"Keep it up, Kireijun! You've only got one kilometer left to the target!"
The man kept cheering Kireijun on from beside her. He rode his scooter while repeatedly glancing down at his watch. They had been working this hard all for one reason: her return in this year's November G3 dirt race, the Keijō Stakes.
After finishing sixth in last year's Dirt Champions Cup, Kireijun had spent nearly a full year recovering from injury.
As a horse girl who debuted during her classic year, winning six races in a single year—two of them G3 graded stakes—already placed her among the best ranks of dirt horse girls. It was only that her first year as an older horse had been spent almost entirely in rehabilitation, which had somewhat dimmed her glow.
Kireijun was running much faster than Dyna. When she passed by, she showed a trace of surprise at seeing a horse girl without horseshoe spikes on her shoes.
Grandma?
That was the first word that popped into Dyna's head.
Kireijun was that famous "high-school grandma," after all. And the trainer beside her... the strongest impression Dyna had of Kireijun was probably that business about being whipped forty-six times.
Kireijun herself did not pay much attention, too focused on training. It was the trainer on the electric scooter who slowed down and studied Dyna a little more closely.
Ever since Kireijun had begun her rehab, Wada had been by her side the whole time. Opera O was not much help when it came to dirt-track training, so lately both she and Meisho Doto had mostly vanished from sight. He had heard that Opera O had even gone to the bakery outside the academy and ordered a meal under his name once. No wonder she had come back with so much dry bread the other day.
"You're... that boss lady, aren't you?"
Wada spoke first. He had heard the horse girls talking about her so often that even just from their descriptions, he could recognize her now.
"Huh? So this trainer actually knows me? Is the horse girl up ahead the one under your care?"
Dyna wiped the sweat from the side of her face with her palm. At the moment, her pace more or less matched the scooter's.
Wada gestured for Kireijun to keep running ahead, while he slowed down to stay on the same line as Dyna.
"Yeah. Opera O's mentioned you more than once. And a couple days ago she even went to your place to buy something, right? Though it sounds like she may have caused a bit of trouble."
"Opera O... Ah, then you're Trainer Wada!"
Once she heard Opera O's name, of course she remembered the man attached to it. This was the trainer Opera O had hard-carried!
At the utterly matter-of-fact tone in her voice, the corner of Wada's mouth twitched invisibly in the shadows. Sure enough, everyone's first impression of him was still the same. He still was not used to it.
"Yeah, that's me... If Opera O caused you any trouble back then, let me apologize in her place first."
"It's nothing like that. Just giving my business a visit is already something I'm grateful for~ I shouldn't keep interrupting Trainer Wada and Miss Kireijun's training, should I?"
Dyna pointed toward Kireijun in the distance. She did not particularly want to chat with Wada for too long right now.
It was not that she disliked him. Rather, Dyna simply felt she was interfering with his training time with Kireijun. Wada gave off an easygoing, gentle sort of presence. Probably because he did not have the kind of outstanding talent other Central trainers possessed—but he treated horse girls extremely well.
Wada still seemed to want to say something, but since she had already put it that way, he naturally took his leave and sped up again to follow Kireijun farther ahead.
"So the average training speed of Central horse girls is this much higher than mine... Looks like I really need to work harder."
Kireijun's back had already vanished from sight. Dyna stopped under a roadside tree to catch her breath, only to turn and see Cody's Wish standing in the middle of the path, her gaze still lingering in the direction Kireijun had gone.
"That gray-haired horse girl has pretty good dirt-track talent, and she's more of a late bloomer. Her stride frequency is a bit faster than normal—probably because she's used to a tactic where she presses right up against the front-running horse girls from a stalking position."
Cody's Wish had figured all that out from a single brief encounter, which left Dyna a little stunned.
Then Cody's Wish explained, "Stride rhythm is easy enough to see. And the force she puts into each step is far greater than what I've seen from turf horse girls, because dirt is looser, and the technique it requires is different from turf."
On the road, Cody's Wish stepped forward with her left leg, lifting herself slightly onto the balls of both feet to demonstrate.
"Look. This is a posture dirt horse girls absolutely need to memorize from the beginner stage onward—reduce the area of contact with the dirt to conserve stamina. The greater the area that touches the dirt, the more your force gets dispersed into the loose sand."
Realization dawned on Dyna. She imitated the posture seriously.
"If that's the case, then a technique like gripping the dirt with the front of the foot is really about creating a platform under your step that won't let the force scatter away, right?"
This was a technique Oguri Cap had once learned under Kitahara Jō. Back then it had seemed kind of absurd, but now that Cody's Wish had explained it, Dyna finally understood the logic behind it.
"Exactly. It's a basic technique, but an extremely practical one. Too bad it stops being useful in rainy weather."
After the demonstration, Cody's Wish continued accompanying Dyna as she exercised. Since Cody's Wish herself never felt physical fatigue, staying beside Dyna and chatting all the while was pleasant enough.
"So dirt racing really is more troublesome, huh? Turf racing doesn't seem to have nearly as many detours."
"That's only because you haven't seen enough. Turf in rainy weather isn't any easier than dirt. I've heard turf horse girls mention that if you're running from behind, you also have to be extremely careful about mud and grass roots flying back from the horses ahead of you. Dirt doesn't have weird stuff like that."
As Cody's Wish listed off the differences between the two surfaces one after another, Dyna's eyes slowly started spinning in circles again.
She kept running until she reached the end of the embankment. Sitting down on the grass and looking at the clear flowing water in front of her, she wanted to find a pebble to toss into the river—but the turf was so soft she could not find a single stone.
"I think you've got the kind of feet that can run dirt too. Have you ever thought about being a dual-surface runner?"
Cody's Wish sat beside Dyna, both legs neatly together and turned elegantly to one side, the lazy little blue bird nestled in her lap.
Dyna shook her head and declined first.
"Let me focus on learning turf properly first~ Since Miss Cody's Wish thinks I can run dirt too... then in the future I'll just go straight into top-level dirt races!"
"That's ambitious. Good for you. Have you thought about what kind of training help you want to find? No matter how hard you work by yourself, that alone really isn't enough to stand on the very best stage. At the very least, you need someone to help design a plan for you."
"I've been thinking about that too... There are just too few truly reliable professionals. Honestly, I was wondering... maybe I could ask Trainer Nanzaka?"
Dyna pressed a fingertip to her lips, picturing that trainer who wore formal clothes everywhere and had absolutely no status in his own team.
Every single horse girl on Alrasha's team could bully him!
"Wada would be good too, wouldn't he?"
Wada was a genuinely kind man, and not very good at refusing other people's requests.
If she only asked him to design a training plan for her, that actually sounded pretty good.
Of course, it would be a transaction. Dyna intended to offer proper compensation in return.
Right now, if there was one thing she had, it was money.
Spending a few tens of thousands of euros in exchange for that kind of plan honestly seemed like an excellent deal.
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 178)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 115)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League ( 126 )
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter110)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter108)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter82)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter144)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 70
From Junkman to Wasteland 66
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 46
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 99
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 65
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 95
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass 99
The Way the Umamusume Look at 68
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 92
Naruto: Weaving the Future, Be 65
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 76
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 66
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 65
Uma Musume: The Dark Trainer 47
Uma Musume: A Calamity Born fr 44
I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player 43
The Violent Girl Group Is Beat 26
Uma Musume: The Horse Girl Who 32
Uma Musume: From Beginner 26
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