Chapter 48. Gate Positions
Monday — this week was Yasuda Kinen race week. If Grass Wonder hadn't suffered a crushing defeat in the previous Keio Hai Spring Cup, Shuta An was sure Tojo Hana would have had Grass Wonder run in the Yasuda Kinen. However, now Grass Wonder could only look for form in the academy to prepare for the Takarazuka Kinen, so Shuta An knew his opponents would be Daitaku Helios and Daiichi Ruby. Neither of these two was easier to deal with than Grass Wonder on the mile track.
"Thinking about it, Dober choosing the Yasuda Kinen could be seen as choosing an even more difficult path." Sitting on an office chair in the activity room, Shuta An crossed his legs and muttered to himself in front of the photographer.
"The Yasuda Kinen is also Miss Mejiro Dober's first challenge in a senior year mile race, isn't it?" the director asked.
"Indeed." Shuta An looked up and glanced at him, "I gave her a choice between the Takarazuka Kinen and the Yasuda Kinen, and she chose the latter."
The young man stood up, walked to the whiteboard, marked Tokai Teio as being on vacation, then circled Mejiro Dober's name.
"This week, the focus will only be on Dober. The final fast work can be a bit more restrained."
He muttered, simply writing down some questions on the whiteboard that he needed to think about carefully this week —
"Characteristics of the Tokyo 1600-meter turf course, opponents' race preferences, how to execute tactics with different gate positions, and what next race to choose based on the results?"
Questions like these filled half the whiteboard for Shuta An.
Shuta An only stopped when Kurofune and Rice Shower entered the activity room.
"Today's morning training intensity can be lowered a bit — I'm talking about Rice Shower. Kurofune, just maintain the previous training intensity."
The young man turned back to give a tip, then faced the whiteboard again, frowning deeply.
After winning the Japanese Derby, Tokai Teio experienced even more fervent adoration than after winning the Satsuki Sho.
"I don't even dare to leave the academy anymore. If I go to the supermarket, a hundred people will ask me for an autograph or photo."
Teio complained to Shuta An, sprawled on the coffee table.
Although there were cameras from the production crew all around, the Uma Musume didn't care at all. She knew that if these cameras captured inappropriate footage, her Trainer would ask the production crew to delete it. Complaining now wouldn't cause any negative impact.
"There's nothing to be done, Teio, you have to get used to it."
Shuta An shrugged, "This is the price of becoming a superstar. Especially for you, Teio, who just achieved an undefeated two-crown. You're even more adored than other G1 winning Uma Musumes."
"If this level of intensity is already difficult for you to adapt to, what will you do when you win the Kikuka Sho and achieve the Undefeated Triple Crown?"
The young man spoke about the autumn races in front of Tokai Teio for the first time.
"I've never thought about that kind of problem."
Tokai Teio remained motionless on the coffee table, muttering,
"I only thought about following in the Kaichou's footsteps and becoming a Undefeated Triple Crown Uma Musume, but I didn't expect that just halfway there, my fans' adoration would already be making it difficult for me to adapt."
"There's no way around it. You just have to slowly adapt to this kind of thing, just like Oguri and Suzuka. They often get disturbed when they go out shopping. They used to be very unaccustomed to it, but now they've become skilled and can finish up in half a minute."
Shuta An used the two seniors from Team Sadalsuud as examples.
"Then I really have a lot to practice."
Teio pouted, making up her mind to ask Silence Suzuka on Line later how to deal with fans who might surge up to ask for her autograph at any time.
Using the first three days of this week and the key Symboli Rudolf had given him at the time, Shuta An successfully "spread" many of the skills he had gained in his Dream World to Mejiro Dober.
However, due to the race being on the weekend, they still maintained a bottom line and didn't cross it.
Even so, Taiki Shuttle had recently felt that her roommate was becoming increasingly strange.
"Do you think Dober's figure is a bit fuller than before?"
She spoke directly what was on her mind, and asked directly when she had a question.
This question, however, directly choked Mejiro Dober, who was practicing her drawing.
"What are you observing?!" Mejiro Dober rolled her eyes at her roommate, "I might have eaten a bit too much recently while preparing for the Yasuda Kinen—I'll lose weight during the summer break."
"For the Yasuda Kinen, do you need my help, Dober? I'm very familiar with the Yasuda Kinen course!" Taiki Shuttle patted her chest, causing a tremor.
"No need, I have my Trainer." Mejiro Dober directly refused.
"Hmm~ Dober's been getting colder lately." Taiki Shuttle rushed over, trying to hug her roommate.
Mejiro Dober stood up, nimbly avoiding her with her digital tablet in her arms, "Don't disturb my drawing practice—It's not that I dislike you. After the Yasuda Kinen, let's go shopping together in Minato Ward."
"Yay!"
Taiki Shuttle, who had missed her hug, was easily appeased like a child. She immediately walked out of the dorm cheerfully to wander around—
—
Meanwhile, Shuta An sat in his study at home, beginning to score last week's domestic Twinkle Series.
"According to custom, the Japanese Derby winning Uma Musume can get 120 points. Considering that this year's winning Uma Musume, Teio, performed exceptionally well, but it's not appropriate to give her an exceptionally high score so early, so let's give her 122 points here."
As an alternative, Shuta An lowered the scores of Uma Musume like Leo Durban—for example, under normal circumstances, second place could get a maximum of 119 points, but this time Shuta An only gave Leo Durban, who finished second, 117 points.
Although Leo Durban's Japanese Derby time didn't seem worse than previous Japanese Derby second-place finishers, in a situation where Tokai Teio couldn't be given an exceptionally high score immediately, the only way to maintain fairness was to temporarily lower Leo Durban's score.
"To get back to normal scoring, both Leo Durban and Tokai Teio have to work hard together—they both need to maintain their normal level, and then Teio should ideally become stronger than she was in the Japanese Derby. Only then will they be qualified to raise their scores, and Leo Durban's score can then be adjusted upwards accordingly."
After scoring, Shuta An also provided his reasons for lowering the scores of the second to fourth place finishers in the Japanese Derby.
"I hope everyone can understand what I mean," the young man thought.
—
Thursday — three days before the Yasuda Kinen.
This afternoon, as Mejiro Dober and Shuta An enjoyed afternoon tea in the activity room, the computer chimed — a new email notification.
Shuta An put down his teacup, stood up, and returned to his desk. He paused the movie playing on the projector, preparing to display the Yasuda Kinen gate draw results sent by the URA Association.
Like the Japanese Derby, this year's Yasuda Kinen also used the URA Association's computer draw. Although Teio's two wide draws had truly made the young man lose trust in the URA Association's computer, he couldn't do anything about it. He could only hold his nose and see what new tricks the URA Association was planning for the Yasuda Kinen.
"There are 18 Uma Musumes confirmed to compete in this Yasuda Kinen, which means all the starting gates are full."
Shuta Trainer frowned, looking at Dober, who was delicately eating a snack.
"This means, Dober, we can't use overly conservative tactics this time. When we're jostling for position at the start, we need to push forward a bit—"
At this point, Shuta Trainer suddenly stopped, his frown deepening: "No, no!"
He quickly denied his previous judgment,
"Daitaku Helios drew gate 5, which means she will inevitably easily secure the lead position in this race, and she will definitely set a very fast pace."
"So, it's a fast-paced race," Mejiro Dober interjected. "Perhaps staying at the back would be more suitable?"
"We can't stay too far back either; I think taking a mid-pack position might be best,"
Shuta Trainer said while looking for Mejiro Dober's starting gate.
A few seconds later, he got the answer: "Gate 9."
Seeing this starting gate draw result, the young man was quite satisfied: "Gate 9 is good. It allows for both offense and defense. Whether we go for an early lead or stay behind, it's maneuverable. It's a very suitable gate for Dober."
"It seems the URA Association didn't specifically manipulate the gates," Mejiro Dober looked at her lover. "Otherwise, I should have drawn gate 18 by now too."
"If they keep giving us the outermost gate, I'll really have a serious talk with the URA Association,"
Shuta Trainer chimed.
"The purpose of manipulating gates is nothing more than to hype up the race atmosphere. I feel like Teio will draw gate 18 again during the Kikuka Sho."
"If she wins three consecutive races from the outermost gate, Teio will definitely be even more highly praised," Mejiro Dober quickly understood. "So, the URA Association chose to arrange the gates this way?"
"During the Satsuki Sho, it should have been assigned by computer," Shuta Trainer paused. "But for the Japanese Derby, I don't quite believe the gates were assigned by computer."
"Anyway, Teio already won the Japanese Derby,"
Mejiro Dober leaned closer to the young man.
"Shuta Trainer~ should be paying more attention to me this week, right?"
"That's natural," Shuta Trainer wrapped his arms around her waist. "Tomorrow, I'll prepare a tactical analysis for Dober and plan her pace distribution."
"Once the Yasuda Kinen is over, we can look forward to summer vacation,"
Mejiro Dober snuggled contentedly in her lover's arms.
"This summer, I still want to go on an expedition, otherwise, if I'm always with everyone, it'll be hard for me to have alone time with Ann."
"There will always be time," Shuta rubbed her ear, the sensation so pleasant that he couldn't let go.
After sending Mejiro Dober out of the activity room, Shuta returned and carefully reviewed the starting gate draw results.
Gate 1 was Aotake Gekijo, who finished ahead of Grass Wonder in the Keio Hai Spring Cup.
Gate 2 was Movie Star, whose prototype Shuta had clashed with many times in the Dream World.
Gate 3 was a Uma Musume purely there for the participation subsidy, so she didn't need to be considered for now.
The opponent in Gate 4 was named White Stone, whom Mejiro McQueen had beaten several times.
Gate 5, Daitaku Helios, was undoubtedly the biggest favorite in this race. There was nothing much to say about the opponents in gates 6 and 7.
Gate 8, Kamino Cresse, won the Nikkei Shinshun Hai this year. Shuta wasn't sure why she was running a mile race instead of a more suitable middle-distance race.
Gate 9 was Mejiro Dober. The next highly popular opponent was Daiichi Ruby in Gate 16.
"A young lady from a prestigious family. The race between her and Dober will be a duel between young ladies."
Upon realizing this, a competitive thought emerged in Shuta's mind —
"We must thoroughly defeat Daiichi Ruby."
And when designing the tactics, Shuta incorporated this point into his consideration. As an Uma Musume who can run both sashi and senko, Shuta predicted that Daiichi Ruby's Trainer would choose to have Daiichi Ruby take a rear position after the start and run a chase tactic because she drew Gate 16.
"Then, Dober should indeed take a mid-pack position, even better if the order is something like 8-5," the young man first set the benchmark.
"Next, I need to research the pace Daitaku Helios set in all her previous mile races, and then use that to plan what pace Dober should use to execute her tactics."
This move was Shuta's exclusive secret technique at Central Tracen Academy, something others simply couldn't learn even they imitated it.
In the evening, after returning home, Shuta quickly ate dinner and went back to his study to continue working. He finally finished planning Dober's pace distribution.
"However, this pace distribution plan is based on the premise that Daitaku Helios will run at an extremely fast pace," the young man murmured to himself. "I don't know if Daitaku Helios will actually run at a fast pace."
Thinking of this, Shuta Trainer yawned, "I'll check the information later when I enter the Dream World and see how Daitaku Helios ran in the Yasuda Kinen in the Dream World."
The next morning, Shuta woke up with a relieved expression, "Sure enough, Daitaku Helios chose to lead at an ultra-high pace—33.9 seconds for the first 600 meters, 56.9 seconds for the first 1000 meters. But the ultimate winner was Yamanin Zephyr—" (Cheating, this is cheating. So, now Dober even race with 1992 generation. What a mess)
The young man recalled and immediately remembered — Yamanin Zephyr was the unlucky one who drew Gate 18, having narrowly lost to Grass Wonder by half a head in the Keio Hai Spring Cup.
"Even from the outer gate, she can win the Yasuda Kinen. Although her popularity is quite average now, Dober really needs to take her seriously."
Shuta wrote down Yamanin Zephyr's name, planning to mention her today when explaining tactics and notable opponents to Mejiro Dober.