The office at Hokkai Ranch.
"Mitsumori, what are you looking at?"
Having finished her chores, Miku Kuchiki came over to the computer desk.
There was nothing else for her to do now, and she had ended up here while wandering around.
Whenever she saw someone in the office, she thought Koichi had returned.
"I was watching the Ability Test for the two-year-old newcomers earlier. Now I'm checking the entries for that race at Hanshin."
Megumi Mitsumori turned her head and explained.
The runners and their Starting Stall numbers had all been confirmed now.
Golden Masterpiece was the fifth favorite and would start from Starting Stall ten.
But most of the comments on the website's message board were insults aimed at Sasaki.
Sometimes, staying off the internet was a good thing.
"Mitsumori, does that mean the young master has an advantage this time?"
Miku Kuchiki immediately leaned closer and asked.
Koichi never told her about any of this.
"Hmm..."
Megumi Mitsumori hesitated.
She felt she shouldn't dampen Miku's spirits, but the situation really wasn't very promising.
There were eighteen horses in this race, and plenty of them were strong contenders.
They were all aiming for a Grade 1 race.
One of them had even beaten Golden Masterpiece in Tokyo.
"To put it simply, things are definitely much better than last time. Golden Masterpiece could easily get boxed in by the other horses from Starting Stall one, but that's much less likely to happen from Starting Stall ten."
She gave Miku Kuchiki a brief explanation.
That also suited the way Koichi had been riding lately.
But their opponents this time were simply too formidable, and even the jockeys included some big names.
She just didn't know whether Koichi had any effective plans to deal with them.
"So the young master has a