On a Pale Horse (Umamusume/Youjo Senki)

[TheLastBattalion]

Looking into the future, I feel like the Senior Spring Triple Crown feels like the most possible candidate for Shirogane to make history because nobody has ever taken that crown.

Breaking down the 3 races, we have the Osaka Hai at Hanshin on the 2000m track, which may seem like an issue however right out of the starting gates is a downhill section which immediately leads into an uphill climb before leveling out at 270 meters, it is then flat through all 4 corners before repeating the same slopes right before the finish line.

The Spring Tenno Sho being the longest G1 at 3200m is the one that I feel is going to be either a crushing victory or a narrow loss, cause soon after the start you have a steep uphill climb that starts 200m after the starting gate, then it shallows out after 100m and ends after 225m at that shallower incline, right after is a sharp descent for 150m during the first corner. It flattens out right as the 2nd corner begins, and it stays flat until you loop back around; however, turns 3 and 4 are much sharper and are practically 1 massive turn. Which leads back to the frontstretch and the hills and the first 2 corners again before finishing off on the backstretch.

Finally the Takarazuka Kinen, also at Hanshin, on the 2200m, is probably the most concerning of the 3 with the start being fairly similar to the Osaka Hai on both downhill and uphill, however the most concerning bit being a nearly 600m long shallow downhill that ends just a bit over 200m before the finish line that leads into the same uphill climb from the Osaka Hai.

 

[Xenoxn]

Actually, this gives me an idea for an omake. Suppose that for a school assignment, the trainees need to interview a retired racer and present a report. Most of the time, students focus on famous racers from the prior generation, but Shiro centers on someone else entirely: someone who has been successful in a field she actually values.

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There's actually a canon Uma that's like that, Light Hello.

 

[Nitramy]

If Shirogane figures out that she needs to leverage her appearance, she might want to watch some pro wrestling and see how the best heels in the business do it.

 

[Mentos]

Wait Shirogane is wearing her track suit in this race right not her official racing outfit

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That's how it is in debut races in game, I believe.

 

[One-who-reads]

Huzzah! The curse of The Pale Horse strikes again! And yeah, for those at the lice, it was probably the most uncanny thing ever, I can imagine Toujou's brows twitching in how she'll struggle to attract fans (They're important as an entry requirement for some higher tier races I think?)

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Nah, she'll have all the horror fans following her. The Venn Diagram of her fans, and fans of The Ring, is a circle.

 

[Lyrista]

That's how it is in debut races in game, I believe.

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I believe most tend to wear their track uniforms for non G1 races (but only if you set that setting for your own trainee).

It's the Prestigious G1 races do they break out the fancy racewear as these are the top tier races.

 

[Sky3Fall]

Shiro hitting the side-eye lol.

And yeah, running uphill is hard. You think you're perfectly fine and then you hit the uphill and even a slight incline feels like Mt Everest.

I'm looking forward to a more high-stakes not-that-long race where a more experienced Shiro comes to the logical conclusion that she actually can just sprint the whole way and pulls the Runaway strat.

I liked the perspective of the opponent racer and how Shiro's pace setting affected her. She's trained on this track a ton, but Shiro stretching out the lead so much combined with the bad track conditions meant that she gassed out and had no chance.

Shiro being this hometown hero was very cute and reminded me of Nice Nature's in game career where the people from the shopping district she frequented came very far to support her. I can definitely see the town going all out if Shiro gets into a G1.

Also enjoyed the snippet with her friends back at Tracen. Not all of them have gotten to debut yet and seeing a peer succeed on the big stage has got to be inspiring.

 

[Granet]

Shirogane turned to give her neighbor a flat look, and the sandy haired uma's ears stood up in fright.

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I wonder how long it will take shiro to realize she has been doing physiology warfare on her opponent. She's no stranger to the tactic. But it's funny she's doing it unintentionally and slightly terrifying when she actually tries.

Her kohai wasn't even smiling, instead looking like a smaller and more intense gray Mihono Bourbon; like a terminator instead of a cyborg.

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Hello? New nickname spotted. Which yea fits her. Also the terminator movies are a thing here?

"Hmm…you didn't know?" Suzuka-san wondered, looking surprised. "Don't you have the same homeroom?"

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They're gonna have to get used to constantly asking shiro what she up to. Cause she ain't gonna be telling people squat if she doesnt need to. Which ya know I can respect.

Cute that the restaurant closed for her race and how family counted in everyone who knew shiro to a decent degree. Seems like the phantom sensation where quite more noticeable in this run. So she have the wet ground and hill abilities I imagine.

 

[Neo3932156]

Cute that the restaurant closed for her race and how family counted in everyone who knew shiro to a decent degree.

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From the sound of it, the restaurant is opened and runned by the Japanese grandparent/s(?) grandmother. It's even cuter that most of the clientele is mostly Shiro's adult fan whose there to listen her race in the radio and drinking beer and sake.

 

[Liar]

I don't know much about Umamusume, but the contrast between Tanya and the other Uma, along with everyone's reactions to her, makes for a fascinating story so far.

 

[Wild Transient]

Frankly, Shirogane was a bit surprised no other racers were anywhere close to them, doubly so that a number of runners appeared to have crashed on the downslope. Was the gap between Tracen and the more regional academies really that large?

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Yes,yes it is. The sheer number of notable Uma all in one school is a warehouse of talent.

Closer…

Closer!

Yes! She pulled level with the Tracen brat–

Down Katsumi made it three steps up Nakayama's final slope before her legs gave out under her.

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Tazuna: You lacked enough guts. Train more guts.

And more importantly, winning a substantial amount of money, the thought of which would have brought a smile to her face if not for her dance teacher's instructions not to.

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Good call on her dance instructors part. Wouldn't want to give everyone nightmares after all.

"Do you think she trained by running in the rain?" Special Week wondered, turning to her roommate curiously. "You're Shirogane-san's running partner, right, Suzuka-san? Do you know if she did wet training?"

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Heh! Not in this life Spe.

Ah, don't mind me." Their dorm leader shrugged, brushing off her confusion. "Good to see the new class getting their feet wet, so to speak."

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Symboli Rudolf approves of this.

"Hahaha!" Steady Distance couldn't help but laugh as she watched Shirogane perform her debut winning live on the TV screen, the pale pony's ears never so much as twitching while her tail only shifted to help with her balance. Her kohai wasn't even smiling, instead looking like a smaller and more intense gray Mihono Bourbon; like a terminator instead of a cyborg.

Actually…that fit pretty well.

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Huh....now that she mentioned it and after thinking it over, Shirogane/Tanya really is a smaller Terminator edition of Mihono Bourbon (with a touch of Eishin Flash imo.).

Mihono has to work on showing facial expressions like smiling more often to show she's not an unfeeling Uma.

Shirogane OTH has to avoid smiling too much less she unknowingly traumatize everyone else with her "It's a good day to commit War Crimes smile".

Though that makes me wonder then as to who would be her equivalent to Rice Shower.

I don't know much about Umamusume, but the contrast between Tanya and the other Uma, along with everyone's reactions to her, makes for a fascinating story so far.

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Basically cute horse girls doing cute horse girl things.

Actual horses do not exist in the Umaverse. And technically the Umamusume setting is essentially an Isekai for IRL horses especially race horses.

 

[Acerer]

Down Katsumi made it three steps up Nakayama's final slope before her legs gave out under her.

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Ouch, hope that's not permanant. Shiro's setting a high Pace meant for Graded races on Wet Condition, these Debut Umas have little hope. Though it's pretty brutal to have exerted yourself to injury. For a lot of Umas whose career got cut short by their glass legs, Shiro would be target to a lot of envy.

 

[eager slacker]

Main characters are just built different. They will just have to settle for second place.

 

[Larrikins]

she's technically the first in her year to debut, which might end up creating a bit of friction she wasn't expecting, because as much as she doesn't see herself as a top tier racer, her classmates do see her as quite significant competition

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Isn't dealing mental damage to her competitors one of her main strengths? This should help with that!

 

[LuridThrone]

Sorry i just have a image in my head of her doing the robot really well.

Play into the terminator theme.

 

[GarfRed]

Isn't dealing mental damage to her competitors one of her main strengths? This should help with that!

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So a debuffer on the literal sense, having so much red skills that if the opponent gasses out or crashes due to Nice Naturing them

 

[drake_azathoth]

Though that makes me wonder then as to who would be her equivalent to Rice Shower.

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...Honestly Shirogane and Silent Suzuka do have a very Rice Shower/Mihono Bourbon vibe, only if Rice Shower had reasonable luck and enjoyed herself and Mihono Bourbon was more worldly. Which is a strange Rice Shower, but they do share a love of nature and sort of quiet demeanor.

Mihono Bourbon is a good kid at heart, but I can see her projecting a very murderous vibe if she was less talented and more competitive as a result - she also is hugely dutiful to her family like Shirogane.

 

[WrandmWaffles]

So Front Runner A and Pase Chaser A.

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She's definitely A rank in Pace Chaser, but she might be more of a B in Front runner.

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Probably Front A/Pace B/Late C/End D

Because she's based, lol.

Huh. Surprised she won, but at the same time, it makes sense. She's pretty good in rough conditions and specifically trained for slopes.

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She also needs to win her debut or a maiden race to be able to participate in higher level races too. Shirogane is good enough that she won't end up like Haru Urara, and she prepped her debut race quite thoroughly, so it would be hard to justify her losing against a bunch of other rookies who are absolutely unprepared for her behavior.

Wait Shirogane is wearing her track suit in this race right not her official racing outfit

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I believe most tend to wear their track uniforms for non G1 races (but only if you set that setting for your own trainee).

It's the Prestigious G1 races do they break out the fancy racewear as these are the top tier races.

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Yes, she and the other runners are wearing tracksuits. The costumes are mostly G1 things.

Curious for an omake of players views/reactions if Shirogane being added to the game. X3

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She'd have a niche in the Trackblazer scenario because she's the only uma who doesn't get debuffed and mood down from running too many races consecutively.

I can see her peers seeing Shirogane as the pace they need to follow if they want to beat her, which would be a huge hurdle to follow.

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From a career perspective, yes. She'll be running a lot of races, which is something that really she can only do out of her class, and it will potentially skew the perspective for her classmates. While she is definitely not going to dominate races like Almond Eye, her longevity will be quite envied.

I can imagine Toujou's brows twitching in how she'll struggle to attract fans (They're important as an entry requirement for some higher tier races I think?)

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Yes, there are some races where entry is based on fan vote. Shirogane is actually pretty decent at managing public relations, and she is very popular in Fujisawa, which is a sizable city, so she has a pretty big fanbase already.

She trained hard and simply raced. Seems everyone else just got caught lacking.

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To some degree, but a lot of it was also their inexperience resulted them making errors based on the track and Shirogane's behavior.

Looking into the future, I feel like the Senior Spring Triple Crown feels like the most possible candidate for Shirogane to make history because nobody has ever taken that crown.

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Yeah, that's the set she probably has the best chance at winning a triple crown for. It also helps that those races aren't one time entries compared to the Classic Triple Crown, which spoilers, Shirogane has low odds of winning

And given Shirogane's resilience, she could theoretically run those races year after year until most of her bigger competitors retire.

Also enjoyed the snippet with her friends back at Tracen. Not all of them have gotten to debut yet and seeing a peer succeed on the big stage has got to be inspiring.

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It's a bit of a mixed bag. For optimistic ones like Special Week, it is inspiring, but for Tsurumaru and King Halo, who don't feel like they're in great positions, it would be a bit discouraging. For Grass Wonder, it's a bit unsettling because despite being her classmate and teammate, Shirogane didn't tell her about it. Now, Shirogane didn't mean anything by that, just thinking Grass wouldn't care, but it does make Grass feel a bit unsteady since then she's wondering why she isn't getting her debut that early as well.

They're gonna have to get used to constantly asking shiro what she up to. Cause she ain't gonna be telling people squat if she doesnt need to. Which ya know I can respect.

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She really still has not caught on to how interested the other umas are about her performances, especially since umas are largely very social herd creatures, while she's not that afraid of going out on her own. The fact that Shirogane does things like read ahead in the schedule and isn't afraid of beauracracy also means she seems to learn things before others do too. She then assumes everyone else already knew, which kind of makes her look like she's hiding things.

Tazuna: You lacked enough guts. Train more guts.

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In this case that was actually the case, lol.

For a lot of Umas whose career got cut short by their glass legs, Shiro would be target to a lot of envy.

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Yeah, it's one of the reasons Hana was so interested in her, since she had that happen with Fuji Kiseki. It's also a reason for Kiseki being a little envious of how durable Shirogane is.

I imagine if Shirogane had been a real racing mare, when she retired there'd be a lot of interest in pairing her with the Sunday Silence line, such as Fuji Kiseki, to see if they could get a mix of speedy horse and small, durable horse. There'd probably also be hope that her even temperament would balance out the eccentricities that came down the Stay Gold line too.

 

[DerpyDragonTM]

I imagine if Shirogane had been a real racing mare, when she retired there'd be a lot of interest in pairing her with the Sunday Silence line, such as Fuji Kiseki, to see if they could get a mix of speedy horse and small, durable horse. There'd probably also be hope that her even temperament would balance out the eccentricities that came down the Stay Gold line too.

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Well, thats something worthy of an omake right there. It'd be really interesting to see what fan horses people would come up with xD

 

[KurobaraIto]

From a career perspective, yes. She'll be running a lot of races, which is something that really she can only do out of her class, and it will potentially skew the perspective for her classmates. While she is definitely not going to dominate races like Almond Eye, her longevity will be quite envied.

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the golden gen's own Stay Gold.

 

[TheLastBattalion]

Classic Triple Crown

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Yeah, I think the Kikuka Sho is basically the only one of the Classic Triple Crown that she would even have a decent chance of winning but it feels like none of them are realistically likely.

 

[ShadowAngelBeta]

So Front Runner A and Pase Chaser A. With already maybe a green skill in wet conditions. Stamina or Guts with Wit as bonuses.

Would like to see Shirogane do a G1 with Suzuka and them just purely running with the Runaway tactic.

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She's definitely A rank in Pace Chaser, but she might be more of a B in Front runner. She's got the stamina for it, but her velocity and top speed doesn't seem to be the needed level to dominate as a Front Runner.

Sure she can manage it against lower tier gate fillers that you'd see in a debut race, but against her Tracen Peers, it likely wouldn't go so well.

I could see her having Wet Conditions O at least.

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Isn't dealing mental damage to her competitors one of her main strengths? This should help with that!

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Shiro's weird, but her primary place is actually in a team race.

She's a pace chaser with some nasty red skills. She marks a favorite and then just completely fucks them up. Probably with some splash damage too.

When she's running against mobs though she can't afford to stick to the pack because she basically doesn't have a last spurt, so she needs to Great Escape more or less when there's nothing for her to beat up. Or nothing worth it anyway.

The contrast in views - an older, bitter retiree who considers her achievements as not worth what she lost in failing to race, and a young prodigy who underestimates her own racing potential and cares more for things outside racing - would be a really volatile and fascinating dynamic to explore. Any thoughts on the concept? Please feel free to run with it if you want.

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I mean, it is a school still. And a very high end one at that. I imagine there is more than a bit of classes offered for both prepping and then following through with "After racing years" lessons.

I imagine if Shirogane had been a real racing mare, when she retired there'd be a lot of interest in pairing her with the Sunday Silence line, such as Fuji Kiseki, to see if they could get a mix of speedy horse and small, durable horse. There'd probably also be hope that her even temperament would balance out the eccentricities that came down the Stay Gold line too.

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Ahhh, that'd be funny. Mostly because I'm pretty sure Shiro's bloodline would just make Stay Gold's worse.

Although there would probably be worries and screening for her abysmal top speed being passed down.

 

[SectionZ]

so Shirogane opted to wear her boots, something Toujou-san had found strange, but they were fairly comfortable to run in, despite their appearance, and Shirogane had previously checked with the administration to confirm that they did not give her any undue advantage.

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PC port launch of Death Stranding two, AND return of "Boots are great for sprinting, trust me bro" Delivery Horse?

The conspiracy board is going to look more crazy than usual.

 

[Fernando]

Stegosaur: "Maah, Terminator-chan, you're really setting the bar too high." 'Please do not make a height joke or a pony-chan joke please don't—'

Shirogane: "? Is it not the pace expected from Tracen Academy? Also, I do believe that without reaching a licensing deal with Cameron-san or Skydance Media, to associate me with the Terminator franchise would constate a breach of intellectual property and incur significant financial and legal penalties."

Pause.

Shirogane: "Please refrain from said association."

Stego: "…" 'So that's why she's called the Devil. Such a scary expression!'

 

[Herofox]

I imagine if Shirogane had been a real racing mare, when she retired there'd be a lot of interest in pairing her with the Sunday Silence line

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Ooh, what about Agnes Tachyon? What with her Phantom Triple Crown thing?

Shiro seems like the kind of horse who would have the durability that breeders would look for.

 

[RandomNew]

I forget what the distance is for her debut race. It is medium right, I think?
Also debut race doesn't have grade in it, yeah?

It's good to see this got updated. I've been checking in on this fic for pas weeks for update. What with the game global ver 1st Anniv excitement.

 

[DelerpTurtle]

Gold Clan Tanya... honestly, could just be regular Tanya. With a different enough background, I could see her as the villain who terrifies her opponents. Maybe being left at an orphanage, then scouted young? Idk. Just tragic enough to give her the motivation to win races.

Externally: a terrifying uma, who looks like she's going to kill you gleefully.
Internally: Fuck I need to win, otherwise I'll lose my scholarship and then I'll never escape poverty! I don't even like running! (This is a lie. She loves running and is in denial.)

 

[drake_azathoth]

...If Shirogane is really just gonna keep running race after race with no breaks and no sign of fatigue like a total freak - the robot allegations are probably gonna be half serious for some umas.

 

[Phrux]

I imagine if Shirogane had been a real racing mare, when she retired there'd be a lot of interest in pairing her with the Sunday Silence line, such as Fuji Kiseki, to see if they could get a mix of speedy horse and small, durable horse. There'd probably also be hope that her even temperament would balance out the eccentricities that came down the Stay Gold line too.

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So we got our first ship, eh?

 

[Prismatic Glaive]

...If Shirogane is really just gonna keep running race after race with no breaks and no sign of fatigue like a total freak - the robot allegations are probably gonna be half serious for some umas.

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Everyone is on URA scenario while Shirogane is running MANT scenario