NHK Mile Cup

(第14回NHKマイルカップ) (About 8 furlongs / 1 mile) Allowance: Fillies & SH-bred 2 kg

The NHK Mile Cup is a Grade 1 flat horse race in Japan for three-year-old thoroughbred colts and fillies, run over a distance of 1,600 metres (approximately one mile) on the turf at Tokyo Racecourse in May.

The NHK Mile Cup is sponsored by the Japanese public broadcasting organization NHK, and as such, it is broadcast not only on Fuji TV (one of NHK's competitors) but on one of the NHK channels that cover horse racing (NHK General TV; the other, BS-1, covers certain other races such as the Japan Cup). (In Japanese horseracing, "Sponsor" does not mean that an individual or organization provides prize money. They provide only the prize, cup, trophy etc.)

Before the year 2001, this was the only G1 race for colts and fillies that non-Japanese bred three-year-olds could participate in, which led to this race being considered informally as the "Japanese Derby for non-Japanese bred horses" until foreign-bred entry restrictions were lifted in 2001. Until 2010 it was limited to domestic-trained horses, but this restriction was removed that year (as for the Japanese classics). A maximum of nine foreign horses are allowed entry in the NHK Mile Cup. It is considered one of the prep races for both the Yushun Himba (the Japanese Oaks), run in May, and the Tokyo Yushun (the Japanese Derby), which takes place in late May or early June.