Having found the roster he wanted, Kitahara didn't stick around the academy any longer. Instead, he followed the home addresses on the list and headed out to visit them.
The whole "conquering the world" thing sounds pretty over-the-top, but it really was his goal—or maybe just some fantasy he'd had before getting transported here.
Before his transmigration, he'd done his graduate studies in Japan, majoring in business.
During his time studying abroad, a good friend got him interested in horse racing, and he learned quite a bit about the sport.
After graduation, he ended up staying in Japan through a stroke of luck. That same friend inherited a ranch, and at his invitation, Kitahara joined the operation, handling the business side of things and organizing racing club activities—basically turning his hobby into a career.
In his spare time, he'd livestream his daily work routine online—taking care of horses, racing, that sort of thing. He'd also stream horse racing games like "Derby Owners Club" and "G1 Jockey," including "Uma Musume: Pretty Derby," that wildly popular mobile game that had become a national obsession.
The thing is, when he was playing those games, Kitahara never imagined he'd actually end up transported into the world of Uma Musume.
The setting of this world is exactly the same as in the original work, and the most famous 'Uma Musume' share the exact same names as the legendary racehorses from the other world.
And while the horse racing industry in his old world was purely competitive, here, it had transformed into an idol industry with a competitive flair.
Put simply, various outstanding horse girls competed in different races, which spawned an entire industry chain including merchandise, training, performances, and racetrack and training facility management.
Having been a ranch director and racing club chairman in his previous life, Kitahara was familiar with this kind of world.
With all that experience under his belt, everything except actually training horse girls (which was vastly different from raising horses) fell into his wheelhouse as "professional knowledge."
What a stroke of luck—the body he'd transmigrated into happened to belong to a trainer who specialized in coaching horse girls, which filled in the knowledge gap he had about actually training them.
Before his transmigration, Kitahara considered himself a hardworking person with enough talent to back it up. His goals had always been clear—otherwise he wouldn't have gotten into graduate school or earned his friend's trust and important responsibilities. So after arriving here over a month ago, he quickly settled on a new life goal.
"When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Might as well become an outstanding trainer."
To become an outstanding trainer, he'd naturally need to nurture outstanding horse girls. The first step toward that goal would be finding an exceptional horse girl.
If it came down to actually evaluating horses in person, Kitahara honestly didn't have much confidence.
After all, his strengths had always been in business and networking. His knowledge of horse evaluation was something he'd picked up along the way—his friend had always handled the horse selection.
Though he'd learned a lot through exposure, his eye was limited to picking decent regional horses. Ask him to spot a true champion, and he wouldn't have a clue.
Fortunately, he'd studied plenty of related materials and had exposure to games and anime. While he might not know about undiscovered gems, he knew those legendary, famous racehorses like the back of his hand.
And the horse girls in this world, whether famous now or not, happened to carry those brilliant names—which was his most crucial advantage.
All he had to do was roughly figure out the timeline, then look for the corresponding names. Finding horse girls whose talent and achievements weren't obvious yet but who were destined for greatness? Piece of cake.
Over the past month and change, after extensive investigation, he'd chosen exactly that type of horse girl.
"Oguri Cap."
Career record: 33 races, 22 wins, 6 seconds, 1 third. A hall-of-fame racehorse in Japan, universally recognized as one of the "Horse Kings," a legend in the public's eyes.
"This should be the place."
Following the address on the roster, he had taken a train from Kasamatsu Tracen Academy out to the countryside. After navigating through a cluster of run-down residential buildings, he eventually arrived at an old-fashioned, two-story apartment complex. Climbing to the second floor, he double-checked the apartment number. Kitahara felt confident he had found the right place.
Ding-dong, ding-dong.
After pressing the doorbell twice, Kitahara pulled his hand back and quietly surveyed his surroundings.
The timeline in this world was incredibly jumbled, and various daily life details gave off this time-warp vibe.
For instance, people used those red and white gaming consoles from the '80s and '90s for casual entertainment, but their communication devices were 21st-century smartphones.
This meant that when Kitahara was gathering information, he had to analyze things by combining the information gap between both worlds.
The apartment building in front of him had two floors of rental units lined up in a row. It looked pretty old and cheap—typical of the '80s, '90s style.
This lined up with the era when Oguri Cap was just born in that other world. Back then, Oguri Cap was born in 1985 and was active from the late '80s to the end of that decade.
Although this world's timeline wasn't 1985, the horse girls' active periods clearly corresponded to the timeline from that other world.
In the late 1980s, Japan alone had a dazzling array of legendary names: Tamamo Cross, Inari One, Oguri Cap, Nihon Pillow Winner (symbolized as 'Golden City'), Super Creek, Sakura Chiyono O, Mejiro Ardan, Yaeno Muteki, Bamboo Memory, and Daitaku Helios.
From overseas, there were also iconic racehorses who came to compete in the Japan Cup, including Tony Bin, Allez Milord, Miesque, Pay the Butler, Giant American (aka "Great Communicator"), Hawkster, Carroll House, Ibn Bey, and Horlicks.
It really was an era when legendary horses—no, make that incredibly talented horse girls—were born one after another.
So even among all those shining stars, what would Oguri Cap, who stood out brilliantly even in that dazzling crowd, actually be like? Would she be the same as in the games and anime...
While he'd never seen the original Oguri Cap horse before his transmigration, through the "Uma Musume" game, Kitahara had a pretty clear idea of what Oguri Cap looked like. He wasn't worried about not recognizing her when he met the actual horse girl—he was just full of anticipation.
As Kitahara was lost in thought, the door to the house opened, and out came a young woman.
More precisely, a horse girl who looked to be around thirty.
This horse girl had long silver-gray hair and quite beautiful features. Her expression carried some confusion, and the long ears on top of her head were slightly folded back.
In that other world, horses' ears could express emotions—like "airplane ears" when they were upset.
Anyone familiar with cats knows that when cats are unhappy, they'll put on "airplane ears." Horses do the same thing. When a horse's ears are pressed back against its neck, it means they're in a bad mood or on alert.
Horse girls were the same way. This horse girl in front of him had her ears folded back, clearly wary of the unfamiliar young man at her door.
Her tone was also cautious: "Um, excuse me, but who are you...?"
Kitahara quickly recognized her—this was Oguri Cap's mother, Shirayuki(aka White Narubi).
In that other world, Shirayuki was not only Oguri Cap's mother but had also been a racehorse herself. She had a career record of 8 races with 4 wins before retiring due to knee injuries. Her overall career performance was pretty decent for a regional horse.
It was the same in this world. To understand this world's Oguri Cap, Kitahara had studied lots of materials, including race footage of Shirayuki from back in the day.
"You're Ms. Shirayuki, right? Your three consecutive victories back then were absolutely magnificent." Shirayuki's last three wins had been consecutive victories—a record any horse girl would be proud of. By bringing this up right off the bat, Kitahara was both acknowledging her achievements and naturally trying to build rapport.
At the same time, he reached into his jacket, pulled out his trainer's credentials, and handed them over with both hands:
"Let me introduce myself. I'm Kitahara Yutaka, a trainer from Kasamatsu Tracen Academy. Here are my credentials."
"Nice to meet you. Please take care of me."
Kitahara's opening worked like a charm. Shirayuki's long ears clearly perked up, and her expression became much warmer.
"Ah, Mr. Kitahara! I can't believe you know about those old stories." A nostalgic expression appeared on her beautiful, dignified face, though her tone remained modest:
"Those victories back then were entirely thanks to my trainer's efforts. I just ran as hard as I could—I didn't really do anything else."
"Ah, it's too rude of me to keep you talking at the door. Please forgive me... Mr. Kitahara, please come in."
After handing back his credentials, Shirayuki stepped back and smiled as she gestured for him to enter.
Then, her face suddenly showed a hint of worry.
"I'm sorry if this sounds rude, but… you're a trainer from Kasamatsu? What are you doing all the way out here in a place like this?"
"Has little Oguri been causing trouble at the academy?"
"If that's the case, let me apologize for that child first."