Anime horse girls are causing one real-life mare dubbed ‘the shining star of losers everywhere’ to receive so much $40 grass she broke the donation website
I cannot stop yapping about Umamusume: Pretty Derby, the horse girl gacha game which has become the quiet hit of 2025. Part of its draw is the fact that every waifu’d foal is actually based on a real-life racehorse, and while most of them are gnawing on greenery up in the sky, there are a few who are still alive.
One such horse is Haru Urara, who was capturing hearts long before her Umamusume debut, but has now become a worldwide hit. She’s so popular now, in fact, that people are gifting high-quality $40 grass to her in droves and breaking the donation site in the process.
#umamusume #haruurara Animation: https://t.co/rmdCftwtqB https://t.co/CsYcwcVYnB pic.twitter.com/LVsWmTzjX4July 14, 2025
I will admit I’ve developed quite the soft spot for Haru Urara myself. I wasn’t totally sold on her Umamusume design until I started digging into her real-life history: A mare who ran in 113 races across her career… and lost every single time. Her dazzlingly poor performance caused folk to become awfully endeared to her. nicknaming her “the shining star of losers everywhere.”
Hell, people would even place bets on Haru Urara despite knowing it would be a guaranteed loss, using the betting slips as good luck charms. That came in awful handy during one race in 2003 where thousands of spectators flocked to her regular racetrack in Kochi—which had been suffering from financial strain—betting over 121 million yen on her to win and giving a much-needed economic boost to her home turf. Did I know all of that before playing Umamusume? Absolutely not, but do I tell everyone about Haru Urara every chance I get now? You bet I do.
It’s the kind of story that would get anyone rooting for a horse in a Hello Kitty race mask, and Umamusume’s exposure beyond Japan has gained Haru Urara a whole lot more fans in the last few weeks—something even her farm acknowledged.
ANOTHER 20 TRILLION STRANDS OF GRASS TO HARU URARA #umamusume https://t.co/HSvhDghYnO pic.twitter.com/eKntspiWMBJuly 13, 2025
Well, it seems fans caught wind—partly thanks to this Japanese X account which has horse facts aplenty—that you could donate ryegrass to various retired racehorses in Japan via the Namabokuso Bank, Haru Urara being one of the candidates. It costs a whopping $40 for 5 kilograms, but that hasn’t stopped folk collectively donating 2520kg of the stuff to her. That’s just under 4,000 Steam Deck OLEDs’ worth of grass, for comparison.
It’s so much grass, in fact, that it caused the Namabokuso Bank website to crash from the sheer amount of traffic. It’s unclear how long the site was struggling—I checked while writing this and things are back up and running smoothly now—but it makes it even clearer how much love there is for this silly little horse. It also proc’d the fun side effect of a ton of art drawing Umamusume Haru Urara drowning in ryegrass, which I’ve very much enjoyed.
It’s nice to see people’s love for the game having real-life benefits—even if developer Cygames has had to put out some guidelines to make sure people are behaving when trying to visit stables—and Haru Urara isn’t the only uma that folk can donate to if they’re so inclined. There’s Grass Wonder (who has even more grass accumulated at 3775kg) and Nice Nature, but there are also a ton of non-anime horses that would equally feel the love from a big box of the good stuff to chew on.
