Hokkaido Horse Racing Story.

Chapter 24: The court takes the lead
In the afternoon, Kitano, who was about to close the business early, received a call from Kimura.

"If possible, how about you come to my ranch this Sunday?"

After a pause, Kimura said, as if deliberately lowering his voice, "My ranch has a few foals with very interesting bloodlines. I wonder if you're interested?"

"An interesting foal. I'll go take a look."

After hanging up the phone, Kitano recalled Ogawa Masaru's advice a few days ago.

What Kimura said on the phone should be a situation of "first taking the lead in the court".

There are two different types of court precedent.

The first is active attraction.

When the owner determines that a foal has the potential to become a famous horse if it continues to grow, he may negotiate privately with the ranch and buy the racehorse at a relatively high price without waiting for the auction.

The second type is a more passive approach.

If the ranch is not confident in the pedigree of its own foals, or is not optimistic about the foals' physical condition and growth prospects, it will contact familiar horse owners and try to make a move early to reduce losses.

Of course, it may also be due to the concern that the ranch may fail to sell at auction, thus affecting the reputation of their own ranch.

From the content of Kimura's words, it is not difficult to judge that the second, more negative, approach is most likely the one he took.

However, Kitano still planned to go over and take a look.

This is an opportunity to gain experience in horse observation before the selected auction in Hokkaido from the 22nd to the 24th of this month.

Just think of it as a warm-up for the selection meeting.

Then, open the Assets section of the System Panel.

[Horse: 1]

Ranch Owned: 0

【Clubs held: 0】

【Total assets: 109 million yen】

It is certainly worth being happy about returning to positive assets after a long absence, but it is definitely not possible to participate in the selection meeting with the cash on hand now.

This amount of money is not enough to buy another white horse.

Time to get some more amulets in exchange for cash.

Of course, for now, it is limited to green amulets.

After four months, most of the amulets accumulated by completing daily tasks disappeared.

Then, I bought three [Detectors] in the mall.

After completing the preparations, there were less than 50 green amulets left.

On the remaining day of the week, the frequency of medical visits suddenly increased.

In addition to common seasonal diseases, the incidence of ingestion of poisonous weeds has also unexpectedly increased.

Every year, livestock farmers in Hokkaido spend a lot of effort to remove various poisonous weeds that may threaten the safety of livestock.

Manual removal, spraying of chemicals, deep plowing, and construction of canals——

Even with all the measures taken, these tenacious plants will still grow quietly in corners that the ranchers cannot pay attention to.

Induced vomiting, gastric lavage, intravenous drip. By the time Kitano came to his senses, it was already Sunday.

The alarm on my phone rang on time.

He reached out a hand from under the quilt and turned off the alarm clock. After about half a minute, Kitano slowly sat up from the bed.

The time is 7:31 in the morning.

Even on his day off, he had no intention of getting up late.

Compared to taking a few extra hours of rest occasionally, Kitano believes that a regular lifestyle is better for the body.

What's more, there is a scheduled itinerary in the afternoon.

After washing up, he ate breakfast while watching a show on his phone. Breakfast consisted of fried eggs, toast, and hot milk—a welcome change from last night's leftovers.

After breakfast, Kitano silently memorized the position of the progress bar.

An episode of All Creatures, which lasts over 40 minutes, often takes two or three mornings to watch.

However, rather than fast-forwarding through the show like a pelican swallowing a fish, he would rather enjoy the entire TV series at its original speed.

After spending a few more minutes washing the dishes, Kitano sat on the sofa and picked up a veterinary journal.

Before I knew it, two hours had disappeared as if stolen by a monster.

[Perform ability training: 116/30 minutes (completed)]

While stretching, I received the task reward.

After changing into casual clothes, Kitano chose to walk out instead of driving.

After walking through the empty streets for more than ten minutes, we arrived at the convenience store.

In addition to regular purchases, he also has to confirm the status of his passbook again.

After carefully counting the long string of zeros on the last page of the deposit and confirming that it was correct, Kitano went home carrying two full plastic bags.

I sorted the groceries and put them in the refrigerator, barely finishing them until lunchtime.

Although he often deals with various medicines, he is actually not very good at organizing things.

After lunch, he changed into formal clothes again.

Driving along the romantic streets of Youjun, you can see the azure sea on one side and a vast expanse of neat green land on the other.

Forty minutes later, we arrived at Xinsheng Ranch.

Unlike most other ranches in Liusha County that have signs to identify them, Xinsheng Ranch is identified by a huge stone with the ranch's name engraved on it.

In addition, there is a whole row of decorative stones piled up on the outskirts of the pasture near the canal.

"Welcome, Mr. Kitano!"

When he got off the car, Mr. Kimura was walking towards him with several employees and greeted him warmly.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Kimura."

The two shook hands and quickly let go.

"Look, it's really hot. Why don't we go in first?"

Kimura took Kitano on a tour of the ranch, and proudly introduced his own management methods for the ranch.

Kitano, on the other hand, listened to these things with great interest, which might seem boring to ordinary people, and would ask a few questions from time to time.

"I have benefited greatly from what you have said, Mr. Kimura."

Kitano said truthfully.

As one of the few owner-breeders left in Japan today, that is, a horse owner and producer, Kimura Keio is more familiar with every aspect of the horse racing industry than Kitano, who is only one subject.

He may know a lot about horses as animals, but if we expand the scope to the entire sport of horse racing, he still has a lot to learn.

"Haha, it's nothing! If you're interested, Mr. Kitano, just ask me next time."

Kimura laughed heartily, put his arm around Kitano's shoulders and said, "Come, let me show you the pride of our ranch."

After that, he took Kitano to the grazing area of ​​the ranch.

"This is Ms. Miaochi. She is Mr. Yoshida Victory's beloved. Of course, she also belongs to our ranch."

Kimura pointed to a chestnut mare in the pasture with a huge white shooting star.

Then, quite naturally, he pointed to another chestnut horse in another grazing ground.

"This is Ms. Miao Chi's first child. The position of the shooting stars is almost exactly the same, isn't it?"

(End of this chapter)