There are few cliches as dubious as "Everybody loves a winner." Does everybody love a winner? The fans of the Hanshin Tigers certainly don't love the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks.

In fact, a case could be made for people loving losers even more, especially in a world that is becoming increasingly polarized between the haves and the have-nots. In a Christmas Day editorial, the Asahi Shimbun remarked that 2003 was notable for a tendency to divide everyone and everything into winners and losers, and that the tendency itself made people more sympathetic toward the latter.

This tendency partly explains the sudden and immense popularity of the 7-year-old racehorse Haruurara. On Dec. 14, at the Kochi Race Track, Haruurara lost her 100th race, a milestone that made the evening news, despite the fact that the race itself wouldn't have normally rated a mention even on the nightly sports roundup. On Jan. 2, a record 8,000 people attended the races at Kochi, where Haruurara came in ninth in a field of 10. The track, which like most horse racing venues in Japan is now deep in the red, made 2.2 million yen that day, almost all of it from bets placed on the hapless Hokkaido-born filly to win, even though everybody who placed them knew she wouldn't.