With a career record of 113 losses and no wins, racehorse Haru Urara became an unintentional pop culture icon in Japan and beyond. The beloved race-losing horse inspired one of Umamusume: Pretty Derby‘s horse-girl characters, and her death this week has been marked by many well beyond the racing sphere.
After making her debut in 1998, racehorse Haru Urara became famous for her reliable losing streak, becoming a household name across Japan and for some a kind of patron deity for losers who nevertheless refuse to give up.
Former racehorse Haru Urara, known for an impeccable 113 race loss record, and as the inspiration for the Umamusume: Pretty Derby character of the same name, has died aged 29. pic.twitter.com/HXvdijrj1G
— Eurogamer (@eurogamer) September 9, 2025
Haru Urara lends her name and trademark losing streak to one of the characters in Umamusume: Pretty Derby, a game and anime franchise centered around anthropomorphised horse-girls who double as racers and idols. Though the racehorse Haru Urara retired in 2006, the Umamusume character made more people aware of her quirky background, with the anime and game seeing a trend of fans coming to visit the horse where she was spending her retirement at Matha Farm.
Haru Urara died at the age of 29, Eurogamer reports, but her legacy will live on in the form of an unlucky but endlessly positive anime horse girl in a surprisingly popular gacha game.
Umamusume was first announced as a gacha game back in 2016, but due to delays the anime adaptation released first in 2018. While the free-to-play game was released in Japan in 2021, it didn’t see a release outside of Asia until June this year. Umamusume’s worldwide Steam release proved popular with gamers, with the game hitting a peak of over 87,000 concurrent players in its first month of release. The game is also available globally on iOS and Android.
