So I’m gonna let you all in on something: I’m not really a competitive person.
Jealous? For sure! Though never to the point of wishing harm to others. Do I hold grudges? God knows I do. Despite this, even stronger than those feelings it’s the feeling of disliking letting others set my own pace.
As I see it, the trapping of being competitive is that you’re not setting your pace, you’re in a field where you and others are heading towards a zero sum goal, and that at least to me sounds like a chore.
Why do I open with this? You’ll see soon enough.
Oh also, if there’s two things to know getting into this post:
The first is that Daiwa Scarlet is my favorite girl in the game. She might not be literally me, her story might not be the best, but she’s been my profile character since day one and if I have to make a pick on the fly, it will be her every time.
And the second is that her story is so closely linked with Vodka’s that it’s REALLY HARD to focus on just one. So if the section about her in the game feels uneven, please be patient, it’ll make sense by the end of this batch of posts.
Daiwa Scarlet was born from father Agnes Tachyon and mother Scarlet Bouquet. Agnes Tachyon was a horse that started running in the year 2000 and had a lot of expectations but had to retire in 2001 due to left-frontal superficial tendonitis.
Daiwa Scarlet, however, gets her name from her mother, who in turn got it from her mother, who in turn was named after Scarlett O’hara, known famously as the star of Gone with the Wind. The line starts all the way in 1971 with Scarlet Ink, a mare with zero notable wins to her name from the United States that got bought by Zenya Yoshida. Despite no wins to her name, she would start what many call the “Scarlet Clan”.
Extra cool because Scarlet Ink’s father is called Crimson Satan.
I repeat: Daiwa Scarlet’s Great Grandpa is called Crimson Satan.
Back to the timeline, Scarlet Ink was paired with another American purchase by Yoshida, a horse called Northern Taste. This pairing produced a mare called Scarlet Bouquet.
Scarlet Bouquet was poised to chase the Triple Tiara series of races but she didn’t make it. She lost the Ouka Sho to Sister Toushou, the Yuushun Himba (AKA the Oaks) to Isono Roubles, and the Shuuka Sho wasn’t even attempted.
Despite this, just like her own mother, her real strengths started to show after retirement, with many of her offspring going on to become powerhouses. Not only her, but other descendants of Scarlet Ink were producing third generation powerhouses.
Cut to 2004, when the child of Scarlet Bouquet with Agnes Tachyon was born. The child of the mare that couldn’t win the Triple Tiara and the stallion denied the Triple Crown by fate itself.
Daiwa Scarlet (as she would be later named) was a shocking birth, in the sense that Scarlet Bouquet was 16 years old by then and she was still able to give birth to such a big, healthy and muscular horse. She was heavier and more muscular than her siblings, she had a tough personality and a great evaluation on her side.
Then she got to the training facilities and her more timid side started to show. Gate training is always one of the toughest parts of training a racehorse (after all you need the horse to stay put in a really small space AND not lose their marbles when the loud noise tells them to start running), and with Daiwa Scarlet it apparently took at least 6 times the normal amount of gate training.
However, like any good student, she persisted. And when she did, she became a spectacle to look at.
Daiwa Scarlet’s racing style was described by columnist and analyst Akihiro Shimada as “Not quite escape”. For context, “escape” is a racing strategy where a horse tries to stay as far ahead of the pack as they can and keep that advantage rather than saving strength for the last stretch. But with Daiwa Scarlet he theorized that it wouldn’t feel right to call her an Escapist horse, rather she was more like a really competitive Frontliner (staying ahead of the pack but still saving energy) that wanted to compete with all others and show how good she was.
And so, her debut was set for a middle distance, the 2-year New Horse Race in Kyoto race that she won. Afterwards, she participated in the Chukyo 2-year old Stakes where she won against Admire Aura, but her victory was amplified by the fact that in that same day Daiwa Major, another descendant from Scarlet Bouquet won the Mile CS. As such, Daiwa Scarlet was building more and more of an expectation.
The year afterwards she participated in the Shinzan Kinen, where Admire Aura took a victory back. Then, in the next race, the Tulip Sho, the race considered the entry test for the Ouka Sho (the first of the Triple Tiara races) Daiwa Scarlet ended up second again…
…against another filly called Vodka.
You see, Daiwa Scarlet’s trainer is Kunihide Matsuda. Vodka is the daughter of Tanino Gimlet, a horse that Matsuda trained in the past, and Vodka’s trainer is Katsuhiko Sumii, an old disciple of Matsuda’s.
Right then and there, Matsuda declared that Vodka was Daiwa Scarlet’s rival.
Matsuda made good on his declaration next race in the Ouka Sho, where Daiwa Scarlet won against Vodka, extra important because unlike the Tulip Sho, the Ouka Sho was a G1 race and thus a bigger stage.
Katsumi Ando (Daiwa Scarlet’s only jockey) grasped on more of Daiwa Scarlet’s strengths after the race in a way that fittingly deepened the rivalry. He explained that where Vodka was good in explosive displays of speed and strength, Daiwa Scarlet excelled in sustainability. Putting both of them at opposite ends of the same spectrum.
Next, Daiwa Scarlet was going to participate in the Yuushun Himba (AKA the Oaks), which is the second step in the road to a triple tiara… but to everyone’s surprise, Vodka’s team aimed instead for the Tokyo Yuushun (AKA the Nihon Derby). Daiwa Scarlet’s Triple Tiara ambitions would, however, run short as she got hit with a cold and had to postpone her participation. She did participate in the Rose Stakes and won, however.
Something that jockey Ando noticed in this period was that Scarlet had matured in the process. She was less anxious, more stable, many of the measures they had to use with her like shielding her hindlegs so that she wouldn’t be surprised if she touched the inside of the gate weren’t necessary anymore.
The next race was the Shuuka Sho, it wasn’t just the final race of the Triple Tiara but a rematch against Vodka. However in a shocking twist, Daiwa Scarlet didn’t win agains Vodka, she won against Rain Dance, with Vodka ending up further behind.
Daiwa Scarlet’s team was heading next for the Queen Elizabeth Cup. Vodka’s team had qualified for the Japan Cup by now but decided to face against Daiwa Scarlet again. Alas, the day of the race Vodka had to be pulled from the race due to bad physical condition. But the race was still loaded with names I’ve mentioned in the past like Fusaichi Pandora and names you can see in the game like Sweep Toushou.
Daiwa Scarlet got first place, beating Fusaichi Pandora. This victory is all the more meaningful because Scarlet Bouquet didn’t win the Queen Elizabeth Cup herself.
The accolades don’t stop there, though. You see, the Queen Elizabeth Cup can be ran by older horses, and Daiwa Scarlet was the fourth ever 3-year old horse to win it, right after Fine Motion (2002), Admire Groove (2003), and funnily enough Fusaichi Pandora (2006). Not only that but she’s the second ever locally-bred horse to win since Mejiro Dober won back to back in 1998 and 1999. “Locally-bred” meaning that both of the horse’s parents were born in Japan.
Funnily enough, jockey Ando admitted if Vodka had participated she might not have won.
The last race of that year was Arima Kinen, and Vodka was going to participate there too. Vodka ended up 11th, but Daiwa Scarlet ended up 2nd. For the sake of their rivalry it doesn’t count, however, Daiwa Scarlet did defeat her older brother Daiwa Major in this race and the only other filly to reach second in Arima Kinen was Hishi Amazon all the way back in 1994.
The year 2008 started with the wrong foot. Daiwa Scarlet was now old enough to qualify for the Dubai World Cup… and then in the middle of training for it debris hit Daiwa Scarlet’s eye canning those plans.
She did, however, participate in the Sankei Osaka Cup and win after recovering. While just a G2, Daiwa Scarlet was the first filly to win that race since Air Groove in 1998… however, after the race, Daiwa Scarlet’s legs got inflammated and she was diagnosed with Canal Bone Aneurysm.
While this happened, the team discussed which race to face next… but due to lack of training while recovering Daiwa Scarlet had won a lot of weight. Thankfully she managed to lose enough weight in time and the next goal was set for the Autumn Tenno Sho…
…which Vodka would also participate in.
The 2008 Autumn Tenno Sho is one of those races that, according to critic Tamaki Abe “Only happen every 20 or 30 years”, comparing it specifically to the 1977 Arima Kinen, where Ten Point, Toushou Boy, and Green Grass (The “Grass” in the latter is actually the origin of the “Grass” in “Grass Wonder”) faced off. In this 2008 race, however, Vodka won by TWO centimeters, a difference that would’ve probably been bigger if she hadn’t relaxed slightly after passing Deep Sky and Daiwa Scarlet hadn’t recovered by then.
For those keeping the score, Daiwa Scarlet and Vodka are 2 wins and 2 losses each.
There needed to be a tie-breaker… that would never happen. Daiwa Scarlet would run in the Arima Kinen again but Vodka would not due to how many difficulties Vodka has had in the Nakayama racecourse, though funnily enough, fans voted for Vodka’s participation which she rescinded, something that hadn’t happened in about 37 years by then when Akane Tenryuu in 1971 had to quit the race after being voted most popular.
Daiwa Scarlet won Arima Kinen, and while she wasn’t the first filly to win Arima Kinen, she WAS the first one where zero excuses could be made about it. In the past other winners include Garnet (1959) who ran in really uneven terrain, Star Roch (1960) was able to push through a gap, and Toumei (1971) ran in a race while there was an equine influenza epidemic going on and even Mejiro Musashi was said to have shown symptoms in the middle of the race.
Daiwa Scarlet won, by a lead of three quarters, fair and square.
…
So someone saw this career and said “Anyone remember what tsundere girls in the early 2000s used to be like?”.
It makes a scary amount of sense when you put all the elements on display, though.
Those archetypes tended to be honor students or otherwise prim and proper figures that displayed a ruder or meaner side under the right circumstances, an example of when “Tsundere” (for those somehow not aware: from tsuntsun or aggressive, and deredere or lovey-dovey) was used to describe two pronounced sides of a character rather than a fluctuating state of being.
Daiwa Scarlet had all the high expectations all around put onto her, so Scarlet became a girl that’s self-sufficient by virtue of her mother being always really busy and a great student in order to not worry her while she’s in out working.
However, it’s important to note that you don’t need to be smart to be an honor student. And I don’t necessarily mean this in my usual SHE’S DUMB way, but rather, an honor student is just the student that does the most homework in time and gets the best grades, none of which requires any particular creativity or intelligence, just dilligence.
And this is where the clash with Vodka, her roommate, starts to show. If I had to describe it in a certain way, Scarlet can write an essay about a book that has the best caligraphy and uses a lot of really big words when necessary, while Vodka will make up words but convey what the book was about better.
This extends to other fields too, like how despite being a teacher’s pet at school, Vodka ends up being the most popular when it comes time to race. This is because Scarlet only sees the merit in the final objective whereas Vodka sees the merit in the experience. Vodka wants to look cool after reaching the finish line while Scarlet doesn’t care if she’s left panting and sweating. Scarlet only wants the accolade of a first place, while Vodka wants people to remember her even if she ends up last.
It’s a technician vs performer rivalry, and the player as her trainer gets a really interesting in-between Scarlet in the process.
The students and her mom get the Dere part, Vodka gets the Tsun part, meanwhile the player gets… the true side? The relationship between Scarlet and her trainer is one of blind trust, of minds in sync, so the player gets a really complex Scarlet, one that doesn’t feel the need to be so outwardly nice but has no reasons to be more aggressive.
It’s hard to say it’s romantic (at least in the sense that I can think of other girl-trainer relationships with more blatant overtones), it’s hard to say it’s familial in any way, but the main undercurrent is that Scarlet feels reassured in the idea that the player is her trainer, someone that by job or otherwise she’s entitled to trust.
After all, this trainer is the one that’s actually stuck with her, not only not being turned off by her pushy and perfectionist demeanor, but understanding it and even encouraging it.
Scarlet’s initial goal is to chase the Triple Tiara, after all, her own Tiara is actually a present from her mom carrying the hopes that she will be able to get the title for herself. Her story is also framed almost exclusively in relation to her rivalry with Vodka, which is evident as early as her first post-debut objective.
Instead of participating in the Chuukyo 2-year old Stakes and the Shinzan Kinen, the player has all of the debut year free with the first objective being the Tulip Sho (the first real life race against Vodka where Vodka won) and then the Ouka Sho (Where Daiwa Scarlet took back the victory).
THEN the game does something fun.
You see, by this point there’s a rift of sorts growing between Scarlet and Vodka, the clash between being good at running and looking cool while running come to a head when Vodka decides it’d be cooler for her to try the Nihon Derby instead of the Oaks like Scarlet wanted.
That girl had the GUTS to put her coolness as the priority over their unfinished business! Can you believe that?!
If you’ll remember, in real life, Daiwa Scarlet’s participation in the Oaks had to be pulled due to a cold. The game actually lets her pursue this one and by extension the Triple Tiara… but this poses a dilemma for Scarlet. Does she pursue the Triple Tiara? Or does she go to the Nihon Derby and show Vodka that she can defeat her anywhere anytime?
Surprisingly, the player can choose which one to participate in. But regardless, this is where an underlying element of Scarlet’s character comes to light: She’s never happy with victory, she always ends up her races more frustrated than happy, almost as if she feels it’s never enough but she doesn’t know what “enough” is.
The next objectives are the Shuuka Sho and then the Queen Elizabeth Cup. And this is where the introduction I added comes into play.
We already saw how lost Scarlet got after Vodka decided to seek her own path, to the point that she was willing to throw away her Triple Tiara ambitions just to show Vodka up. And there’s a stronger element at play than just spite.
Even if she won’t admit it, Vodka is a pace setter for Scarlet. Scarlet is persistent and a perfectionist but not exactly creative. Even as far back as the Shuuka Sho, it’s Vodka that proposes facing off in the Elizabeth Cup.
And Vodka is aware of this, in her own way she knows that “Little Miss Perfect” cannot depend on her to tell her what to do or which battlefield to get to, you can feel the concern behind all the insults being thrown, and the reluctant recognition of that point in Scarlet’s words.
This comes to a head when, after the Elizabeth Cup (that Vodka, like in real life, had to quit because of physical conditions), Scarlet decides on her own to participate in the Osaka Cup. And one wonders if Vodka took that initiative after the Shuuka Sho knowing that after getting her Triple Tiara (or not, but participating in the Triple Tiara circuit) Scarlet might’ve felt lost, so she set the pace and thankfully by the time the Elizabeth Cup was over, Scarlet had ambitions separate from Vodka.
Now, I’m trying to only focus on Scarlet because… you’ve seen how long this post has gotten, but long story short, Vodka by this point is in her international touring, going to overseas races, and she’s back briefly and wants to challenge Scarlet to a race, and not just any race, but the Autumn Tenno Sho.
This moment is so lovely because you can tell Scarlet is super delighted to have Vodka challenge her to something and Vodka is excited to play the part of fierce rival. Compared to their clash related to the Oaks/Nihon Derby debacle you can tell both have matured a lot in this front.
And the maturity doesn’t stop in that, shockingly enough.
Another neat moment happens after the Tenno Sho. Vodka visits Scarlet in her dressing room and concedes that she’s gotten really strong, and that if that’s what being number one means then by god being number one is a cool thing. But then Scarlet (in a less direct manner, may I add) admits to Vodka’s point about coolness. The fact that people were clamoring her name after the finish line, the way that people will remember this Tenno Sho and remember her, and how she really likes that feeling.
Afterwards, Scarlet decides to go to the Arima Kinen. Like with the Osaka Cup, this one isn’t something Vodka suggested, this is her choosing her own path, how her story should be capped off.
And how is that story capped off?
After the race everyone is clamoring Scarlet’s name loudly, but she’s overwhelmed. She asks the player if they’ll remember her being number one, if they’ll look back on her and remember her being the best Horse Girl that ever was.
And then she starts crying, because you see… even if puberty has been really generous with her, even if she puts a really caustic front, even if she tries to be as self-sufficient as self-sufficient can be, at the end of the day Scarlet is still just a girl.
A very lonely girl.
A momma’s girl with a mother so busy that she can’t even call her and needs to leave her voice messages prefaced with an apology for bothering her. A girl that had to grow up fast in order to not worry anyone, that became an honor student basically to lessen the worries while she’s out and about in the academy.
Yet that day, she’s not the girl that needs to keep getting good grades, she’s not the girl reassuring her mom everything’s okay.
In that day she made history and will be remembered by everyone as one of the greatest of all time, that day she was simply Number One.
And she’s happy about it.
After she calms down, she makes an interesting comment about how “the uncool moment has passed” before heading towards the victory circle. She carries the player by the hand to share in the moment, explaining that, after all, they have to introduce her.
“She’s the best horse girl I’ve raised, and she’s also the horse girl I’m most proud of.”