Weeks ago, a game was released on Steam, where you train a team of “racehorses”: with the twist that they are anime girls. One of them terrorizes players and is based on a real horse that cost many people a fortune.
What kind of game is this? We are talking about Umamusume: Pretty Derby. The game was released on June 25, 2025 on Steam and is available for free to play there. Currently, Umamusume: Pretty Derby has around 37,000 players on Steam.
As players, you choose one of 42 “Umamusume,” which translates to horse daughters. You train them and let them race against 17 other “racehorses.” The game features gacha mechanics through which you pull new horse girls and improve their stats.
A trailer for the game can be viewed here:
Players love a completely unpredictable horse girl
What’s the deal with the loss? The horse daughters are based on real Japanese racehorses. This includes Gold Ship, who is currently driving players crazy. She is completely unpredictable:
- Sometimes she simply refuses to train, and whether she puts in any effort during a race (like the others) is also uncertain
- Often, Gold Ship just lazily hangs around in the last places, but when she wants, she can turn a race around at the last second
- She likes to celebrate her victory by delivering a dropkick to her trainer
Gold Ship is so unreliable and unique that players can’t help but love her:
- “i dont even play the game but seeing my tl full of comments like this about gold ship make me like them more and more,” says @skoomasupplier in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
In the subreddit for Umamusume, there is also a lot of love for the horse girl.
Her real-life counterpart was just as chaotic
Gold Ship has inherited her unpredictability from her real-life counterpart. The racehorse of the same name was notorious for its fluctuating performance. The peak of its performance occurred in a race in 2015.
After some phenomenal races where Gold Ship secured first place, the stallion suddenly showed no desire to continue. He fell far behind—too far to catch up. Thus, Gold Ship finished this race last, costing many who had bet on the horse a fortune.
- Gold Ship caused betting losses of 12 billion yen in one fell swoop. Today, that would be around 70 million euros.
In 2015, Gold Ship ended his career. As mentioned in another X-Post, he now lives in Hokkaido. Fortunately, he did not suffer any life-threatening injuries during his racing days.
Are you currently playing Umamusume: Pretty Derby? With special codes, you can get some additional items that should help you progress in the game. You can find an overview of the current codes here: Umamusume: Pretty Derby – All active codes in July 2025 and how to redeem them
