<\/p>\n
Haru Urara, the mare who won over horse racing enthusiasts in Japan and abroad with her perpetual losing streak<\/a>, has died. She was 29. <\/p>\n Yuko Miyahara, a representative for Urara\u2019s longtime care facility Matha Farm in the southeast Chiba prefecture of Japan, confirmed to Japanese outlet Friday Digital<\/a> that the animal athlete died early Tuesday of colic. She was surrounded by staff.<\/p>\n \u201cUrara was 29. In human years that\u2019s almost 90, but really, until yesterday she was doing really well,\u201d Miyahara said in the article, which was translated to English. \u201cIt was so sudden … lately Uhara was getting visitors even from outside Japan. It\u2019s really unfortunate.\u201d<\/p>\n The horse, whose name translates to Glorious Spring, debuted in 1998 at the Kochi Racecourse. The track advertised its resilient star\u2019s losing streak as part of its efforts to stay in business. Urara\u2019s reputation \u2014 bolstered by her signature pink racing accessories and fan merchandise \u2014 breached the perimeters of the Kochi racetrack and made her a global phenomenon. In 2004 former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi even expressed his support for the mare.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d like to see Haru Urara win, even just once,\u201d Koizumi said<\/a>. \u201cThe horse is a good example of not giving up in the face of defeat.\u201d<\/p>\n Trained by her longtime trainer Dai Muneishi, Urara kept racing \u2014 she lost a total of 113 races and finished second in only four of those \u2014 until her retirement in August 2004. Her owner at the time parted ways with the Kochi racetrack and Urara disappeared for several years after her retirement. Since 2014 she had been receiving care at Matha Farms. <\/p>\n Her career and unexpected global fame were the subject of the 2016 ESPN documentary \u201cThe Shining Star for Losers Everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAt the time, Haru Urara must have been a star of hope for the losers,\u201d trainer Muneishi said in the documentary. <\/p>\n Interest in Urara\u2019s legacy of losing and resilience reignited earlier this year with the global release of the mobile game \u201cUma Musume: Pretty Derby\u201d in June. <\/a>\u201cUma Musume,\u201d initially released in Japan in 2021, is a racing simulator that re-imagines real-life racehorses as anime horsegirls. Players are \u201ctrainers\u201d who support racers, leveling them up to climb the ranks. In the video game, Haru Urara is a horsegirl whose features are various shades of pink. Her character is also featured in the \u201cUma Musume: Pretty Derby<\/a>\u201d anime series. <\/p>\n The game\u2019s official X (formerly Twitter) account shared the news of the racehorse\u2019s death \u201cwith heavy hearts\u201d and mourned the \u201clegendary\u201d athlete. <\/p>\n \u201cWe share our condolences to all the staff involved in Haru Urara\u2019s care,\u201d the post said. <\/p>\n Times staff writer Tracy Brown contributed to this report.<\/i> <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.latimes.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Haru Urara, the mare who won over horse racing enthusiasts in Japan and abroad with her perpetual losing streak, has died. She was 29. Yuko Miyahara, a representative for Urara\u2019s longtime care facility Matha Farm in the southeast Chiba prefecture of Japan, confirmed to Japanese outlet Friday Digital that the animal athlete died early Tuesday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2009697,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2009696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Haru-Urara-dead-Racehorse-inspired-Uma-Musume-character.com2Fa12Fe02F049a7bf447a7a168217298b3.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2009696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2009696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2009696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2009697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2009696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2009696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2009696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}