- “It is hard to raise a horse, though, This tiny bay mare had been involved by circumstances that humans made, and had lived a stormy life. Please help her to live a peaceful life.”
- ―Yuko Miyahara, the chairman of Haru Urara Fund[1]
Haru Urara[2] was a racehorse that competed from 1998-2004. She ran in 113 races, all of them at Kochi Racecourse, and never won. Her career happened to coincide with the end of Japan's "lost decade" of financial recession, and the racecourse itself faced a high amount of debt. Despite her winless streak, or perhaps because of it, a "Haru Urara Boom" saved the racecourse before her career ended.
Before Boom[]
Haru Urara went unsold at auction, and so Nobuta Farm took ownership of her. They entrusted her to the trainer Dai Muneishi in Kochi. This was in part because Kochi was the cheapest racecourse in Japan to entrust a horse, and it was perhaps the only racecourse at which Urara stood a chance to win.
Urara, however, hated training, and it was difficult to make her wear a saddle. Muneishi trained her day by day until it was time for her maiden race.
Urara lost her maiden race, placing fifth out of five horses. She continued to race, sometimes placing as high as second, but never winning. After losing her 87th race in a row, race announcer Koji Hashiguchi took note of the oddity of the statistic. He sent Urara's record to national media outlets, where it was slowly picked up and spread nationwide.
During the Boom[]
The news of Haru Urara's record losing streak spread all over Japan. Interest in her streak led to increased attendance and wagers at Kochi Racecourse, where attendees gathered specifically to watch Haru Urara. Kochi Racecourse took advantage of the boom, with the wives of jockeys at the course making Haru Urara T-shirts and selling merchandise. Fans even used betting tickets from Urara losses as protective charms against car accidents. (当たらない means to not win but also to not crash.)
The boom, however, did annoy Haru Urara's initial owner at Nobuta Farm. This was in part because the farm was unable to profit from the boom itself, but also because Haru Urara's fame for her losing streak made her siblings unsalable.
- “To tell the truth, I don't want to see Urara's face. I've longed for her to win, but I gave up. These successive defeats aren't honors for breeder or owner.”
- ―Yoshihisa Nobuta, Tokyo Sports article[3]
In 2004, one of the top jockeys in JRA, Yutaka Take, came to Kochi to ride on Nobo True in the Kurofune Sho (Jpn3). While there, Take was asked to ride on Haru Urara, and he agreed. Take served as Urara's jockey in her 106th race. With Take's presence as jockey and the Urara Boom at its peak, Kochi Racecourse saw both record attendance and wagers, with 500 million yen in betting tickets sold.
After Urara lost, Kochi Racecourse retained the money from the many lost bets, and the racecourse was able to pay off its debts. The racecourse's fortunes have since turned around, becoming one of the most successful local racecourses in Japan. The 2021 Kurofune Sho eventually surpassed the sales record set on the day Yutaka Take rode on Urara.
After retirement[]
Haru Urara stopped racing after conflicts arose between KochI Racecourse and Mihoko Anzai, who convinced Kochi Racecourse to give her ownership of Urara for free. Kochi Racecourse ultimately accepted, hoping to run Urara's retirement race, but Anzai had ulterior motives and intended to take Urara away from Kochi. This led to a battle between Kochi Racecourse and Anzai, but Anzai ultimately took Urara away.
From 2004 until 2013, Anzai used Urara for a variety of legally and morally questionable schemes. This included a therapeutic organization established in Chiba[4] in 2006 that purported to make use of horses as part of the therapy process, and in 2009, she made claims that she intended to have Urara breed with Deep Impact or Stay Gold, and asked for donations from the public to help cover the the cost of their stud fees[5]. Nothing ever came of this plan and no such attempts at breeding ever took place.
Anzai moved Urara between farms for several years, eventually moving her to Matha Farm in Chiba in 2013, only to stop paying the farm fees for Urara's care in 2014. Matha Farm subsequently took ownership of Urara, and the farm and volunteers founded a fund to support Urara's care, helping her to recover from her years of being abused and neglected by Anzai. Urara resided in peaceful retirement at Matha Farm in the years since.
On July 10th, 2025, a post was made to inform people that they could support Urara by gifting refrigerated, highly palatable ryegrass for her[6]. With the Umamusume Global Server's boom, Urara had been receiving ryegrass from fans everywhere, including fans from overseas. Because there were so much ryegrass gifted by fans, the farm's caretakers shared the extra ryegrass with other retired horses. The Namabokuso Bank website was also overloaded from the abundance of people trying to gift ryegrass for Urara as a result.
Death[]
Urara passed away on September 9th, 2025 due to colic at the age of 29.[7] In the morning of September 8th, she didn't defecate which Yuko Miyahara, the representative of Matha Farm, found worrying. She called the vet to treat her and stayed by her side all night. But at dawn, her condition deteriorated rapidly and she passed away.
Yuko had expressed her grief, saying "Recently, more and more people have been coming to see Urara, not just from Japan but from overseas too. So it's truly a shame..." and "...she stuck to her stubborn ways right to the end. When she had colic, we needed to get her intestines moving, so yesterday we tried to get her to walk, but Urara said 'No, I don't want to walk'. But it's precisely because she was such a spoilt Urara that we have so many happy memories."
Trivia[]
- Horse races in Japan are divided into two types. One are the central horseracing events, held by JRA. The others are local events, held by prefectures or cities. Kochi horseracing is the latter. Haru Urara is only horse in Umamusume that never belonged to JRA.[Note 1] She had belonged to Kochi for all her racing life.
- Because Haru Urara only raced locally and never competed in graded races at the central level, she had no fixed racing silk. However, she became identifiable by her racing mask, which was white and pink, and decorated with Hello Kitty patches. In the race in which Yutaka Take rode on Urara, he wore a pink racing silk.
- Her father Nippo Teio is the model for Akitsu Teio in Cinderella Gray.
- In a 2004 episode of the American game show Jeopardy!, Haru Urara was the subject of a Jeopardy answer under the category "Long Shots": "Haru-Urara, a racehorse from this country, is winning hearts & minds even though she's lost over 100 races." (The correct question being, "What is Japan?")
- In 2016, a documentary movie ”The Shining Star of Losers Everywhere"[8] was released.
- In 2018, Haru Urara was featured on posters educating about traffic safety, and received a letter of thanks and 600kg of carrots from Kisarazu Police Station.
- “I'm Haru Urara.
Everyone, great to see you again.
Now I'm in Chiba, where I'm conforted to live.
Lifetime results: 113 runs, 0 wins.
I couldn't be "hit" for my life, and I need a favor of you.
Don't be hit by cars for your lives.”- ―Descriptions on the poster[9]
- In 2019, Urara joined an equine race Soft Keiba, or a soft racing event for retired horses, where she won. Fans and media say this is her first victory.[10]
- In 2021, Kochi horseracing held a "Thank you, Umamusume Special[Note 2]" race. At the race, the announcer Hashiguchi, who helped spread word of Urara across Japan, said "Trainers, thank you for loving Haru Urara."
- Following the global launch of Umamusume: Pretty Derby in June 2025, Haru Urara garnered new attention from international fans. This attention led to a massive influx of donations to Namabokuso Bank, which collects funds that go toward delivering high-quality rye grass to retired race horses. The spike in donations was so great that it temporarily crashed the website.[11]
Notes[]
- ↑ There are a few horses that transferred from local to JRA. Oguri Cap, Inari One, and Yukino Bijin.
- ↑ In Kochi horseracing, you can buy a race's naming right. This race was bought by an Umamusume fan.
References[]
- ↑ https://mf-urara.jimdo.com/
- ↑ Wikipedia
- ↑ Tokyo Sports note
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20060209051740/https://www.nikkei.co.jp/keiba/column/20040921200409211026.html
- ↑ http://baji.cocolog-nifty.com/okera/cat3389316/index.html
- ↑ https://x.com/tarutaru_mage/status/1943259707277480273
- ↑ https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/b0da17fd90c401bf04a08a573286524fd89975bd
- ↑ The All-Nighter Room official (Vimeo)
- ↑ Chiba Nippo
- ↑ ＜第１回 そふと女子会（GⅢ 16.00秒）＞ (YouTube)
- ↑ PC Gamer