If nothing went wrong… this was the moment Winning Ticket might finally awaken her ultimate skill.
Her ultimate skill was too easy to awaken in this world. If she hadn't awakened it in previous races, it only meant her opponents before had been too weak. This time's opponents were stronger, which should trigger it.
After awakening her skill, Winning Ticket would have a sure win.
Biwa Hayahide turned her gaze back to the track below.
The race had already entered the mid-phase. The competitors were beginning to enter the corners.
The race pace was extremely fast. Narita Taishin was in second place from the back, while Winning Ticket was positioned in the middle of the pack.
Because of the runners, the entire race had been in a fierce runaway state from the start. None of the Uma Musume wanted to fall too far behind the front, so they could only push forward aggressively, burning their stamina.
"Damn it, the pace is still too fast." Winning Ticket's voice came through the broadcast, barely audible over the crowd noise.
Despite being separated by a large distance from the front, she'd been working hard to stay calm and conserve energy.
"Not bad, Tickezo. You actually know how to conserve your stamina properly. You understand race conditions well." Narita Taishin was right behind her, sounding even calmer.
As the race came to the straight corner, even though the leaders were more than ten lengths ahead, Narita Taishin and Winning Ticket still decided to hold back and conserve stamina.
"Don't be hasty, you two..." Biwa Hayahide's fists clenched, then slammed hard against the spectator railing with a dull thud. She was anxious for both of them, her body tense. Hayato's reminder was indeed correct.
The runaway tactic was extremely disadvantageous for both of them right now.
However, this wasn't the first time seeing this tactic play out. Not everyone could be like Hayato's three uma musume, using a full runaway and still holding out until the end. Most would collapse before the finish line.
It was basically a nine-out-of-ten loss gamble.
As long as they could stay calm, they could win this race.
Hayato continued explaining the race to Seiun Sky and the others, his voice cutting through the ambient noise. "If a race has two or more evenly matched runners competing, they'll definitely consume large amounts of stamina fighting for first position and easily become impatient. Remember this well: either don't compete at all, or if you compete, compete thoroughly. No half measures."
Concepts like stamina management and impatience were still new to Seiun Sky and the others. She furrowed her brow slightly as she tried to understand them. Beside her, Biwa Hayahide looked even more confused.
She was completely out of her depth listening to this.
"What is impatience?" Unable to hide her curiosity, she finally asked.
"Your trainer never told you?" Seiun Sky's expression shifted to one of exaggerated disbelief, as she'd just heard something absurd.
She clearly remembered Hayato saying this was common knowledge that all Uma Musume and trainers knew. She didn't actually believe that, just wanted to mess with Biwa Hayahide a bit.
"Oh, impatience is a manifestation of psychological changes uma musume experiences on the racetrack. Also called impulsiveness." Hayato was happy to explain it to her, his tone shifting to something more educational.
"Uma musume becomes anxious and enters an excited state, raising their running rhythm to an unnecessary degree. This wastes stamina unnecessarily."
As a wisdom-type Uma Musume, Biwa Hayahide probably hadn't encountered that situation yet. Her racing style was too calculated for that. Impatience consumed stamina. Increasing wisdom could effectively prevent its trigger probability. More mature Uma Musume also triggered it less frequently.
Possessing the "Victory Formula" and making various calculations in advance, Biwa Hayahide would never become impatient under normal circumstances, unless her calculations were wrong. As long as her projections were off, she'd definitely feel it.
The current trigger conditions were no longer random but actual psychological states. For example, in the current race, because the runaway tactic had appeared, quite a few Uma Musume were feeling a bad mood building up. This was impatience.
Or being unable to secure the lead position, or having too small a gap with second place could also easily trigger impatience.
Hayato continued explaining further to them. "Seiun, if you compete with Suzuka for the lead position, you'll know what I mean. You'll lose nine times out of ten because you can't out-compete Suzuka in a straight fight."
"Trainer, then how do you know whether you can out-compete an opponent?" Seiun Sky asked casually, though genuine curiosity colored her voice. She really didn't know how Hayato derived all this data.
"That's something you have to judge for yourself through experience. You're different from Suzuka." Hayato gestured toward where Silence Suzuka stood. "Her skills mainly activate when leading, so she has to compete in every race. But most of yours are general-purpose skills, so it's fine even if you use pace-chaser tactics instead of front-runner."
In a race, if one or two front-runners appeared, Hayato would still advise Seiun Sky to use runaway tactics, unless she encountered uma musume like Silence Suzuka or Maruzensky, whom she absolutely couldn't out-run from the start.
Otherwise, at least four or more front-runners would have to appear before he'd advise Seiun Sky to switch to Pace-Chaser tactics.
The reason was simple. When four or more front-runners appeared, the pressure on runner Uma Musume would be enormous. It would be thankless hard work; it would be better to watch the chaos from behind them.
"Wait, wait." Biwa Hayahide's hand came up. "What are these 'skills' you keep talking about? Can you stop saying things I don't understand? My head's getting big here!"
"Your trainer never taught you?" Seiun Sky looked at her like she was looking at some kind of strange creature. Are you even a real Uma Musume?
"Um...?"
"Didn't you listen carefully in class at school?"
"Uh... was there?" Biwa Hayahide fell into thought, her expression growing distant as she tried to remember.
"Yo, entering the corner now. Focus on the race." After finishing teasing her, Seiun Sky's attention snapped back to the track below.
The dejected Biwa Hayahide shook her head vigorously twice, her hair whipping around. Then she suddenly blurted out, "I never said my head was getting big."
"Nobody said it... You did tho..." Seiun Sky didn't even look at her.