushing it. Jungle Pocket also did win Japan Cup after placing 4th in Kikuka Sho, becoming the first horse to win Japan Cup after running a Classics G1 race in October. Gentildonna and Almond Eye would later win the Triple Tiara and Japan Cup in their respective classic years, and notably both did not run the Queen Elizabeth Cup prior (which would be an insane schedule, and I'll also note that the 3rd Tiara race is 2000m instead of 3000m) nor the Arima Kinen in December. There's also a bunch of Kikuka Sho winners who then won Arima Kinen, but only Symboli Rudolf among them also ran the Japan Cup that year.
Kinda makes me appreciate even more how monstrous a few other racehorses were. (and how monstrous the ones you can build in-game are, too, in regards to race records.)
