This made me curious. Did RL Silence Suzuka and RL Air Groove had a foal together, seeing how there’s so many ship fanarts of them?
IRL Silence Suzuka was euthanized after suffering multiple fractures on his left foreleg doing the '98 Fall Tenno Sho, so he never had a chance to sire a foal.
The horse was heavily shipped with Air Groove though ("Number one ideal wife candidate", as the racehorse fans say), and this has carried on over to his Umamusume counterpart.
IRL Silence Suzuka was euthanized after suffering multiple fractures on his left foreleg doing the '98 Fall Tenno Sho, so he never had a chance to sire a foal.
The horse was heavily shipped with Air Groove though ("Number one ideal wife candidate", as the racehorse fans say), and this has carried on over to his Umamusume counterpart.
They had a rivalry of sorts and raced against each other twice, with Air Groove winning in the '97 Fall Tenno Sho and Silence Suzuka winning in the '98 Takarazuka Kinen.
They also shared the same main jockey (Take Yutaka), though he was riding Air Groove in the aforementioned two races.
Speculating mates for horses is a fun activity among horse fans. It's part relationshipping, and part "create your own ideal horse from pedigree matching" (not unlike, say, creating your ideal team in Fantasy Football). This is especially true for popular horses that died early and never had a chance to mate. Also, back then a popular publication ran a poll for Silence Suzuka "number one wife candidate", and Air Groove was overwhelmingly first, so the idea of Air Groove being Silence Suzuka's "Number One Ideal Wife Candidate" stuck on among Japanese racehorse fans.
ba-dump ba-dump ba-dumpBack to normalI got a little too carried away...