You might’ve noticed that the Uma Musume girls tend to have big ornaments in or near their ears. This is actually important.
Sometimes the accesories might be a part of the bigger picture of their design, but the bottomline is this: If they have it on their left ear (right from the viewer’s side) then the real horse the girl is based on was female, and if it’s on their right ear (left from the viewer’s side) then the real horse was male.
This is usually how notable NPC girls are identified. For example, Happy Meek was clearly based on a white horse, this opens up a big list of prospects, including many modern examples like Almond Eye… except, Meek has an accesory on her right ear, which immediately narrows the list considerably, and then you cross off all the girls based on white horses already in the cast and the list is even smaller. Which is why the current standing theory is that Meek is based on Hakutaiyuu, the first ever white horse registered as a racehorse.
We’ll talk about that in more detail another day, but you get the picture.
Some designs can’t be discerned at a glance though. For example, Daiwa Scarlet’s hair is really busy already, but she does have a ribbon on her left ear. Agnes Digital is tricky but you can see that the right side is more colorful than the left one, Taiki Shuttle doesn’t have anything near her ear, but she does have a star hairpin on her right side.
Then you see Fine Motion.
And you might think to yourself: “What? Both sides? Is she hermaphrodite?”
Yes!
No, I’m not joking, that is actually the case.
The real life Fine Motion is a mare, but she’s also a vestigial hermaphrodite. This means that while her body is that of a mare, her chromosome composition isn’t quite so (hence “vestigial”), which makes her sterile.
There is a certain tragedy to this, in a field where passing down genes is the main way to form a legacy, for a mare to be sterile is to have that legacy end then and there.
They actually weaved this sort of story really interestingly into her character, but that’s a story for another day.
Another design detail I forgot to mention is that if a girl uses shorts in their non G1 racing outfits or their gym clothes then the real horse was male, and if they use bloomers they’re female.
So you see Fine Motion, symmetrical hair accesories and bloomers. A hemaphrodite mare that was still a mare nonetheless.
The girls’ choice of wearing stockings or tights or nothing during a race is just an individual thing though.
As is whether or not their gym clothes are buttoned up.
Or if they run with their hands in fists or open palms.
Pay attention to those details, you will be rewarded.
