How to Win

The biggest factor for winning is acceleration. Acceleration is extremely powerful when it triggers at a good time. For example, a 3s duration gold speed skill on 1600m would give a gain of 1.68m. Seiun Sky’s unique skill gives a gain of 10.3m. Thus, the meta revolves around what umas have good acceleration skills.

You should also strive for an S aptitude in the distance, as it gives +10% Speed. This helps Front Runners maintain their lead and helps the other styles catch up. Speed greens are also useful for the same reason.

Building Front Runners The key skill for Front umas is Groundwork. It gives them acceleration at the start of the race after activating three skills, which lets them take the front position. To activate this, you get three greens that suit the track. You can also use Focus or Concentration, but unlike greens, it doesn’t have a 100% trigger chance. When making Front parents, aim for Groundwork white sparks, because it’s a bit of a troublesome skill to get otherwise.

Seiun Sky’s unique is the other key acceleration skill and is basically what makes Front Runners a viable PvP style at all. It works when the last spurt starts on a corner. In order to activate it, you must be in first place, so you should focus on stacking middle leg speed skills in order to keep your lead. Skills like Professor of Curvature, Mile/Front Runner Corners, Summer Maruzensky’s unique, Tail Held High, Escape Artist, and so on.

All Medium and Mile G1 tracks start their spurt on a corner. All Long G1 tracks start their spurt on a straight. In Long, you can use Kitasan’s unique instead.

Front Runners highly value having a strong Wisdom stat, as it increases their speed early in the race and helps them activate all of their skills.

Defeating Front Runners Front Runners must be first in order to use Seiun Sky’s unique. If they activate it, it becomes much harder for other styles to catch up to them. If it’s Seiun Sky herself and not someone using an inherited version of her unique, it’s extremely difficult.

This is where Seiun covers come in. This type of uma doesn’t try to win, it just tries to stop the other Front Runners from using Seiun Sky’s unique. To do this, you focus on capping Power and Wisdom while mostly ignoring the other stats, just getting enough to finish the training. A statline like 600/400/1200/200/1200 is fine here. You then stack on as many middle leg skills as possible to try to keep in front, and/or throw in some debuffs.

Summer Maruzensky is good for this on every track, as her unique always activates in the middle. Bakushin and Smart Falcon are other good choices, with V.Bourbon also being an easy option. Their Distance aptitude only has to be D or better, as their speed in the last leg isn’t important. You’ll rely on your other umas to win.

Building Pace Chasers All of Pace Chasers’ good acceleration skills are on the Final Corner or Final Straight.

If the last spurt starts just before the final corner or early into it, then Maruzensky and Taiki Shuttle’s uniques will be useful for accelerating. If it’s late into the final corner, Nishino Flower’s unique is good.

If the last spurt starts just before the final straight or early into it, then Nishino Flower’s unique is good, and to a lesser extent H.Creek’s.

Pace Chasers also have an acceleration skill for downhills. These are good on Kyoto Medium tracks.

Building Late Surgers Late Surgers are a big dice roll. They have a lot of acceleration skills, but none of them are really consistent. As such, the strategy is simply to take as many as possible and hope one of them works.

The general accelerations are On Your Left!, Mejiro Ryan/Dober’s unique, and the Burning Spirit PWR skill. On Your Left! can be acquired from the Nice Nature SSR, which you should borrow if your uma doesn’t already have it (Gold City, Grass Wonder at level 5). The Burning Spirit PWR skill comes from the Aoharu Scenario.

Mejiro Ryan’s unique is the same as Seiun Sky’s. It has the same activation point, however, it requires you to be 6th instead of 1st. As such, you don’t want your Late Surger to get too far ahead, so your speed skills will mostly focus on the last leg. Gold City’s unique is another possible acceleration, and El Condor Pasa (Fantasy) and Mayano Top Gun (Bride) sometimes work too. Mejiro Dober’s is often the same as Ryan’s, but allows you to be 5th as well.

There are some others on specific tracks. For Mile, there’s Furious Feat, which you can get from the Oguri Cap SSR. Vodka also has it at level 5. For Dirt, there’s Trending in the Charts! from the Agnes Digital card. In Medium, there’s Rise from the Ashes(?).

Building End Closers End Closers have a lot in common with Late Surgers. You can mostly refer to that section, though they can’t use On Your Left!.

In exchange, they get Straightaway Spurt / Encroaching Shadow, which is an acceleration skill on straights during the last spurt. If the last spurt starts on a straight or shortly before one, then this skill is useful. The gold version is currently exclusive to Narita Taishin.

Building Debuffers Many people will make umas that just barely pass the stamina requirements for the track in order to get more stats elsewhere. Such people are prime targets for debuffers. They’re especially potent in Medium or above.

Each gold stamina debuff lowers stamina by 3%, with whites lowering it by 1%. On Medium distance, Nice Nature could lower the stamina of a certain style by 8% on her own. Gold recoveries are +5.5% for reference.

You can also debuff their speed. Gold speed debuffs give -0.25 m/s, which is equivalent to a negative Medium Distance Corner ◎ skill. The “Hesitant” skills are -0.15 m/s, which is the same as a negative white speed skill. The debuffs are always good.

These umas are quite easy to raise, so if you’re lacking time or don’t want to put in the effort to make a third good uma, a debuff build could be the way to go. Wit is all that matters, so 500/300/900/300/1200 is a perfectly fine statline for any distance. Focus your debuffs on the roles that the strongest umas for the track are in (usually Front Runner and Late Surger).

See the Debuff Builds section for more details.

Building Christmas Oguri Christmas Oguri is so unique she gets her own section. Her unique has acceleration, and it triggers after using three recoveries. So, you can decide where to activate her unique based on the recoveries you bring. High Wit is very important for her consistency.

On distances from 2000 to 2500, Triple 7s can be used. It triggers after spurt start on 2400 and 2500, but is still very strong. On the Kyoto Mediums, you could also make her a End Closer and use a downhill recovery. If there’s an uphill, you can be a Front Runner and use the uphill recovery.

If the spurt starts on a corner, and that corner is the first corner after the halfway point, then you can use U=ma2 (Agnes Unique) as a Pace Chaser. If it’s the final corner, you can use Super-Duper Climax! (Urara Unique) as a Late Surger or End Closer.

When nothing else works, you can gamble by having all three of your recoveries be phase_random, e.g. Race Planner, Gourmand, Burning Spirit STA, and Super Creek unique, or you can use Drain for Rose (Halloween Rice unique) as a Pace Chaser.

As a Late Surger, A Small Breather can be a fallback plan in case one of your other three recoveries don’t activate. If it triggers early, you’ll get the accel, and if it triggers late, at least you get some speed. First Star is also decent on any style, but can trigger early in some cases.