All of the five base stats can have a minimum value of 1 and a maximum value of 2000. In calculations, values past 1200 are halved. For example, a Speed stat of 1500 will actually count as 1350 (1200 plus half of 300).

Your horsegirl's mood will also affect the stat values used in calculations of mechanics. Normal (yellow) mood will leave them unchanged, whereas higher or lower mood will increase or decrease their value in mechanics by 2% per mood level.

During a run (i.e., when doing a Career mode), all stats are temporarily increased by a flat value of 400.


The Speed stat affects your Target Speed during the Late-Race and Last Spurt phases, and the additional Target Speed gained from the last spurt mechanic (not to be confused with the Last Spurt phase). Unlike what one might expect, it does not affect the earlier phases.

The speed value used in calculations can also be lowered by terrain type and terrain condition, and raised by meeting certain race course thresholds.


The Power stat affects the height of acceleration your horsegirl can achieve at any point during the race and her ability to change lanes.

It also factors into the Stamina Contest (スタミナ勝負), Repositioning (位置取り調整), Power Conservation (足を貯める), and Release (脚色十分) mechanics.

It will also lower the loss of Target Speed when running uphill, with the reduction being greater the higher the stat is.

Like the Speed stat, it can be lowered by terrain type and condition.


The Stamina stat affects how much HP (also called effective stamina) a horsegirl will have during a race.

A character's maximum HP is calculated once at the beginning of a race. HP will mainly be consumed by simply running, but various other mechanics can also use (or recover) it. Its value also affects how much Target Speed a horsegirl can gain via the Stamina Contest (スタミナ勝負) mechanic, and how long and fast her last spurt will be.

Different strategies have different "efficiencies" in converting the Stamina stat to maximum HP. Late Surgers and End Closers boast the best conversion rate, and Pace Chasers have the worst (a difference of 11% between these extremes).

Recovery skills will recover HP as a percentage. For example, the 好転一息 skill grants a recovery of 0.055, which translates to 5.5% of maximum HP. Therefore, stamina recovery is more efficient the more maximum HP a horsegirl has. The final number is also affected by the length of a race, with longer races resulting in higher recovery.

HP consumption can also be affected by terrain type and terrain condition.


The Guts stat affects the value (and duration) of the different bonuses a horsegirl can gain via the last spurt mechanic, the Lead Contest (位置取り争い), the Showdown (追い比べ), the Repositioning (位置取り調整), and the "Securing the Lead" (リード確保) mechanics. It also lowers stamina consumption during the Late-Race and Last Spurt phases.


Wit affects a horsegirl's chances of skill activation, how likely she is to rush during a race, and the chance to increase Target Speed and decrease stamina consumption during downhills. It also influences whether certain modes will be entered in the Position Keep mechanic. Contrary to popular belief, the Wit stat does not affect Late Starts.

The effectiveness of your Wit stat in mechanics is additionally affected by the relevant strategy aptitude of your character. An S-rank aptitude will increase it by 10%, an A-rank aptitude will leave it unchanged, and lower aptitudes will reduce it by varying factors, such as a 40% reduction at D-rank and a 90% reduction at G-rank. The aptitude spark and increases through skills do not affect skill activation chance.

Every race consists of four phases, independent of the race's length. In skill conditions, these phases are numbered from 0 to 3.

The "Early-Race" (序盤) spans the 1st sixth of the race.
The "Mid-Race" (中盤) spans the 2nd to 4th sixth of the race.
The "Late-Race" (終盤) spans the 5th sixth of the race.
The "Last Spurt" (ラストスパート) spans the 6th sixth of the race.
The Last Spurt phase can essentially be considered a part of the Late-Race, aside from specific skills which trigger only during the Last Spurt.

Note: The "Last Spurt" phase is not to be confused with the concept of the last spurt mechanic, which is confusingly named the same.

In the game itself, you can see the phases delimited by the ticks displayed on the progress bar at the top during races. The first tick marks the start of the Mid-Race, and the second tick marks the start of the Late-Race. This progress bar disappears around the start of the Last Spurt.



Understanding these phases is vital, as many skills and mechanics revolve around them. For instance, some skills might only trigger in the Mid-Race.

For example, in a 2400-meter race (where one-sixth is 400 meters), this is how the phases would be split:

Race Phase Start End Sixths
Early-Race 0m 400m 0/6 ~ 1/6
Mid-Race 400m 1600m 1/6 ~ 4/6
Late-Race 1600m 2000m 4/6 ~ 5/6
Last Spurt 2000m 2400m 5/6 ~ 6/6

For comparison, the phases of a 1000-meter race (where one-sixth is ~167 meters) would look like this instead:

Race Phase Start End Sixths
Early-Race 0m 167m 0/6 ~ 1/6
Mid-Race 167m 667m 1/6 ~ 4/6
Late-Race 667m 833m 4/6 ~ 5/6
Last Spurt 833m 1000m 5/6 ~ 6/6

Races can be held on two types of terrain: turf (芝) or dirt (ダート). Additionally, the terrain may be classified under different conditions during a race: firm (良), good (稍重), soft (重), or heavy (不良).

These two factors can affect the base Speed, Power, and Stamina stat values used for calculations in mechanics.

Heavy terrain will reduce the Speed stat by 50.
In turf races, the Power stat will be decreased by 50 on any terrain condition other than firm (良).
In dirt races, the Power stat will be decreased by 100 on any terrain condition aside from good (稍重), which will reduce it by 50 instead.
Soft (重) and heavy (不良) terrain conditions will increase HP consumption by 2% per second.
A race course may additionally have one or more stat thresholds. Exceeding a threshold stat will increase the Speed stat by 5% for every multiple of 300, up to a maximum bonus of 20% at 900 of the exceeded threshold.

For distances within races, the game uses a measurement unit called "(horse) lengths" or "bashin" (バ身) in Japanese. One horse length corresponds to about 2.5 meters. You might also encounter fractions, such as "1/2 Lengths" (「1/2バ身」), representing half a horse length. A distance labeled as "Long Shot" (「大差」) (lit. "Big Difference") refers to any distance over ten horse lengths.

Note: "Horse length" is a real term, but it's usually equivalent to 2.4 meters. The game uses 2.5 meters, with the explanation that "the horse length was derived from the arm span of the three horsegirl goddesses of legend."

In the underlying mechanics, meters per second (m/s) are usually used in calculations. Although some game elements do use horse lengths, they are more of a decorative feature, e.g. race results.

Other measurements you'll see during in-game race results are Nose (ハナ) at around 20 cm, Head (アタマ) at around 40 cm, and Neck (くび) at around 80 cm distance. These measurements are used for immersing players and aren't generally relevant to the game's mechanics.

Within the game, the speed at which a horsegirl is running is viewed from two different perspectives:

Target Speed, the speed she is trending toward, and
Current Speed, the speed she is currently running at.
When a horsegirl is running at a speed that is below her Target Speed (i.e., Current Speed is lower than Target Speed), she will start accelerating to close that gap, and vice versa decelerate when Current Speed is higher the Target Speed.

The speed at which horsegirls run is affected by several factors, like skill effects, the length of the race, the horsegirl's strategy, and the current phase of the race. Interestingly enough, the Speed stat only affects Target Speed during the Late-Race (and Last Spurt) phase. The distance aptitude also only matters for Target Speed during these two phases.

Due to the difference in Target Speed between the Mid-Race and the Late-Race, acceleration skills, which allow a horsegirl to close the gap between these two speeds faster, are particularly valuable at the start of the Late-Race (i.e. at the start of the last spurt mechanic), but mostly negligible at other points in time.

You may also sometimes hear other players say that a skill can "carry over". This refers to a speed-increasing skill activating at the end of the Mid-Race, with a duration long enough for its effects to last into the last spurt. That results in the girl starting her spurt with a higher Target Speed than she would have under normal circumstances.

Horsegirls may also be blocked by those in front of them, limiting their Target Speed roughly to the speed of the girl blocking them. This is especially fatal for late-starting Front Runners or backline (Late Surger or End Closer) girls attempting to overtake others during their last spurt.

One crucial aspect to note here is that an increase in Target Speed (usually via skills) does not result in an immediate increase of the Current Speed, but simply raises the maximum speed reachable via acceleration.

When the Target Speed increases and the girl is accelerating, it will take time until she reaches this new maximum speed. After the skill's duration is up, the character will decelerate back to her previous Target Speed. If she's not accelerating fast enough to reach this new top speed during its duration, an increased Target Speed is rendered partially or even wholly ineffective.

Changes in Current Speed work slightly differently depending on whether it's a buff or debuff. Buffs to Current Speed don't need acceleration, so a character gets an immediate speed boost that lasts for the whole duration, but they do involve deceleration after the effect fades. Debuffs do not involve either acceleration or deceleration, but are immediate changes.

See the image below for an illustration of how changes in both Target and Current Speed play out in-game, assuming the horsegirl is accelerating enough to hit the new Target Speed within the duration.

To get an idea of the average speed the horsegirls are running at, these are the baseline (no modifiers) speeds during different phases of the race:

3 m/s (~11 km/h) when the race starts.
17 m/s (~61 km/h) during the so-called "Start Dash" at the very beginning of the Early-Race.
20 m/s (~72 km/h) during the rest of the Early-Race and the Mid-Race.
25 m/s (~90 km/h) during the last spurt (mechanic).
These are some fast horsegirls.

The above numbers vary depending on strategy, but these differences are not substantial.

With the above information, it becomes much easier to imagine how big of an effect a skill that increases your Target Speed will have. For example, increasing your Target Speed by 0.45 m/s (~1.5 km/h) via a skill during the Mid-Race means an increase of 2.25% from 20 m/s.

Acceleration refers to the rate at which speed increases. For example, with an acceleration of 0.5 m/s^2 (meaning the speed increases by 0.5 meters per second every second), the speed of a horsegirl would have increased by 2 m/s in four seconds. Deceleration is the opposite, signifying the rate at which speed decreases.

In the game, acceleration is affected by several factors:

The Power stat
The character's strategy
The current phase of the race
Whether the character is currently running uphill
The character's aptitude for the race's terrain and distance
Though many detailed numbers are involved in these calculations, the essentials are that better stats and aptitudes lead to better acceleration, while uphill terrain means less acceleration.

At the start of a race, every horsegirl will roll a random start delay of up to 0.1 seconds. Contrary to popular belief, the value is not affected by the Wit stat.

However, some skills can influence the start delay value. For example:

アタシに指図しないで！！ and 超遊び癖 will add a fixed value to the roll, guaranteeing a late start.
Skills such as コンセントレーション and 集中力 will multiply the roll by a factor lower than 1, making a late start less likely.
Purple skills like ゲート難 will also multiply the roll, but this time by a factor higher than 1, making a late start more likely.
Delays below 0.02 seconds will grant the Strong Start bonus in Team Trials races, but are otherwise irrelevant for race mechanics.

Delays of 0.066 seconds or more will be considered a Late Start. That will cause a loss of the acceleration a horsegirl would normally have received at the start of the Early-Race. Late starts can prove especially fatal for frontline strategies, as they will often be unable to reclaim their desired position until it's too late.

A start delay of 0.08 seconds or more will also show a "Late Start" indicator on the screen. Delays between 0.066 and 0.08 seconds are still considered late start, they just don't trigger the notice.

The last spurt mechanic (not to be confused with the Last Spurt phase) happens in the final part of the race, when a horsegirl tries to increase her speed for a final push to the finish line.

This Target Speed bonus depends on several factors, such as her Speed and Guts stats, and her aptitude for the race's distance. The buff makes acceleration skills particularly valuable at this part of the race, as they can help horsegirls reach their Target Speed faster.

When entering the Late-Race, if the girl has enough HP to run the remainder of the race at this increased speed, she will immediately start her last spurt and receive the full Target Speed bonus.

If she doesn't have enough HP, three scenarios can happen:

Her gain will be reduced until the condition is satisfied.
The starting point of her last spurt will be delayed.
Her spurt will be both reduced and delayed.
In the worst-case scenario, the horsegirl may not be able to perform a last spurt at all, and receive no bonus.

See the "Points of Acceleration" section for some math behind why acceleration is so valuable during the last spurt.

Gates refer to the starting "doors" horsegirls have for a race, such as "doors" 1, 2, 3, and so on. On the other hand, gate brackets refer to groups of several gates. There is a maximum of 8 gate brackets (numbered in order), but there can be up to 18 total gates.

The concept of gate brackets is essential for gate skills, because their activation conditions will usually refer to brackets rather than individual gates (e.g., 外枠得意○ or ラッキーセブン).

Gate brackets 1 through 3 are considered "Inner Brackets" (内枠), while brackets 6 through 8 are considered "Outer Brackets" (外枠).

In races with eight (or fewer) participants, the gates will correspond one-to-one to a gate bracket, i.e., gate 1 is gate bracket 1, gate 2 is gate bracket 2, and so on.

In races with more than 8 participants, gates will be added in reverse, starting from the last bracket. So, in a race with 9 participants, the extra gate will go to bracket 8; in a race with 10 participants, to brackets 8 and 7. If there are more than 16 participants, the process starts from bracket 8 again.

If the concept is still confusing, maybe this visualization will help: