You might’ve noticed this motto on a lot of stuff in Tresen Gakuen… you might be surprised there’s a horse related to it.
On April 1st 1794, right after a solar eclipse, a horse was foaled in England. He was descended from Marske (Or a horse named Shakespeare if one theory is to be believed), whose paternal great great grandfather was Darley Arabian; and Spiletta, whose grandfather was Godolphin Barb.
As if to honor the omen of the ocassion he was named Eclipse.
Eclipse was a big horse with what was described as a “really big, unattractive head”, he also had an awful temper that would’ve led to him being castrated in any other circumstance, but instead he was turned over to a rough rider who worked him day in and day out. While this didn’t make him any more ameniable to riders, it did calm him down enough.
And man, what a runner Eclipse was.
His victory record of 18 out of 18 would already be shocking, but then you have to remember that the racing norm in that period was races of four miles.
For those that use the metric system like me, 4 miles is almost 6 and a half kilometers.
For EXTRA context, the longest race in Japan, literally called “The Longest Stakes In Japan” (Nihon Saicho Kyori Stakes) is 4000m. Eclipse ran 2 more km than that on average. The rules were also different back then. Those 4 miles were divided into 3 “heats” (checkpoints basically) and if a competitor was behind by more than 240 yards (220ish meters) the competitor would be disqualified… so as you can imagine, when Eclipse left such a difference during a race, he won by effective landslides.
Hence “Eclipse first, the rest nowhere”. Eclipse arrived first by such a wide margin he beat the others immediately, no second, no third, nowhere.
But I like the use of “Eclipse” because it evokes a very poetic image. Before I knew this context I just assumed that the phrase was one of so many Japanese word salad phrases, where they use english in a way that evokes more an idea than more coherent phrase.
This image of the other opponents having their sight on the goal, and you come and eclipse their view of it with your back, leaving them all behind.
And it still works like that, honestly, and even with the context of where it came from it still works as an aspirational maxim “Be like the great Eclipse and surpass everyone”.
And that would already be a cool reason for the phrase to be there, a cool phrase that’s a nod to a really fascinating bit of horse racing history internationally.
Except… like always, there’s more.
As you might expect from a horse that notorious, he fucked. A lot. And if every thoroughbred can trace their ancestry to one of the three founding stallions, 98% of them can trace it to Eclipse.
Basically every recurrent name I come across while researching an Uma Musume character’s ancestry that piles up into a laundry list of names I need to talk about can trace themselves to Eclipse. Danzing, Northern Dancer and by extension Northern Taste, Mr. Prospector, Sunday Silence. Names that come up in more contemporary stuff like King Kamehameha and Deep Impact…
Uma Musume is obviously a Japanese IP and their approach to any semblance of “religion” is more Shintoistic so this next comparison isn’t fully appropiate… but if there’s a veneration to the Three Goddesses, then Eclipse is basically like the prophet that establishes itself as the figurehead of the movement.
Can you imagine if they actually ended up castrating him back in the day though?