Even though this post is about one horse, we need to talk about that horse’s father first.
There’s a Canadian throughbred called Northern Dancer. I don’t have the space in this post to explain why he’s a big deal, but let me put it this way: This is a horse that was inducted into the Canadian SPORTS Hall of Fame in 1965 and THEN was inducted into both the Canadian and American Horse Hall of Fame in 1976.
Its bloodline includes names such as Nijinsky (Maruzensky‘s father), Sadler’s Wells (El Condor Pasa’s father), Nice Dancer (Nice Nature’s father), Topsider (Shinkou Windy’s grandfather), Try My Best (Satono Crown and Meishou Dotou’s great-grandfather), Lyphard (Dancing Brave’s father, King Halo’s grandfather), Nureyev (Jungle Pocket’s maternal grandfather)…
And the focus of this post, Northern Dancer’s piece with Sex Appeal: El Gran Señor.
…no, wait. Northern Taste. That one.
Northern Taste was born in Canada from Lady Victoria and Northern Dancer. And was put for auction at the Saratoga Race Course of New York. The winner of the bid would be Teruya Yoshida, son of Zenya Yoshida and current president of the Shadai Group, who would win this descendant from Northern Dancer for 100.000 USD (about 30.8 million yen at the time).
When calling to announce he won the bid, Zenya Yoshida asked his son what he would like to have to celebrate when he gets back, to which Teruya admitted to wanting sushi.
Sushi means fish, and with the father of the new acquisition being Northern Dancer it brought to mind the idea of “the Taste of the North”.
And thus, Northern Taste got its name.
Right afterwards, this Canadian horse purchased by a Japanese man in the US… was moved to race in France. And its performance was admittedly not the best. He did win one G1 in the Prix de la Forêt, but the main intention was to use Northern Taste to bring Northern Dancer blood into Japan.
Which I should point out as an important detail: There’s an argument to say Northern Dancer is more prominent in the game cast’s bloodlines, but he wasn’t directly imported to Japan, and this is a game about Japanese horse racing after all.
Its arrival wasn’t without its ridicule, though. Northern Taste was a really small horse, prompting other ranches to call it a dog or joke that the Shadai farm went all the way to the US to buy a really expensive goat. Though the horse was picked because his body and musculature were the best in the auction by Yoshida’s evaluation, an evaluation that would be proven right since the horse would remain very youthful until its death.
Of course, the detractors would soon eat their words, because Northern Taste’s true legacy lies… in its legacy.
Northern Taste was titled as Japan’s leading Sire (that is “Leading horse fathering other winners”) from 1982 to 1988 and 1990 to 1992 (for those curious, the title went in 1989 to Mill George, Inari One’s father)… however, he held the title of Leading Broodmare Sire (that is “Most prominent maternal grandpa”) uninterrupted from 1990 to 2006.
Northern Taste died in 2004 by the way, death didn’t stop the accolades from coming.
While the influence of Northern Dancer’s blood is undeniable (as seen above with all the notorious descendants), Northern Taste specifically seemed to add something extra to it. It was said that Northern Taste’s descendants “grow three times”. With the aforementioned youthfulness and musculature showing in many of its offspring, especially (as shown by its undefeated title in the matter) in its female descendants.
Beyond this, though, Northern Taste was noted to be a very placid horse, befriending many cats around the ranch and even getting his own paddock where he could enter and exit at any time.
But like it’s often the case, its death caused a very particular vacuum of power. Its bloodline was so prominent by then that between him and many other pieces, the Northern Dancer blood saturated Japanese horses.
Let’s put it this way to illustrate: As of this writing (and I need to stress that out because with the Anniversary close by this statement will be obsolete in less than a week) 16 out of the currently announced 105 girls in the game have Northern Taste blood.
For those curious, they are:
- Daiwa Scarlet (Maternal Grandpa, via Scarlet Bouquet)
- Air Groove (Maternal Grandpa, via Dyna Carle)
- Mejiro Ryan (Paternal Grandpa, via Amber Shadai)
- Sakura Bakushin O (Maternal Grandpa, via Sakura Hagoromo)
- Tosen Jordan (Maternal Grandpa, via Every Whisper)
- Mejiro Dober (Paternal Great-Grandpa, via Mejiro Ryan)
- Machikane Tannhauser (Father)
- Ikuno Dictus (Maternal Grandfather, via Dyna Landing)
- Kitasan Black (Maternal Granfather’s Maternal Grandfather, via Sakura Bakushin O)
- Mejiro Ardan (Paternal Grandfather, via Aswan)
- Mejiro Bright (Paternal Great-Grandpa, via Mejiro Ryan)
- Narita Top Road (Father’s Maternal Grandfather, via Soccer Boy)
- Aston Machan (Father’s Maternal Grandfather, via Admire Cozzene)
- Hishi Miracle (Father’s Maternal Grandfather, via Soccer Boy)
- Rhein Kraft (Mother’s Maternal Grandfather, via Dyna Shoot)
- Air Messiah (Maternal Grandfather, via Air Deja Vu)
Which then brings up a good question: How the hell do you adapt this horse into something like Uma Musume if at all?
One girl having her father in the cast is already a big deal. Maruzensky having at least 4 grandkids in the cast qualifies her as “everyone’s senpai” as a character trait. Now multiply that by 4 (minus the one direct descendant in Machikane Tannhauser).
How do you multiply Universal Senpai by 4? It’d need to be like… everyone’s grandma to fit the role I guess.
But she’d also need to be small, and very youthful, and be in a position where her presence is felt but not intrusive…
How the hell would one do that?