Chapter 2: Pedigree and Name

Around April of 2002, I went out to the farm's pasture.

In front of me was Mejiro Conan's foal, Mejiro Conan 2001—known by his young name, Little White.

And today, just like always, he was running around full of energy.

Good. It was nice to see him so healthy.

There wasn't a thing wrong with him.

(Conan. Your foal is growing up healthy and strong.)

Watching Little White run brought a smile to my face, and my thoughts turned to the late Mejiro Conan.

Mejiro Conan's father was none other than Oguri Cap, while her mother was Mejiro Ramonu.

That was one hell of a combination.

Even now, I still couldn't understand why we'd decided to try such a strange pairing.

Kitano didn't know either.

Even though he'd been the one to order the breeding, if someone asked him why he'd done it, all he could give was a vague answer.

"I don't know, it was just... well, how should I put it...? A divine revelation? Like I'd suddenly thought, 'This is going to produce an incredible foal!' Honestly, I don't even know why I did it."

"If you don't know, Kitano, then how are the rest of us supposed to know?!"

The entire farm staff had immediately called him out on it.

It was a fond memory now.

As for Mejiro Conan's actual racing record...

She was strong enough to get through maiden races.

But once she moved into the allowance races, things got much harder.

She was the kind of horse that could barely make it into graded races.

She certainly wasn't an exceptionally strong horse.

Even so, thanks to her father and mother, she was a beloved horse.

She had a gentle temperament and a large fanbase. Although she never managed to win a graded race, she was still widely known and loved.

That Mejiro Conan had passed away a year ago, leaving behind only one foal.

Her death had come far too soon, and I remember the entire staff spending several days mourning her.

Mejiro Conan had originally been carrying twins.

She wasn't particularly strong physically, and giving birth to twins was a major risk for a mare.

One of the embryos was reduced, leaving only the horse now known as Mejiro Conan 2001.

But then, before giving birth, Mejiro Conan developed colic and was put in a dangerous condition.

Even then, we refused to give up.

With the help of Dr. Kuno, a veterinarian, everyone at the farm came together and did everything they could to somehow get both mother and foal through the birth safely and in good health.

In the end, despite our desperate efforts, Mejiro Conan died.

The guilt of not being able to save her...

The feeling of loss...

No matter how many times you experience it, you never get used to it.

At the very least, we wanted the foal she'd left behind to live a long life.

So we changed our priority.

Everyone at the farm began calling Mejiro Conan 2001 Little White, and we showered him with love every single day.

Little White grew up healthy and strong.

He was the picture of good health, and he also got along well with Mejiro Ramonu, who had taken on the role of his mother.

The two lived together without any problems, until Little White was weaned and they had to separate.

Nothing particularly dramatic happened after that, and by 2002, Little White had officially become a yearling.

Before long, he would be sent to a trainer.

His body was perfectly healthy.

His temperament wasn't bad either.

He was obedient and smart, always listening to people.

There had never been any trouble putting equipment on him, and he'd performed wonderfully during training at the development farm.

There was nothing you could complain about.

He was practically perfect.

Maybe he really could grow into a racehorse capable of winning graded races.

As an owner-breeder from the prestigious Mejiro family, Kitano would have given him his strongest seal of approval.

There was just one thing that worried them.

"Little White is spending his time alone again today?"

"Yes. Maybe he can't fit in with the other groups. He spends most of his time running by himself."

"Hmm... I wonder if he just likes being alone, or if he's actually timid."

Little White didn't seem interested in interacting with the other horses.

He didn't belong to any particular group and usually spent his time alone.

And what did he do when he was alone?

He ran.

He just kept running.

Maybe he really did enjoy it, because almost every time someone came out to the pasture, he'd be running around.

All by himself.

Quietly.

Not racing anyone.

Just running alone, as if nothing else mattered.

Thoroughbreds are social animals.

Very few actually prefer being alone.

Perhaps Little White was one of those rare exceptions.

"He does run with the other horses sometimes."

"But Little White almost never approaches them himself. I don't think they dislike each other, though."

"Hmm... I really don't know. Maybe that's just his temperament. Or maybe he's keeping a wall between himself and the other horses."

No one knew how this trait would affect him as a racehorse.

Either way, they just wanted him to grow up healthy and happy.

Taking my eyes off Little White running around in the pasture, I looked down at a sheet of paper.

It was the paperwork for Little White's future as a racehorse.

Under Racehorse Name was the name he'd be known by once he started racing:

Mejiro Sherlock.

Under Trainer was—

Yasuo Ikee.

"He's going to be trained by Mr. Ikee, huh? That man was really fired up about him."

"Yeah. He kept saying, 'He's Mejiro McQueen the Second! You have to let me train him!' He was practically begging."

"Isn't that getting a little ahead of yourself?"

"I thought so too. Still... I do hope he'll become the second Mejiro McQueen."

"Trying to reach the level of that great star of the turf might be asking a bit too much."

Well...

I thought so too.

◇

A year has passed, and now I'm a yearling.

You know, in the world of thoroughbreds, you don't get one year older on your birthday.

Everyone ages up together on January 1st.

There's your little piece of trivia for today.

Anyway, a lot had happened during that first year.

So let's go through some of the more shocking things one at a time.

Let's start with the bad news.

I'll save the fun stuff for later.

Apparently, my mother, Mejiro Conan, had originally been carrying twins.

She'd been expecting twins, but one of them was terminated before birth.

In other words...

I was supposed to have had a sibling.

Just like Admire Vega in Uma Musume.

(Goddess, I really didn't do anything in my previous life, right? I didn't somehow do something that seriously pissed you off, did I?)

Seriously.

I had way too much baggage from the moment I was born.

My karma had to be through the roof.

What the hell had I done in my previous life to deserve all this?

Twins are extremely risky for racehorses.

There's a high risk of miscarriage and stillbirth, and successfully giving birth to healthy twins is actually quite rare.

Mejiro had experienced something similar with Mejiro Ardan.

Apparently, his twin was stillborn, leaving only Mejiro Ardan alive.

I don't remember the exact numbers, but the odds of both twins being born safely were pretty low.

That's why they take steps to deal with the situation before the foals are born.

It's a necessary measure to protect the health of both the mare and the surviving foal.

I understood that.

I really did.

But still...

『Even so, this is way too much to deal with from the moment I was born. How the hell am I supposed to just accept this?』

Those were two completely different things.

No matter how many times I told myself to understand it and accept it, I couldn't.

It was enough to make me shake just thinking that maybe I'd done something terrible in my previous life without realizing it.

Why did all of this have to happen to me?

Even one of these things would be bad enough.

Why did they both have to happen at once?

I couldn't figure it out.

I decided not to think about it anymore.

I'd just bury the whole thing deep in the back of my mind.

Next came my pedigree.

And this one really surprised me.

My father was Mejiro McQueen.

One of my absolute favorites in Uma Musume.

Then there was my maternal grandfather.

And unbelievably, it was none other than Oguri Cap.

My maternal grandmother was Mejiro Ramonu.

What the hell?

Why had anyone thought pairing those two horses together was a good idea?

(I don't think it was actually a dangerous breeding combination or anything. Still, that's one hell of an adventurous pairing.)

Oguri Cap was one of the greatest idol horses of his era.

Mejiro Ramonu was Japan's first Triple Tiara winner.

And Mejiro McQueen was the great star known as a master of the turf.

And all of those bloodlines came together in me.

(This is amazing. This is the ultimate pedigree for an Uma Musume fan like me!)

I was absolutely thrilled.

Hell yeah.

On top of that, I was a gray.

My father, my maternal grandfather, and even my mother were all gray horses.

I was still a little dark right now, but I should start turning white as I got older.

I couldn't wait to see it happen.

And perhaps because of that connection, the horse who had taken care of me as a mother was none other than Mejiro Ramonu herself.

She was the one who took the place of my dead mother, Mejiro Conan.

The farm had given me a foster mother so that I wouldn't feel lonely.

I was nervous as hell.

Seriously nervous.

I never expected Mejiro Ramonu herself to become my mother.

And to make things even more surprising, she was incredibly kind.

『How dare you try to separate me from Little White...! I won't forgive you!』

『Calm down! Please, calm down, Mrs. Ramonu! You know this is normal, don't you?!』

『I don't know what you're talking about!』

She was so kind that separating us was actually pretty difficult.

I'll leave that story for another time.

I wonder how Mrs. Ramonu is doing now.

Little White was my young name.

I don't know where it came from.

That's what Mrs. Ramonu called me.

So I'd learned about my birth.

I'd learned about my pedigree.

And finally, I'd figured out what year it was.

It was 2002.

I'd make my racing debut the following year, meaning I'd debut in 2003.

The Classic races were for three-year-olds, so I'd be part of the 2004 Classic generation.

The 2004 generation, huh...

That's going to be tough.

(This generation has a lot of talent. In Uma Musume, you only really have Sweep Tosho, so maybe it gets overlooked because the generations above and below it were both pretty stacked.)

When you think of this generation, there's Derby winner King Kamehameha.

Daiwa Major, who won five G1 races.

And Heart's Cry, who defeated Deep Impact, one of Japan's most highly regarded racehorses.

Even just those three make for an incredibly strong generation.

And the stallion records from this generation are ridiculous too.

Mostly King Kamehameha and Heart's Cry.

At the very least, those three horses were going to stand in my way.

Three horses capable of leaving their names in the history of Japanese racing.

And that wasn't even all.

The generation above me was strong.

The generation below me was strong too.

(And especially the generation below me. Knowing that Deep Impact is going to show up for sure makes things even worse. Anything less than a spectacular achievement is just going to get buried beneath him.)

To be honest, the biggest problem of all was Deep Impact.

Because winning a few G1 races wouldn't be enough.

My opponent was an undefeated Triple Crown winner.

A horse who would go on to win seven G1 races.

And he wasn't just a great horse.

He was a spectacular closer, winning races in incredibly flashy fashion.

It would take a lot to keep from being forgotten next to him.

What I needed was to be just as memorable as Deep Impact.

And on top of that, I needed to beat horses like King Kamehameha.

(That means winning the Triple Crown is absolutely essential. If I only win one or two of the three Classics, I'll just disappear into Deep Impact's shadow.)

I had to win.

The Satsuki Sho.

The Japanese Derby.

The Kikuka Sho.

The pinnacle of the Japanese Classics.

If I couldn't win all three, my name would probably be forgotten before long.

And then I might not be able to create the kind of change I wanted.

So, if I wanted to prevent that...

Winning the Triple Crown was probably necessary.

(I don't know whether it will actually affect Mejiro's decision to remain in the horse-owner business. But if I can win it, I might as well.)

It would affect the future, too.

A stallion who had won the Triple Crown would have enormous value all by himself.

Either way, my goal was now clear.

『My biggest goal for the Classics is an undefeated Triple Crown! Dream big!』

It's easy to get numb to achievements like that when you're used to seeing them in Uma Musume.

But this was an absolutely ridiculous goal.

At the time, only Symboli Rudolf had ever accomplished an undefeated Triple Crown.

Only one horse had ever achieved such a tremendous feat.

And that was what I'd set as my goal.

People would laugh at me.

They'd tell me to face reality.

They'd probably get angry and tell me not to dream so stupidly big.

I didn't care.

If I wanted to accomplish what I was aiming for, then I had to aim that high.

『For now, I'll just run! I'll run and run and build up my stamina! I can worry about everything else once I enter the stable!』

I'd already made up my mind.

I'd sworn to see this through.

I would keep Mejiro in the horse-owner business.

I would make sure Mejiro Conan's name remained in the pedigree.

There was no turning back now.

For the sake of that bright future, I had to keep working.

So I trained constantly.

I ran all over the farm.

I kept running even when it snowed.

And, well...

As a result, I ended up causing a bit of concern.

"He's by himself again today."

"Maybe that's just his personality. Or maybe he keeps his distance from the other horses."

I had apparently started worrying Kitano and the farm staff.

I spent so much time running alone that they were beginning to wonder whether the other foals were bullying me.

(Sorry. It's really not like that. We're actually on pretty good terms.)

It was true that I often ran alone.

That was probably what they saw whenever they came out to check on me.

But outside of those times, I actually got along just fine with the other horses.

Still, I knew I was making them worry.

(Maybe I should invite someone to run with me every now and then.)

I looked around and joined one of the groups.

『Hey, wanna run together?』

I asked them.

And yes, I could understand their replies perfectly.

Ever since I'd been reborn in this body, I could understand horse language.

Very convenient.

As for their reactions—

『You wanna run? Sure!』

『Let's go, let's go!』

『It's a race with Little White!』

They were more than receptive—they were actually pretty excited.

So I probably wasn't disliked.

Probably.

After that, we had a race with several horses.

Apparently, the staff had been watching us the entire time.

"I guess we were worried about nothing."

"Maybe. They don't seem to dislike each other."

I could hear the relief in Kitano and the others' voices.

Good.

That's a relief.

And what was the result of the race?

『Little White really is fast.』

『I couldn't beat him again today.』

『Well, yeah. I've been running every day. Still, all of you are fast too. You might catch up to me someday.』

I won.

Naturally.

Somehow, I'd made it through my first year of life.

It was almost time.

(Time to enter the stable. I wonder if I'll be going to Ritto or Miho. And which trainer will I be placed under?)

『Though it'll probably be Mr. Ikee. The last time he came to see me, he was practically begging Kitano to give me to him.』

It was almost time for me to move to a place called the Training Center.

I'd be saying goodbye to this farm for a while.

I'd finally be taking my first real steps toward becoming a racehorse.

Half excited.

Half nervous.

With my heart pounding, I spent each day waiting for what was to come.

◇

Mejiro Sherlock

Sire: Mejiro McQueen
Dam: Mejiro Conan (fictional horse)
Dam's Sire: Oguri Cap
Dam's Dam: Mejiro Ramonu

...What the hell is this pedigree?