on 27 november, alkaased was one of eighteen horses to contest the twenty-fifth running of the japan cup at tokyo racecourse. the other european runners included ouija board, bago and warrsan, whilst north america was represented the breeders' cup turf winner better talk now and the sword dancer invitational handicap winner king's drama. the locally trained runners included the last two winners of the race tap dance city and zenno rob roy, the tenno sho winners heavenly romance and suzuka mambo as well as the nar champion cosmo bulk. ridden by dettori he started the 9.6/1 third choice in the betting for a race run on unusually firm ground. alkaased lost ground at the start as dettori, on instructions from cumani, tracked across from a wide draw to race on the inside. he raced in twelfth place before moving up to fifth place on the turn into the straight. tap dance city attempted to make all the running, as he had done in 2003 and was still four lengths clear with 400 metres to run but was overtaken by alkaased and zenno rob roy 200 metres from the finish. alkaased gained the advantage and held off the late challenge of heart's cry on the inside to win by a nose, with zenno rob roy one and three quarter lengths back in third ahead of lincoln and ouija board. the winning time of 2:22.1 was a new world record for 2400 metres on turf, bettering the mark set by horlicks in the 1989 running of the race. dettori, who was winning the race for the third time said; "alkaased is a great horse to ride. he can be lazy but he's a very tenacious, tough horse - he kept finding a little more". mike charlton admitted that when he bought the horse he had regarded him as just a good handicapper, saying; "i did think he would improve, but this was a million-to-one shot".