(the) Road to the Deep East

JRA(Japan Racing Association), which operates publicly-managed horse racing in Japan, announced that it will use an ’Engrish’ nickname for maiden races.

Make Debut ** (**=name of the race track)

Japan has been using the translated kanji races for maiden horses, shin-ba (新馬, can be re-translated ' new horse'). JRA expects that this nickname will make shin-ba race 'more understandable' or 'friendlier', but I don't think so.

We can see a lot of Japanese use some weird katakana English words to make the sound of the words better, but this is one of the worst examples. It doesn't make sense both in Japanese and English, and most importantly, Kakkowarui!!


But why did JRA have to choose such a terrible nickname?

To tell the truth, before JRA nicknames maiden races as such, other local associations have already used more kakkoii English names. For example,

Fresh challenge (Hokkaido)
Future(Iwate)
Fresh Gold(Nagoya)
First Try(Hyogo)
Elite Story(Fukuyama)
Rookie Stage(Saga)
Strong Horse(Arao)

I liked 'Elite Story' and 'Rookie Story.' But as you see, there were no names left for JRA, anyway

Why didn't JRA used 'Maiden race' in katakana? There are some grade races of English names directly imported from America or other countries. (Hanshin Juvenile Fillies, Asahi-hai Futurity Stakes.)

It may be because the word 'maiden' is not so popular word excluding iron one and rosen one in Japan.

Then, I'd like to advocate some kakoii English-Japanese words.
.
Virgin Challenge(ヴァージンチャレンジ）
'Virgin' is more popular than 'maiden' as katakana words in Japan, so it is more understandable than 'maiden race' One problem is 'virgin' is mainly used for women in Japan, so it may be regarded as filly's limited race. And when somebody says, 'she lost 'virgin challenge', it becomes ambiguous and people can't understand whether the horse won or lost actually.

Strawberry Summer Challenge （ストロベリーサマーチャレンジ）
'Strawberry' is used to explain the sweet feeling of the first experience. Originally, it was 'lolita strawberry summer challenge', but 'lolita' was censored by anti-child porn law.

Debut Stage (デビューステージ）
This phrase is used as katakana English often, so if JRA wants to adhere to 'debut', this 'debut stage' is better and can explain the meaning of maiden race more. Debut Stage Hakodate, Debut Stage Tokyo... it still sounds like a name of an apartment building, but still has a part of kakkoiiness of English words.


Just like when they Nara citizens saw Sento-kun (bizarre mascot of Nara city) first, some people who thought 'Make debut' nasty may protest against JRA. The best solution is... Use 'shin-ba' again