A One-Share Prediction

The first day of October.

I lounged on the tatami in the lounge, making idle conversation with Mr. Sugiyama and Mr. Matsumoto, who had come all the way from Honshu.

"So President Inoguma and that Great Demon God are coming too?"

Mr. Sugiyama's eyes widened in surprise.

"I thought it would only be President Fujita."

Then Mr. Sugiyama added,

"Actually, there are also several friends from overseas."

"!"

The moment I said that, not only Mr. Matsumoto beside Mr. Sugiyama, but even Ogawa and Mr. Kimura, who were having a drink on the other side of the low table, were startled.

"It couldn't be some European monarch, could it?" Mr. Taniguchi said.

Jokes aside.

Back in mid-September, I had tried registering a racing syndicate corporation under Mejiro Trading's name.

As for the purpose—"KITANO, how about trying to become the owner of a club?"

After last month's St Leger Stakes, John had sent a congratulatory flower basket as was customary, and casually made that suggestion.

At first, I thought he was inviting me to become a one-share owner, so I declined on the grounds that being an individual owner and managing the ranch already gave me more than enough to worry about.

A "one-share owner" was part of a quasi-owner system separate from standard JRA owner registration. A corporation known as a "club" divided ownership of a Racehorse into roughly forty to five hundred shares and solicited investments.

Members registered as one-share owners could choose from the Racehorses their club was offering, invest by the share, and pay monthly maintenance costs such as feed according to the number of shares they held.

In return, investing members could receive around sixty to seventy percent of the prize money earned by the Racehorse, in proportion to their shares.

In Japan, which still maintained