"Are you still worried about the Youth Crown Cup? With your ability, you can definitely win," Oguri Roman's ears twitched. She turned her head towards the source of the voice and saw that it was indeed the young man who liked to wear a training cap.
"Kitahara..." The man who had come was none other than Kitahara Jo, the trainer who had been in charge of Oguri Cap's early and late career.
Having been through Oguri Cap's entire career, he had become much more stable. Having seen the big world at the central academy, he would no longer be startled by a mere local graded stakes race. From his current perspective, the failure in the previous Shunen Stakes was just an accident. Oguri Roman was a horse girl with the qualifications to be on the G1 stage. In the local races, she would definitely sweep away all her opponents just like Oguri Cap had.
However, he also understood why she was so nervous. He sat down beside her and said, "The Youth Crown Cup was the race where Oguri Cap first came to prominence, and it was the race that truly brought her onto the stage."
"I still remember that day. The Youth Crown Cup back then was only a semi-graded stakes level race. Oguri Cap showed an amazing late-stage burst of speed a hundred meters before the finish line and surpassed Fuji Masa March in one fell swoop."
"It's hard to imagine, right? This is a dirt race where it's much more difficult to use a late-stage burst of speed, yet she was still able to unleash such power."
As he spoke, a nostalgic expression appeared on his face. Beside him, Oguri Roman couldn't help but follow his narration back to that era full of miracles. When she was still young, she had also watched this race on TV. At that time, her parents had told her that a powerful older sister had appeared in their relatives and had pulled her to watch TV.
That was her first encounter with Oguri Cap. From that day on, she knew that she had such an amazing horse girl in her distant relatives. After that, she had always followed Oguri Cap's performance on the track and had even gone to see her several times with a Kasamatsu-exclusive Oguri Cap doll. From Kasamatsu to the central circuit, from the local races to the Arima Kinen, she had followed Oguri Cap through almost her entire career. That ash-haired figure on the track was like a bright light that illuminated her life. When many people chose to give up because of how unreliable Kasamatsu Tracen was, whenever she felt pain and fatigue, Oguri Cap's figure would appear before her, illuminating the path ahead. For her, Oguri Cap was her guiding star.
So the Youth Crown Cup was special to her. It was her first encounter with Oguri Cap. But whenever she thought of winning the race, that figure would always appear in her mind. That figure who had left the other horse girls hundreds of meters behind with an unstoppable force, the shining figure that had pulled her out of her dejection from the Shunen Stakes, would now be her greatest enemy.
Lately, at night, she would always toss and turn in bed. Could she really win against such a terrifying opponent? Could she really win?
As if sensing the anxiety hidden in her eyes, Kitahara pondered for a moment before he continued, "Tell me again, why did you step onto the racetrack?"
Hearing his voice, the lost-in-thought Oguri Roman subconsciously told him about her admiration for Oguri Cap. After listening quietly, Kitahara looked at the calm river opposite the lawn and said slowly, "I also became a trainer because of Oguri Cap."
Oguri Roman's ears perked up. This was the first time she had heard him personally tell the story between him and Oguri Cap. "Back then, as a rookie, I was a wishful-thinking fool. I thought that the horse girls at Kasamatsu had no fighting spirit, but I didn't know that my own heart was already higher than the sky."
"But even as such a fool, I think I did one thing right, and that was wanting to cultivate a new star. A new star who could respond to any expectation, who was extremely charismatic."
"It was because of this reason that I was able to discover Oguri Cap."
He paused for a moment before continuing, "She was the same as I, and as you, saw. A star who could shine on the racetrack, who could respond to any expectation everyone gave her, a star who carried everyone's hopes."
"Many people walked down this path because of her, and were able to persevere on this path because of her."
Hearing this, Oguri Roman's ears drooped slightly. She mumbled, "You mean, my existence is not special?"
Seeing her misunderstand his words due to her low self-esteem, he quickly said, "No, what I mean is that so many people were able to pull themselves together because they felt Oguri Cap's light."
"That brilliance did not give everyone pressure, but the motivation to move forward!"
"You are so, I am so, everyone is so. It's because we witnessed the brilliance, because we admired the brilliance, because we were about to come into contact with the brilliance, that we gritted our teeth and walked step by step, right?!"
He stood up and said loudly, facing the sparkling river under the sunset, "In everyone's eyes, Kitahara Jo is an excellent trainer from the central academy. But in my eyes, he's just a silly kid who was attracted by Oguri Cap's light!" With that, he turned around and pointed at her, shouting, "In your eyes, Oguri Roman is just an ordinary person who stepped onto the racetrack because of her admiration for Oguri Cap. But in my eyes—"
"Oguri Roman is a horse girl who can shine with her own brilliance! She also has her own ideals and pride, a respectable horse girl!"
Oguri Roman's eyes were a little dazed. She hadn't been listening carefully to his words. Instead, she was looking at the finger pointing at her, a sense of pride and glory from coming into contact with a legend welling up in her heart. Is this the trainer of the Miracle Generation? Oguri Cap's trainer was encouraging her right in front of her. This fact made her silently clench her hands. The Oguri Cap she admired, the Oguri Cap she looked up to, had grown into a legend in this kind of environment.
She shot up from her seat and, mimicking him, shouted at the river, "I am Oguri Roman! I will definitely become the winner of the Youth Crown Cup!" She would win. Even if her opponent was the powerful Celestial Weave, she would walk down this path of glory, following the figures of the legends, following the figures of Kitahara Jo and Oguri Cap, step by step into that shining future, into the world she admired.
The starting point of glory, the Youth Crown Cup, was about to begin.
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