Header taken from JRA-VAN, credited to the JRA.
This all started when I went for a refresher on who Light Hello was based off of.
Scenario characters like Happy Meek in Uma Musume are most definitely original characters of their own, but many elements about themselves are still sneakily modeled after existing racehorses to give keen-eyed fans something to decipher. And if there’s something Uma Musume has a surplus of is keen-eyed fans.
In fact, deciphering who Light Hello might be based off of was extra impressive because the proposed answer in this post mentions a mare called Moonlight Rose who is so obscure that it only has a netkeiba page where every comment is from 2022 onwards and reminisces about how such an obscure, forgotten mare was immortalized by Uma Musume in some way.
I have a LOT to say about Light Hello but for now let’s focus on some of the other reasons that Moonlight Rose was determined to be Light Hello’s model. More specifically how much Light Hello talks about her grandma.
Part of Light Hello’s story talks about how she enrolled Tresen with high expectations from her family history only to not live up to it, and “a mare whose parent and grandparent were famous” became one of the parameters to find who she might be based off of.
Thus we have Moonlight Rose, a no-name mare from 1994 who ran 18 races with 0 victories, whose father won the Satsuki Sho, and whose Grandfather was “the first idol horse” and “at the center of the first racehorse boom”.
Now this was a way to grab my attention.
I’m familiar with the second horse racing boom in Japan because it’s the one Oguri Cap was at the front of. So when I read that I expected to find in Haiseiko some sort of strand that would give me a hint as to why Horse Racing has the fame it does in Japan, where it’s a family activity, an entertainment sport on top of a gambling one where families go to cheer for their favorites.
What I didn’t expect was to find patient zero of that phenomenon, the originator of this radically different perception of the sport.
Haiseiko was a horse from the countryside whose absolutely montruous performance on the field gave it the notoriety to stand toe to toe with the more famous horses of the central circuit. And like Oguri Cap would prove years later, “country boy making it big in the city” is one hell of a story to tell, especially when said boy DOMINATES every single race he goes to.
The tale of this horse from the countryside that was making it big in the city caught the hearts of people beyond the then-usual gamblers. In the span of a couple of years families, young women, and children started filling the race courses expectant of Haiseiko’s next race. Many weren’t there to gamble, but to see the horse that was adorning magazines and newspapers beyond the usual Keiba affair in its next struggle.
And thus began the shift, horse racing stopped being the shameful vice of gambling addicts and became something less dark and more wholesome, the racecourses started to capitalize on this, offering merchandise of the horses and more commodities you’d expect from a show.
Even when Haiseiko’s undefeated streak broke, people remained, because it wasn’t just a horse that lost its streak, it was their hero going through a rough spot they expected to see him get out of.
Even as the oil crisis of the early 70s reached Japan the betting pools for Haiseiko’s races remained consistent and seemed “crash-proof”.
The same year that Haiseiko debuted all the way out there in the Oi racecourse, Kakuei Tanaka was elected the 64th Prime Minister of Japan. Tanaka hailed from Niigata, another rural area of Japan and was yet another tale of someone from an area the city folks don’t tend to think about making it big in the city. Tanaka even retired as Prime Minister a little before Haiseiko also retired.
Perhaps people wanted something inspiring to tide them over as the oil crisis turned a booming economy into a recession and they saw a horse race regardless of the economic state. Perhaps it was the right emergent narrative crafted by the media at the right time (as evidenced by how that same timeframe saw manga like Ashita no Joe come to fruition).
Regardless of the reason, it was the perfect storm that turned the shameful vice of middle-aged gamblers into a family activity proudly advertised and branded as any other sport in magazines and newspapers.
Without Haiseiko who knows if this rebranding would’ve taken place at a later date, or in the same shape, who knows if the tale of Oguri Cap mirroring many of Haiseiko’s traits would’ve been noticed.
Without him I wouldn’t be here writing about that tale and how it finally made sense of a cultural aspect that Uma Musume opened my eyes to that has intrigued me for two years now.
And without that, a certain unknown mare from 1994 would’ve probably vanished into oblivion as just a random name in a pedigree registry.
