To break that piece of common sense—or rather, to break the overseas Umamusume’s grip on the Japan Cup—many Japanese Umamusume rose to challenge it, including no few runners who were both powerful and legendary.
Tamamo Cross, for one. Oguri Cap, for another.
And yet neither of them appears on the Japan Cup’s list of champions.
Honestly, whenever Yasui Makoto looked back on that stretch of racing history, he could not help admitting just how wide the gap between Japan and the world had been.
Take the Japan Cup Tamamo Cross and Oguri Cap ran in. Among their rivals was Tony Bianca from Italy.
Before entering the Japan Cup, that Umamusume had just won the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, and the coverage at the time had seized on that, loudly running headlines about “challenging the strongest in the world” and the like.
She did not win that race. She finished only fifth.
And yet the post-race examination showed that she had fractured a bone while driving for the line on the final straight—and still finished fifth despite that.
When Yasui Makoto read that, he had honestly gone numb.
He happened to have a fracture himself right now, and his was only a light hairline fracture, yet it was already interfering with normal daily life.
He could not imagine how, in a brutal race run at speeds of up to sixty kilometers an hour, Tony Bianca had managed to finish with a broken bone—let alone finish fifth.
More importantly, her opponents had included not just Tamamo Cross, the strongest active Umamusume at the time, and Oguri Cap, who would later become the strongest active Umamusume, but other powerful overseas rivals as well.
He simply could not wrap his head around it. In the end, all Yasui Makoto could do was marvel in baffled admiration.
And the ones who could truly be said to have broken that pattern—met that challenge head-on—were the very Tokai Teio now on his screen, and then Special Week afterward.
Only after them did Japanese Umamusume begin appearing more and more often on the Japan Cup’s list of champions.
Even so, with Tokai Teio and Special Week as the dividing line, Yasui Makoto did not think that meant Japan had already caught up with the world.
Because from that point on—for reasons he still could not fathom—the URA Association had taken the effort to improve Japan Cup results in a rather strange direction.
Track conditions were directly tied to the speeds Umamusume could run.
Generally speaking, the closer a course was to its natural state—in other words, the softer the turf—the more comfortably Umamusume could run on it.
By contrast, the more artificially processed the surface and the harder it became, the faster Umamusume could run once they had adapted to it over time.
Internationally, most tracks followed the former philosophy. Europe’s courses, for example, were all very close to natural turf, and while America mainly raced on dirt, the underlying approach was much the same.
Japan, on the other hand, chose the latter path and kept making its tracks harder and harder.
Under those circumstances, with Japanese Umamusume constantly adapting to that kind of surface and already capable of higher speeds to begin with, results in the Japan Cup and other races that were gradually opening to the world naturally improved.
As for that line of thinking and the measures that came with it, Yasui Makoto felt he was in no position to judge.
Even so, the fact that overseas Umamusume had still won in recent years despite being on surfaces they were not particularly familiar with was enough in itself to show that the gap between Japan and the world still remained.
That was exactly why Yasui Makoto frowned.
If there was no guarantee of winning even on home ground, then as for the outcome away from home…
Wasn’t that exactly what all those years of the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe had shown? Not a single championship.
After thinking it over with a furrowed brow for a while, Yasui Makoto did not answer Tokai Teio’s question directly. Instead, after a pause, he asked in return,
“Is this what you all want, or is it… the academy board’s position? Or the Association’s?”
He understood very clearly that the different parties involved in this question were not the same thing.
For the Umamusume, things were simple: train, race, win. At most, they would just think the bigger the stage, the better.
But for the other side initiating this, that meant a completely different set of considerations and resource allocations.
For example, Kitasan Black could be said to be at the height of her momentum right now. If someone rolled out publicity centered on an “overseas campaign,” it would unquestionably cause a sensation and bring in all sorts of benefits.
Hearing Yasui Makoto’s question, a flash of approval passed through Tokai Teio’s eyes.
She quickly exchanged glances with Mejiro McQueen and the others, then looked back at Yasui Makoto and said seriously,
“I knew it. I knew you’d understand.”
“Actually, from our point of view, we… don’t recommend that you and Kita-chan start thinking about an overseas campaign right now.”
“Even if… we’ve been thinking about it for a long time.”
That took Yasui Makoto by surprise, and the words slipped out before he could stop them.
“You’ve been thinking about it for a long time? You all have?”
At that, Mejiro McQueen leaned forward a little and explained in her usual clear, orderly way, “The truth is, a large part of why Teio wanted you to guide Kitasan in the first place was because she felt you were different from the vast majority of Japanese trainers.”
“Judging from your family background, both of your parents followed the conventional training philosophy here, but your own style…”
“..Is actually much closer to Europe and America.”
She folded her arms and lightly touched her cheek, her gaze flickering with recollection and thought.
“We have observed the way you train Kitasan. You place great emphasis on drawing out her own potential and stress individualized training methods, rather than blindly following traditional models.”
“That kind of style is quite common in European and American training systems.”
“At the same time, you are also very well adapted to the racing style here… no, perhaps that too is simply a concrete application of a more Europe-and-America-leaning style.”
“Before races, you carry out a vast—one might even say enormous—amount of investigation, calculation, and simulation, and you design your strategies and tactics with extraordinary precision.”
“I am not saying that the emphasis placed here on guts, willpower, mentality, and the like is useless.”
“It is simply that compared with those abstract, broad concepts, your methods are plainly more controllable, and easier to be replicated and applied more broadly.”
She paused, then continued, “So we began thinking about it quite early on: if the timing was right, perhaps you might be able to lead our Umamusume onto overseas tracks and show something different there.”
As Mejiro McQueen laid out that analysis with crisp clarity, Tokai Teio, Deep Impact, and Orfevre beside her all wore expressions of deep agreement.
They had obviously discussed this for a long time and reached a consensus. Right now, they were simply using Mejiro McQueen to convey it to Yasui Makoto.
On his end, Yasui Makoto was even more surprised now, though he was also deep in thought.
Looking back over his past training experience, it was true that he had never fully copied traditional Japanese training philosophy.
Just as Mejiro McQueen had said, the overwhelming majority of Japanese trainers placed great emphasis on emotional—one might say intuitive—things like guts, and there was even talk of “being of one mind” with an Umamusume. Their training methods were built on that foundation as well.
To Yasui Makoto, all of that did indeed feel very Japanese, very idealistic, and entirely beyond his ability to understand.
He was far more comfortable with training methods he could see and grasp directly. That was exactly why he had designed all sorts of special training around Kitasan Black’s various traits, bringing out her strengths while making up for some of her weaknesses.
Even while thinking through all that, he did not forget the main point.
“So what you’re saying is, you want Kita-chan and me to spend more time preparing, wait and see a little longer, and only think about an overseas campaign later?”
Looking at the screen, he cautiously added, “And the board and the Association… want us to go on an overseas campaign as early as next year?”
This is a fan translation of 赛马娘：从被撞飞十米开始 by 百升飞上天 All rights to the original work belong to the creator. Please support them by exploring their original work or sharing it with others if you can. Thank you for reading and supporting my efforts to bring this story to a wider audience!
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