The worldbuilding of Uma Musume is so fascinating because the developers absolutely don’t want to explore or think about the broader implications of this rare separate group of superhuman third-gendered horse girls, they are solely interested in telling the stories of race horses as anime girls. But that doesn’t mean the worldbuilding implications aren’t there.
They’re anatomically almost identical to regular humans, but they have absurd physical capabilities that is inexplicable considering how their legs are anatomically identical to human legs. Despite having been around for seemingly as long as human civilization has been, medical knowledge on Umamusume is quite limited, which might be because they are implied to be a small percentage of the population. Umas are given different opportunities from regular humans, and are largely encouraged to become racers, as being “born to run” is supposedly their life’s purpose. The anime shows us that Special Week grew up in a rural area where there were no other umas but her, and when she gets to Tracen Academy she has trouble keeping up with lessons because she’s never been in a class with anyone else before. This could imply that umas, even those in areas where there aren’t any other umas around, receive different education from regular humans (or simply that she was homeschooled). Umas are always depicted going to all-uma schools, but once again these depictions are racing focused so it could just be that these are the umas who are pursuing racing careers, and that other umas are at regular schools.
But not all umas become athletes, some of them live seemingly normal lives, but no uma media is interested in them so they’re all background characters. They age differently from humans, which is because they are gacha game characters based on horses spanning at least 5 decades of horse races racing history. But they can seemingly only race at the highest level for about as long as real life race horses can. The 3 seasons of the anime imply that after they retire from the twinkle series there’s a separate dream trophy league that they race in once they’re past their prime, but I don’t believe the game or the later animated uma material mention it.
One thing I find especially strange is the way umas of different ages are and aren’t depicted. Uma ages are intentionally nebulous for the playable characters. Young umas can be seen sometimes, especially in Road to the Top, training to race in a fashion I imagine is similar to ordinary kids playing sports, they are “born to run” after all. What’s rarer is the few places where clearly-adult umas are shown. They’re primarily shown to be moms of young umas, there aren’t a lot of them depicted outside of that context.
What I find most strange is that the positions of authority over racing umas are exclusively depicted to be non-uma humans. There are no retired umas who go on to become trainers of younger umas and none of the teachers in the schools the umas go to are umas. Symboli Rudolph is the highest figure of authority any uma is depicted as having, and she’s the (eternal) student council president of Tracen Academy. She is referred to as the emperor because of her extraordinarily dominant racing career, but even though everyone respects her and her position in uma matters, in Cinderella Gray when she’s trying to get the URA (Umamusume Racing Association) to change their rules to allow Oguri Cap to race in the classics, she has to meet with the head of the URA, a normal human woman. They seemingly don’t even have representation of uma interests at the very association that decides the rules their races follow. I would expect retired race umas to be involved in the URA, the training of younger umas, the organizing and running of racing events. Look at basically any sport and the commentators will usually be retired pros, but no umas are ever involved in that either. This is tied to the ambiguity of their ages, but it still seems strange, and paints a picture of the society in Uma Musume valuing them exclusively for their abilities to run and nothing else. In season 2 when you watch Tokai Teio struggle with her injuries and refuse to accept that she’ll never race again, I couldn’t help but think that it’s no wonder she’s so desperate not to give up racing, that’s seemingly the only thing that umas are valued for in society.
Again, none of this is what you’re supposed to think about. It’s supposed to be an entertaining sports game/show about famous race horses being anime girls. But with it being entirely the unintentional result of decisions made solely for the purpose telling the stories they want to tell with little interest in the broader implications their decisions, it ends up creating fascinating results, many of which paint a bit of a darker picture of the world of Uma Musume than what it wants to be.
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