Special Week

"Mom, watch me! I'll become Japan's number one horse girl!"

- Special Week

Special Week (スペシャルウィーク, Supesharu Wīku) is one of the three main protagonists of Uma Musume: Pretty Derby and the character used to promote Uma Musume as a whole. Despite her humble roots as a country girl, she dreams of becoming Japan's number one horse girl and defining that for herself.

Personality
A cheerful and honest hard worker born and raised in Hokkaido, Special Week is a country bumpkin who aims to make it big in the world of horse girls. After losing her birth mother, she was raised by an adoptive human mother who treated her with thoughtful care. Despite never growing up around other horse girls, this never deterred Special Week as she trained hard with her mother in order to be accepted into Tracen Academy, Japan's most prestigious horse girl training school. With the promise of becoming "Japan's number one horse girl" made to both her mothers, she wants to achieve her dreams through her guts.

In her daily school life, she is sensitive and encouraging, though she sometime has trouble making friends due to not being around many in her youth. She also happens to have a huge appetite because in most scenes we see her consuming large amounts of food in seconds. While her race performance is pretty great, her academic performance is less so and so she studies with Silence Suzuka, who is her roommate and object of admiration, and Tokai Teio, who is a year below her (how she passed the transfer examinations to go to Tracen Academy is a mystery). Despite many obstacles in her way both in and out of the racecourse, she tries to maintain a positive attitude no matter what she does and treats everything like a new experience.

Appearance
She is a loving, adorable horse girl slightly smaller and more overweight than average. She has bob hazelnut hair, white bangs and a plait across the back of her head with a lavender ribbon tied on it. She wears a bow with the same color on her right ear as well. Her eyes are rose purple and always seem to carry a joyful, excited expression.

Relationships

 * Silence Suzuka: Roommate. Special admires her.
 * IRL: Sunday Silence's foals. Their main jockey was Yutaka Take. They had never fought with.
 * Seiun Sky: Classmate. Rival at the Classics.
 * IRL: Rival at the Classics. Sky's main jockey was Norihiro Yokoyama, Take's rival.
 * Matches (SW/SS):
 * 1998 Yayoi Sho 1st/2nd
 * 1998 Satsuki Sho 3rd/1st
 * 1998 Japanese Derby 1st/4th
 * 1998 Kikka Sho 2nd/1st
 * 1999 Tenno Sho Spring 1st/3rd
 * 1999 Tenno Sho Autumn 1st/5th
 * King Halo: Classmate. Rival at the Classics.
 * IRL: Rival at the Classics.
 * Matches (SW/KH):
 * 1998 Yayoi Sho 1st/3rd
 * 1998 Satsuki Sho 3rd/2nd (1st: Seiun Sky)
 * 1998 Japanese Derby 1st/14th
 * 1998 Kyoto Shimbun Hai 1st/2nd
 * 1998 Kikka Sho 2nd/5th (1st: Seiun Sky)
 * 1999 Takarazuka Kinen 2nd/8th (1st: Grass Wonder)
 * 1999 Tenno Sho Spring 1st/7th
 * El Condor Pasa: Rival at the Derby and the Japan Cup.
 * IRL: Fought with only once. El Condol couldn't enter the Derby because of foreign-bred horse restrictions.
 * Matches (SW/ECP)
 * 1998 Japan Cup 3rd/1st
 * Grass Wonder: Rival at the senior class.
 * IRL: Rival at the Grand Prix. Special couldn't defeat him.
 * Matches (SW/GW):
 * 1999 Takarazuka Kinen 2nd/1st
 * 1999 Arima Kinen 2nd/1st
 * Montjeu (Broye): Opponent at the Japan Cup.
 * IRL: Opponent at the Japan Cup.
 * Matches (SW/Mj):
 * 1999 Japan Cup 1st/4th
 * Mejiro Bright: Rival at the senior class.
 * IRL: One year older. Bright was often placed in second when he fought with Special.
 * Matches (SW/MB):
 * 1999 Hanshin Dai Shoten 1st/2nd
 * 1999 Tenno Sho Spring 1st/2nd
 * 1999 Kyoto Dai Shoten 7th/2nd (1st: Tsurumaru Tsuyoshi)
 * 1999 Tenno Sho Autumn 1st/11th
 * 1999 Arima Kinen 2nd/5th (1st: Grass Wonder)
 * Tsurumaru Tsuyoshi: Classmate.
 * IRL: Fought once.
 * Matches (SW/TT):
 * 1999 Kyoto Dai Shoten 7th/1st
 * T.M. Opera O: A member of rival team.
 * IRL: Fought several times.
 * Matches (SW/TMO)
 * 1999 Kyoto Dai Shoten 7th/3rd (1st: Tsurumaru Tsuyoshi)
 * 1999 Arima Kinen 2nd/3rd (1st: Grass Wonder)

Season 1
Special Week is the main character of season 1. She was a simple country girl that lived in Hokkaido with her adoptive mother. But then moved to Tokyo alone and matriculated to Tracen Academy. Although her clumsiness is an obstacle to her confidence, she received an instant liking from the audiences after winning two races in a row. Under Trainer's guidance and training, she is taking steps closer to her goal to become Japan's best horse girl.

However due to Silence Suzuka's fracture injury, her performance in races drastically dropped as she focuses too much on Suzuka's recovery. Soon she realizes her fall and immediately sprung back into serious training.

She later won the Japan Cup against Broye (Montjeu without the licence) which allows her to claim the title as the best horse girl in Japan.

Songs

 * Watashi no Shirushi wa Daihonmei ◎ (Solo song)
 * Arigato kamisama (Solo song)
 * Fanfare for Future!
 * ENDLESS DREAM!!
 * Make Debut!
 * Grow Up Shine!
 * Special Record!
 * Find My Only Way
 * Hashire Uma Musume
 * Yume o Kakeru
 * GIRLS' LEGEND U
 * NEXT FRONTIER
 * Pyoitto♪Halleluyah
 * winning the soul
 * transforming
 * Never Looking Back
 * We are DREAMERS!!
 * Egao no Takaramono -Beyond The Future!-
 * Gaze on Me
 * Precious Star Dreamer
 * Ms. VICTORIA
 * DRAMATIC JOURNEY
 * Umapyoi Densetsu

Special Commentary

 * Requirement: Winning Japanese Derby
 * Reference: 1998 Japanese Derby, by Masaharu Miyake (Fuji TV)

Trivia

 * Like Oguri Cap, her appetite is big, she mostly appears with a swollen/bloated belly afterwards. After she weighed herself as she perceived she was starting get fat, she starts to go on a diet to maintain a healthy weight.
 * But the real horse was never very gluttonous nor had any weight problems.
 * Her favorite food is Carrot Salisbury Steak.
 * Her mother and herself both have a Hokkaido accent once they're back at their home.
 * Despite most of horses are born in Hokkaido in Japan, only Special Week speaks so in Uma Musume (until Hokko Tarumae's release).
 * Special week had 2 mothers, one who gave birth to her and one who took care of her. This was revealed in an episode of anime season 1.
 * Despite her admiration of Silence Suzuka in the project, he never raced against the other horse in real life. It's also well known that Special Week does not like ginger horses like Grass Wonder (which is shown in S2E8 of the anime, when he closed the rice pot after getting rice for herself, knowing that Grass Wonder was waiting to take some). So if he did meet Silence Suzuka in real life, he would probably not like him.
 * This admiration may come from the fact that both horses were ridden by the same jockey, Yutaka Take, and share the same father, Sunday Silence. These reasons also may influence why they are roommates.

Real Life
"The dream that remained till the end, winning the Japanese Derby! Yutaka Take, and Special Week have grasped the dream!"

- 1998 Japanese Derby, by Masaharu Miyake (Fuji TV)

Special Week is a racehorse in the end of 1990s. He was born in 1995, known as the Golden Age, and fought against many of the strongest rivals.

He was also a great studhorse. his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren won G1s, and have been succeeding his blood (most notably his daughters Cesario and Buena Vista).


 * His mother Campaign Girl died of a colic, five days after she bore him. He was wet-nursed by a draft horse.
 * Nippon Sodaisho (Great General of Japan) means the top-rated horse in Japanese-trained ones at the Japan Cup. Many horses were called so, however, most fans believe Special Week was the representative one.
 * When he was a foal, a New Zealander groom named Tina Price took care of him. She is supposedly the inspiration behind horse girl Special's foster mother.
 * His jockey Yutaka Take had won seven of the Eight Great Classics by 1997, but he couldn't win the Derby despite racing nine times. Special Week gave him the first Derby. So far, Yutaka has won six Derbies, the most in JRA jockeys, including more recently in 2022 with Do Deuce.
 * He died of falling down in pasturage on April 27, 2018. It was just after episode 5 of season 1 was aired.