Are Those Horse Girls at the Starting Line?
“Umamusume” is a franchise that you may have already heard of. It blew up last year out of nowhere. Well, seemingly nowhere to someone like me who doesn’t follow a lot of anime based on cute girls and gacha games in general. Out of the blue, everyone I knew who was slightly into anime was talking about the “horse girl” game. Not girls who like horses, but girls who are horses. They race, too. It really is a concept that is a bit mind-bending to explain to people. That doesn’t mean it isn’t interesting or fun, though.
Where Did This Race Begin?
This Franchise began with the game “Umamusume: Pretty Derby,” which is a gacha game. The goal of the game is to take your chosen horse-girl and help her train to be the best dang racer she can be. The game was announced way back in 2016. It’s a little nuts to think how long ago that was compared to the Summer 2025 release dates of the actual game.
The game was in development for five years and was released in 2021. Nope, that is not a typo; it was actually released over five years ago in Japan. It just took four years to release the game in English and on Steam, which is where the hype for the game went into the stratosphere.
So It’s Just Cute Horse Girls?
After finally giving the game some of my time, it’s pretty fun. You can get invested in one of the girls and coach her and hopefully see her succeed. I didn’t have time to do this, but like all gacha games, the fun comes from having a favorite character to chase, and in this case, to train and cheer for. It’s like the fun of cheering on a sports team bundled up into an easy-to-access package!
Would this have been as popular if it were about real-life horses instead of anime girls?
I would say no. Most anime fans are not interested in horses enough to make this popular without the accompanying anime edge. It is interesting to see just how far appealing and cute characters can take you as far as marketing.
Gacha Girls Gotta Go!
Like with any gacha game, I feel the need to stress how potentially exploitative the monetization of this game is. Luckily, the horse girl game isn’t too egregious with its gacha elements. The game is completely free as expected and you can progress with your chosen horse-girl without paying any money. That being said, there are purchases available for more pulls on characters. The character’s stats are based on the real-life horses so they don’t seem to be purposefully overpowered to encourage you to pay for more pulls. It seems that the more successful horses from real life are where you get the powerful pulls! Unfortunately, if you do want a specific character and you don’t want to wait or grind, you can pay a decent amount of money on pulls. I didn’t look into specifics around rates or if there is some sort of forgiveness system. It is nice to know you’ll eventually get what you want, but depending on rates, that could cost a lot of money. I just think it’s best to assume, like with any gacha game, if you want someone specific, you will have to grind, wait, or shell out money.
Is It Still Worth Stabling Up With This Game?
I would give this a recommendation with some caveats. For me, I am not the most invested in cute anime girls. I am also not a big gacha person. So if you are like me in that respect, I don’t think this game is going to convert you. It is very fun as a management game and the gacha elements aren’t too money grubby, which is something I will happily praise the game for. The game is also quite unique in the gacha space. In a sea of mediocre RPGs that all have similar stories of obvious good guys fighting an obvious force of darkness, I will give it major points just for doing something different. It’s clear that someone agreed that the space needed something different due to the success of the game.
The Finish Line
Looking back almost a year after the release of this very unique take on the gacha formula, it’s not hard to see the appeal. Just because it isn’t for me doesn’t mean it isn’t for a lot of people, which explains all the success. It is really cool of the developers to put so much attention to detail into the different stories of the horses, since they are all based on real race horses. There are some crazy stories in the horse world, which I may have to write about in the future. The game is chariming and appealing and clearly has a lot of effort put into it.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go coach Rice Shower through her endurance training.
Check out the previous article from Dialma about a very surreal horse based dating sim!:
https://thegeekwave.com/2026/04/i-fell-in-love-with-a-horse-man/
If you already love this game, we are collaborating with the Anime Club to cover their real-life Umamasume Race. It’s at the track today 4/17/2026 at 1 PM! Come watch some folks run!
https://www.instagram.com/p/DXPbJznFgdx/?igsh=MWppMmNnZjRqbGt2eA==
