So this is a term that I’ve mentioned a lot when it comes to Special Week, and it will be relevant in the next few posts… but what does it refer to?
Well, the short of it is that the Golden Generation (最強世代) refers very specifically to the Generation of horses born in 1995 that (obviously) turned 3 years old in 1998, where they’re in the “Classic” category, not yet Senior horses, but also not Junior horses.
Generations are often separated by when their Classic year happens, which it’s why they’re also known as the “98 Generation” instead of the “95 Generation”. It’s also why the girls in Road To The Top are the “99 Generation” despite the 1998 horses also running in 1999.
And this overlap is part of what makes the year 1998 so special. It’d already be one hell of a loaded year just with the horses considered part of this generation, but then you need to account all the carryovers from 1997, from Silence Suzuka, Mejiro Bright, Stay Gold some random horse that I’m sure won’t be relevant later, and Air Groove, to all the horses just making loud debuts like TM Opera O.
But even without the overlap, the generation alone was already impressive. Normally when there are booms in horse racing, it tends to focus on either just one horse or a trio of them taking the spotlight, but in 1998 there were many, MANY names throwing titles back and forth. And they all come from completely different and varied backgrounds too.
Just in Uma Musume alone we have (in very VERY short summary):
Special Week: Horse from the countryside with promising parentage (Maternal grandfather Maruzensky and father Sunday Silence) and a lot of potential but a relatively slow start.
Seiun Sky: A horse with a slacker streak that was considered by many to be a genetic dead-end (his father was a british horse that didn’t produce any good winners and threatened to bankrupt the ranch) and proved everyone wrong.
El Condor Pasa: Still considered by many as the strongest horse in Japanese horse racing with the potential to succeed Sunday Silence.
King Halo: Born from two of the most powerful horses in European horse racing and despite a slump he would become the one with the longest career out of them.
Grass Wonder: American horse considered second only to Special Week as leading horse of the generation… ironic considering it’s the one horse Special Week never won against.
And all that doesn’t even take into account all the other horses that haven’t been mentioned. Agnes World, Air Jihad, Meiner Love, Wing Arrow, Phalaenopsis, Shiva… Even beyond those that got famous for winning, there’s those tales of what-if, like Tsurumaru Tsuyoshi who was descended from Symboli Rudolf like Toukai Teio and yet never got any major victories from having a sickly body.
Fun fact, Cyberagent’s (Cygame’s parent company) CEO has gone on record saying that Toukai Teio and Meiner Love are his favorite horses.
The amount of victories was so notorious, in fact, that they weren’t limited to just Japan, 1998 was the year where the rest of the world became more aware of the strength of Japanese horse racing.
Horse racing will always have its Main Characters, and the interesting tales happening to the sidelines. It’s easy to argue that the Golden Generation doesn’t have the strongest horse, and the arguments of who the strongest horse is are varied and subjective.
But it is the strongest generation. The first time where it truly felt like anyone could take any title at any point.