Now that I'd officially committed to training Rice Shower, my to-do list had grown to a mile long.
After directing Urara and Rice to begin their warm-ups, I headed straight to the Chairwoman's office to formalize the arrangement. I emerged shortly after, clutching a folder of Rice's previous training data provided by Ms. Hayakawa.
I flipped through the pages as I walked.
(Heh. I see. I've successfully confirmed that I know absolutely nothing.)
The "data" was a joke. It looked like the previous trainer had simply copy-pasted Rice's own verbal reports into a daily log and called it a day. It listed which exercises she'd done and her race results, but there was no analysis, no trajectory, no insight.
"WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THIS?!"
Whack! I slammed the stack of papers onto the corridor floor in a fit of pique. A second later, reality reasserted itself, and I scrambled to gather the scattered sheets, looking left and right to see if anyone had noticed my outburst.
In Tracen Academy, it's not unheard of for a girl to have a trainer "in name only" while she handles her own regimen. Some girls are obsessed with racing theory, some are more interested in chasing other girls' careers, and some are just independent researchers of their own bodies.
Furthermore, the Academy suffers from a chronic shortage of staff. With nearly two thousand Umamusume enrolled, it's physically impossible to provide bespoke coaching for everyone. Hence, the "proxy" trainers. (And then, of course, there are trainers like me, who can't even scout a single girl because they all turn him down. But let's not go there.)
However, the number of girls who could win a G1 race while essentially training themselves was vanishingly small. In fact, Rice Shower might be the only one.
The result of her independence was the useless pile of scrap paper currently in my hand. Ms. Hayakawa had also given me a DVD containing every race Rice had ever run, but that would require hours of frame-by-frame analysis before it yielded anything useful.
(Dammit... Maybe I should track down her old trainer and give him a piece of my mind...)
I dismissed the thought. Venting wouldn't fix the data. My time would be much better spent watching Urara and Rice in person.
As I dug deeper into the records, I realized that the previous trainer had at least felt a modicum of guilt. He'd only taken the bare minimum for "necessary expenses," redirecting the lion's share of Rice's prize money back into her own savings account. It was a small mercy, but it didn't help me build a training plan.
I also noticed that he wasn't incompetent—he had successfully qualified another girl for the Kikuka-sho alongside Rice. He just hadn't been her trainer.
(Think positive. Look at it this way: I've just inherited the exclusive rights to document a G1 legend from scratch. This information is gold. It'll be the foundation of my career! ...But seriously, would it have killed you to take some notes, you bastard?!)
I slammed the papers onto the floor again. I felt I deserved that much, at least.
With Urara, I had everything. Every workout, every meal, every heartbeat was logged. I knew how a three-millimeter change in her stride affected her final push. I had her height, weight, limb length, and muscle density recorded to the decimal point. That was why I knew she was outperforming her initial projections.
With Rice, I was flying blind. Where do I start? How far can I push her?
Rice probably knew her own limits to an extent, but I doubted she'd memorized her own lap times or cardiovascular recovery rates. I'd have to observe her, measure her, and reconstruct her history from the ground up.
(I'm going to have to go on a "prostration tour" of my fellow rookies to beg for turf training data. Then I need to scout the competition for the classic turf circuit, map out Rice's viable race calendar, compile a stayer-specific nutrition plan... yeah, I'm going to die.)
I struck a heroic, determined pose for an audience of zero, but my internal panic remained unchanged.
The one silver lining was that my fellow rookie trainers would likely help me. They were mostly raising girls in Urara's age bracket, meaning they wouldn't see Rice as a direct threat. The veterans, however? They were out of the question. Anyone with a senior girl in the G1 circuit would see me as an enemy to be kept at arm's length.
(I can probably trade G1 training insights with the rookies... but the veterans are a wall. Man, the difficulty curve on this job is insane.)
My only consolation was Rice's "completion" level. She was already a Kikuka-sho winner. If I just managed her health and let her spend some "Urara-time" to heal her soul, she might bounce back on her own.
(But I took the job. I have to do it right.)
The Arima Kinen was only a month and a half away. If I didn't start today, we were finished.
I returned to the track to find Rice helping Urara with her stretches. Urara was sitting on the grass, reaching for her toes while Rice gently pressed on her back.
"Wow... Urara-chan, you're so flexible!"
"Ehehe! Trainer told me that the one thing I'm never allowed to do is get hurt, so he made me do this every day. I used to be as stiff as a board!"
Urara chirped as she pressed her forehead all the way to the grass. With winter approaching, flexibility was more vital than ever.
"Warm-ups almost done? Rice, a word."
Both girls snapped to attention.
"I've finished the paperwork with the Chairwoman and Ms. Hayakawa. It's official: I'm your trainer. Let's make it a good year."
"I... I look forward to working with you, Trainer!" Rice bowed deeply, her voice still trembling with that characteristic timidity. Looking at her, you'd never guess she was a giant-slayer who had conquered the longest leg of the Triple Crown.
"Once we're done here, I want to... actually, before that. Is it okay if I just call you 'Rice,' the way Urara does?"
Addressing one by her nickname and the other formally felt lopsided. Rice nodded vigorously.
"Y-yes! I'd... I'd prefer that, actually."
"Good. Then, Rice, I need to see you run. I've seen the tapes of the Kikuka-sho, but there are things you can only see with the naked eye."
Even in a grainy recording, her power was obvious. But video lied. Video smoothed over the tiny hitches in a stride and the subtle shifts in center of gravity. I needed to baseline her physical capacity today, just as I had with Urara.