Uma Musume: From Being Knocked Ten Meters Away

Chapter 551 The Rhythm of the Buffer Zone
The Northern Black Horse wasn't actually "retreating"; she was merely maintaining her speed.

At this moment, the team has just passed the first bend and entered the long straightaway directly facing the stands from the outer lane curve.

After passing two more curves, the final straight is directly ahead, and the time to adjust position using the curves is very short.

This makes the opening bend of any Emperor's autumn viewing event just as intense and brutal as what the Northern Genko had just experienced.

Not accelerating forward looks like "moving backward".

The retreat of the Northern Black Horse surprised all its opponents.

Without exception, they were originally focused on guarding against the possible breakout by the Northern Black Horse at any moment.

It's not impossible.

Several races and publicly available training data are enough to show that the Northern Black Horse's instantaneous explosive power is arguably the most terrifying of this generation, and even ranks among the top in the entire racing history.

With such explosive power, if you are careless for even a moment, your opponent will definitely seize the lead.

Based on the same competitions and data, the strength of the leading Northern Black Horse is obvious to all. Letting it escape will make it virtually impossible for it to catch up.

But at this moment, she... actually started running backwards?

what happened?

Conserve your strength in the rear and launch a surprise attack in the final moments?
But this is a trick that Chase the Horse Girl is good at; how could there be such a suitable opportunity to escape first?

Is he overconfident in his abilities?
That shouldn't be the case. Although she's becoming increasingly popular, she's not that kind of person at all.

Or perhaps... some special tactic, or something her trainer has arranged?
Filled with doubt, the other female racehorses on the track cast questioning glances at her.

They continued to maintain their own pace while observing the northern black horse's belongings, trying to understand the intention behind her current choice.

Suddenly, the atmosphere in the arena became even more tense and delicate.

Running at the rear of the pack, the Northern Black Horse was immersed in its own rhythm, a unique excitement welling up inside it.

She could sense that her opponents were trying to guess her intentions, a completely new experience she had rarely had before, or rather, had never paid much attention to.

More importantly, just as predicted before the match, this position, while seemingly disadvantageous, actually offers more room for maneuver.

After the Emperor's Autumn Viewing starts, there is a curve soon after the start, followed by a 1.5-meter uphill section.

This forces leading athletes to maintain their speed to widen the gap, keeping them on a tight pace and afraid to slow down.

In order to conserve energy for the final race, runners chasing from behind will maintain a safe distance of more than one marathon length from the leading group to avoid unnecessary collisions.

This state of "leading and releasing quickly, followed by slow movement" will make the leading and trailing sides act as a "buffer zone" between the two.

Running here avoids the pressure of leading sprints and the pressure of being squeezed by trailing teams, creating a natural vertical movement range.

The space between the interior and exterior locations is derived from rainy days.

Important races like G1 are usually the final races. After the first 10 races, the inner tracks of good venues become quite bad, not to mention in the rain, they become so muddy that it's impossible to walk.

The area around the first bend is a crucial point in the early stages of the race. Rain and water accumulation will lead inside laners to agree to "run along the inside lane tangent where the water is shallow." Once they have identified a position that is as close to the inside lane as possible and where they can still land, they dare not change lanes easily in order to avoid the water.

As for the outer lane, there is a preconceived notion that it "wastes time," so players in the early and mid-game almost always choose to follow the inner lane group rather than break out to the outside.

Due to various factors, a high-density congestion zone was formed on the inner side of the inner passage, which is the location where she just withdrew.

Conversely, the lower echelons and the outer edges of the mid-to-outer echelons became "non-priority competition zones," naturally leaving ample room for lateral adjustments. With his mind rapidly reviewing the pre-race analysis and instructions, the Northern Black Horse precisely followed the rhythm of the "buffer zone" as it moved forward.

In the stands, the audience was still somewhat flustered by the previous performance of the Northern Black Horse.

But the commentator had calmed down from the initial shock and began to explain the progress of the match in an orderly manner.

"After the initial bends and intense battles, the teams have entered the non-finish straight."

"Currently in the lead is contestant number 1, Rong Jinzhiguang, while contestant number 8, Langri Qingtian, is catching up from the outside."

"Number 4, Rimi Crown, is running very well in this race and is currently in third place on the inside track... Manle and Yamakatsu are the strongest to catch up!"
"It seems that the aftershocks of the early game battle are still ongoing. As we gradually move into the middle of the opposite straight line, the strongest player, Manrotoshi, on the outside and Yamakatsu, on the inside, have surpassed Satomi and moved into third and fourth place, respectively."

"The Satomi Crown is currently in fifth... no, it has reached sixth."

"The fourth or fifth place now is occupied by iconic horses."

"The competition among the leading teams is fierce, and the Northern Black Horse, which has always been at the forefront..."

"Seventh, she is in this position."

"A little behind her on the inside is Unyielding Steel, followed by Emperor Song and Satomi Noble."

"The first in line is number 10, ginger-flavored liquor, followed by number 14, Shan Defu."

"Shandefu seems to have failed to get into a good position in the early game and is now trying to move forward."

"The team passed the 1000-meter marker in a time of..."

"63.5 seconds, a relatively slow pace."

"Rongjin Zhiguang is still in the lead, with Langri Qingtian close behind. The two drivers are the first to rush towards the entrance of the third turn."

As the commentator's calm voice resonated throughout the stadium via the broadcast, the audience's attention returned to the overall progress of the match.

Upon hearing the timer mentioned in the commentary, Yasui Makoto and Airi Soko, standing at the very front of the stands, exchanged a glance and nodded in unison. Airi Soko quickly said:
"It's pretty much what I expected; the cruising speed is around 15.7 seconds."

“Hmm, it seems the site influence parameters are fine,” Yasui Makoto continued, “So the next crucial step…”

Before he could finish speaking, Alice spoke at the same time, saying in unison with him:
"Final corner exit!"

After saying that, she nodded with satisfaction, as if she had just enjoyed a game.

Although strictly speaking, Yasui Makoto is her junior, she prefers to see him as a partner or collaborator who is not much different from herself.

This young man is quick-witted, has bold ideas, and possesses solid knowledge and abilities that are quite outstanding.

She enjoys the rapport that develops when working with this kind of person; it makes her feel more comfortable than the precise data from instruments in the laboratory.

More importantly, because of her personality and abilities, the other party rarely refuted many of her ideas and research.

Take, for example, the Emperor's autumn appreciation event.

In fact, on the very night she signed the team contract, she immersed herself in the lab with nearly six months of training data from Northern Black Horse.

The running posture analysis, muscle fatigue curves, and track data from the Emperor's autumn viewing trips over the years scrolling on the screen wove a web in her mind.

She concluded at the time that conventional tactics of leading and releasing were absolutely not going to work.

(End of this chapter)