South Korea and China begin journey towards international acceptance

Go east, young man. The entries have been made for the Melbourne Cup and all the rest of the big spring carnival prizes, and the great autumn exodus of horses from Europe to points all around the world will soon begin.

Melbourne, Hong Kong and Tokyo are now familiar destinations for the world's leading horses, but you don't need to have a particularly keen memory to remember the days when they were simply exotic holiday destinations rather than major racing highlights.

The Melbourne Cup has – all right, Aussies, all right – been a big race since its inauguration in 1861, but it only joined the global merry-go-round when overseas trainers began to send contenders in the early 1990s. Racing in Japan was pretty much a closed shop until the Japan Cup was first run in 1981, while Hong Kong was similarly kept behind the veil until Sha Tin was built in the late 1970s, and international competition began at about the same time as European horses started to arrive in Melbourne.