A Four-Hundred-Million-Yen Night

On the evening of July 20, hardly a sound could be heard on the second floor of the Jockey Club Lodge in Miho.

There was only the news broadcast from the television, the ticking of the battery-powered clock on the wall, the faint hum of the air conditioner blowing cool air into the room, and the sound of fingertips sliding across a phone screen.

The room's temperature was just right, slowly easing away the tension, and time seemed to move more slowly in that moment.

It had been a busy day.

—To explain what had made today so busy, the story had to go back about four months.

The application to become a JRA owner had been submitted in March, followed by what had seemed like a rather long wait.

Yet, amid all the running around between horse ownership and breeding, July—the month when the application results were announced—had arrived before anyone knew it.

Finally, a JRA owner—

Only now had the reality of that moment begun to sink in.

Back then, the dense wall of text that had popped up before my eyes had quickly been ignored.

Besides the routine procedures, such as officially registering as a JRA owner and registering racing silks, Baozuo, Chongli, Zhibao, and Moon Leap, who had recently been officially named Traveler, all needed to be registered as JRA racehorses. Baozuo, who had been thoroughly conditioned at Matsukaze Equestrian Center, had also formally entered the stable on the day of registration.

"This one's in excellent shape. How about heading to Sapporo for the gate test once the stable-entry quarantine is over?"

That suggestion had come from Trainer Yoshida at noon, after I had helped complete the stable-entry paperwork.

There simply were no available slots for a gate test in Kanto.

—That was another reason not