Umamusume
Anyone who has played Umamusume: Pretty Derby would know that Gold Ship is an odd one, even in a game filled with colorful and over-the-top personalities. However, that’s largely due to her IRL inspiration being one of the most insane horses to ever hit the track.
From drop-kicking you in the face when you win races to causing havoc for pretty much every other Uma on the cast, Gold Ship is a certified troublemaker. She’ll sometimes even just outright refuse to train and go do her own thing.
She’s immediately become a fan-favorite amongst Western players experiencing the game for the first time.
And, while her in-game demeanor is a bit out there, the real-life horse Gold Ship is based on is even more insane. From causing over 12 billion yen (around $83 million USD) in losses with just one race to aura farming by throwing races before winning at the last second, the real Gold Ship is one of the most infamous racehorses of all time.
Umamusume’s Gold Ship goes viral – but the real horse is even more insane
Umamusume contains a bunch of direct references to the real racehorses every single character is based on. And, considering Gold Ship’s many exploits on the track, it should come as no surprise that she’s got some strange lore.
For instance, Gold Ship’s tendency to goof around for most of the race and win at the end is a strength for the in-game anime girl rendition of the horse.
She specializes in starting at the back and surging forward to suddenly win over everyone else, something that contributes greatly to why fans of the game enjoy using her so much.
This literally happened to @premier_two's Gold Ship run lol. https://t.co/mrUPcYwQli pic.twitter.com/7xiV3XpibR
— Esen (@esentries) July 5, 2025
Her sacking races and winning last minute is accurate to real life, with horse experts believing that the real Gold Ship’s total winnings of almost 1.4 billion yen (around $9.6 million) could be even higher if he locked in and actually tried to win races.
Instead, he just enjoyed messing around sometimes and would just not feel like racing some days. There are clips of him chasing around butterflies in his off days and jumping around with energy years after retirement, with the horse having a level of untapped power they just never used.
This is how the infamous “12 billion yen incident” where Gold Ship threw the 2015 Takarazuka Kinen for literally no reason, causing an estimated 12 billion yen in losses from betters who believed he would win the race with no issues whatsoever.
This horse’s rich and storied career is a huge part of why Gold Ship’s Umamusume version is so popular with fans, and, though the devs have certainly taken creative liberties with the source material, this racehorse really was as ridiculous as the game makes them out to be.
Gold Ship isn’t the only horse from Umamusume going viral, with Haru Urara also getting attention long after her career was over for never winning a single race in her life.
