Umamusume: Pretty Derby Beginner Guide: Tips for New Trainers

Umamusume: Pretty Derby looks like a chill idol game about horse girls singing after races. Under that outfit it's a turn-based training sim, and the game does a genuinely bad job of explaining the systems that decide whether your trainee wins or flops. Your whole job is walking one girl through three in-game years of training, one turn at a time, then doing it again with a better deck. Here's the stuff that actually matters in your first few runs: the training loop, stat caps, mood, support cards, energy, and how to plan races around fan counts.

Understanding the Career Mode Training Loop

A career runs across three in-game years: Junior, Classic, then Senior. Every month splits into two turns, so a full career gives you 72 turns, plus a short finale stretch after year three in most scenarios. Each turn you pick exactly one thing: train at one of the five facilities, rest, do recreation for mood, visit the infirmary for a bad condition, or run a race. That's the entire game. Seventy-some choices, stacked on top of each other.

What each stat actually does

| Stat | What it does | Priority for a first run | | --- | --- | --- | | Speed | Top speed in the late part of a race | Highest. Train it constantly. | | Stamina | The fuel tank. Runs dry mid-race and she fades hard | Raise it to match your race distances | | Power | Acceleration, plus squeezing through the pack | Comes along mostly free with Speed | | Guts | Final-stretch grit, saves fuel late | Low. A little goes a long way | | Wit | Skill activation rate, positioning, fewer panic moments | Get a baseline, then stop |

A couple of things the stat screen won't tell you. Training is never pure. Speed sessions kick in a little Power as a side effect, Stamina work drags some Guts along, and so on. So a Speed-heavy run ends up with decent Power whether you planned it or not. Wit is also the one stat where a real target exists: somewhere around 300 is the usual goal for making her skills fire reliably in races. Past that, the returns get thin for a new trainer.

One more hidden thing: every trainee gets a flat +400 to all five stats during career races, on top of what her card shows. That free boost is a big reason Guts can sit low on your priority list. The game quietly covers a lot of it for you.

Career goals decide whether you finish

Before you even start, open Career Info and tap through each goal. Every girl has a set of required races with required placements, and the distances listed there shape your whole run. Miss a goal with no retries left and the career ends on the spot. It's not a game over screen exactly, more of a bad ending. She still becomes a veteran you keep, so a short run isn't wasted, it's just a smaller one. Checking those distances first is the single cheapest thing you can do to protect a run. Training a mile runner and then finding out her goal races are all 2500m in month four is a rough afternoon.

Facilities level up as you use them

Roughly every four sessions at a facility bumps it up a level, and there are five levels. Higher levels give bigger base stat gains per turn, so a focused run on two or three stats snowballs. The bar for a level 1 Speed session might be around 10 Speed before any bonuses; at level 5 the base alone is bigger, and that's before friendship training multiplies it.

Summer camp is the big exception. Through July and August of the Classic and Senior years, every facility jumps to level 5 for free. Those eight turns are the most valuable training turns of the whole run. Go in with high energy and a good mood, and don't waste camp turns resting unless you absolutely have to.

Friendship training is the whole game

Support cards from your deck randomly show up on facilities each turn. A card sitting there boosts that session. Raise her friendship gauge past 80 out of 100 and the gauge turns orange. Now training at her home facility triggers friendship training, a much bigger multiplier on the whole session. Max the gauge and you'll see the rainbow border. Two orange cards stacked on the same facility is where the huge numbers come from. This is why decks stack multiple cards of the same type instead of one of everything.

Reading Stat Caps and Mood Effects

The 1200 wall

Stats run from 1 to 2000 on paper. Race math doesn't care about paper past 1200. Anything above 1200 counts at half value when the game runs the numbers, so a Speed stat of 1500 performs like 1350. That's 1200 plus half of the extra 300.

So the practical finish line for a stat is 1200, not 1600. Pushing a stat to 1500 costs a pile of turns for almost nothing in return, and those turns spent elsewhere would have been worth double. For a first run, aim your main stats at 1200 and spread the rest around. Beginners land somewhere in the 800-1100 range on their lead stats anyway, and that's plenty to clear a career.

The halving only applies to race calculations, not to how the stat looks on screen, so the game never actually tells you this is happening. Your character sheet says 1500 and the race says 1350. It feels like a bug. It isn't.

Mood tiers

Mood sits in the top corner as a little face, and it quietly multiplies everything you do. There are five levels:

| Mood | Training gain | Race stats | | --- | --- | --- | | Great | +20% | +4% | | Good | +10% | +2% | | Normal | No change | No change | | Bad | -10% | -2% | | Awful | -20% | -4% |

You'll usually start a run at Normal. Great mood is a 20% boost on every single training turn, and that adds up fast over 72 turns. Twenty percent here, twenty percent there, times a couple dozen training turns, is a whole extra stat block by the end.

Bad and Awful are the ones to actually fear. Awful chops a fifth off your gains and makes races worse too. Since the jump from Normal to Great is worth two full steps of Bad in reverse, mood is genuinely one of the strongest levers in the game for something you can fix in one turn.

Keeping mood up

Recreation is the main tool. It usually gives +10 energy and one mood step, though about one time in three you'll get no energy and two mood steps instead, so it's a decent deal either way. Beyond that: parfaits from events, random support card events, and dialogue options that mention food, sleep, or taking a break tend to lift mood. The New Year event in January is a good example, the food choice there hands you 30 energy too.

The main thing that tanks mood is failed training. Failed sessions cost you the turn, the stats, and often a mood step. Which brings us to energy, because energy failures are the real mood killer in disguise.

One quirk worth knowing: some support cards carry a mood effect stat, and that stat makes good moods better but makes bad moods worse. If you're sitting at Bad or Awful, a card with a big mood effect is actively working against you. Fix the mood first, then train with her.

Choosing Your First Support Cards

Here's the part that surprises people. Cards matter more than the girl. A solid support deck on a mid-tier trainee will outperform a weak deck on a star, nine times out of ten. The card pool decides which facilities pay out, which skills you can grab, and how fast the friendship gauges fill. New players tend to agonize over which character to pick and then throw any six cards in the deck. Flip that priority.

You get six slots. Each card has a type, marked by its icon: Speed, Stamina, Power, Guts, Wit, or a friend/group card. One restriction to remember: you can't run the support card of the girl you're currently training. Building an Oguri Cap deck? No Oguri Cap cards allowed.

What to read on a card

Card stats are dense, but a handful carry most of the weight:

• Friendship bonus - multiplies friendship training gains. This one stacks multiplicatively with itself, so two strong friendship bonuses together hit harder than the numbers suggest. Usually the top thing to look for.
• Training effectiveness - a flat multiplier on any session that card shows up in, even away from her home facility.
• Specialty priority - how often she lands on her own facility. A high number here means she shows up where you want her.
• Initial friendship gauge - starts the bond partway filled. Underrated for beginners, since it gets you to friendship training turns earlier.
• Mood effect - boosts how much mood helps, and hurts when mood is bad.
• Race bonus and fan bonus - more stats, skill points, and fans from every race. Fan bonus especially grows as the card levels up.
• Helper effects - failure protection lowers the odds of a blown session, energy cost reduction makes training cheaper, event recovery adds energy from events, and wit friendship recovery gives energy back on Wit friendship training.

Don't stress about maxing all of this early. For your first decks, look for friendship bonus, specialty priority, and whatever keeps energy alive.

A starter deck shape that works

The classic beginner build is two Speed, two Stamina, one Wit, and one friend card or borrowed card. That covers the two stats that actually win races, and the Wit slot keeps your energy from bottoming out since Wit work gives energy back instead of draining it. If your girl runs long distances, leaning three Stamina is fine too. Just avoid the temptation of one card in every color, because a spread deck never gets anyone's gauge to 80 and misses out on friendship training entirely.

Cards worth grabbing first

Three names come up over and over for new accounts:

• Kitasan Black (Fire at My Heels) - the Speed benchmark. Shows up on Speed training constantly and slips you Power on the side.
• Super Creek (Piece of Mind) - the Stamina pick. Picks up a stamina bonus at level 35 that fattens every Stamina session she touches.
• Fine Motion (Wave of Gratitude) - the energy saver. Her wit friendship recovery hands energy back on Wit friendship training, which quietly funds your Speed and Stamina turns.

If you're the rerolling type, aim at Kitasan Black or Fine Motion rather than a specific character. One strong SSR card moves a run more than the difference between most trainees. And if the gacha gods don't cooperate, an unleveled SSR in the right slot still beats a leveled R card scattered across the wrong ones.

Managing Energy and Rest Days

The failure math

Every training session eats energy. A level 1 Speed session costs around 21 energy, and the price edges up as facilities level. Below roughly half your energy bar, training can fail outright, and the failure chance climbs the emptier the bar gets. Near empty, your success odds are more like 30-40%. A failed session burns the turn, grants nothing, can drop her mood, and can even slap on a condition. It's the single worst outcome in the game, and it's fully avoidable.

The working rule: once the failure chance on screen hits about 15-25%, stop training and recover first. The game shows you the failure percentage before you commit, so there's no guessing. Chasing one more Speed session at a 40% fail chance is how runs die.

What rest actually gives you

Rest rolls one of three outcomes:

| Event | Energy | Notes | | --- | --- | --- | | Well-Rested! | +70 | The jackpot | | All Refreshed | +50 | Solid | | Sleep Deprived | +30 | Chance of Night Owl |

Night Owl is the trap. It randomly ticks 10 energy off the bar until you clear it at the infirmary, and clearing it isn't even guaranteed on the first visit. The infirmary does give +20 energy for the trip, so it's not a total loss.

All the other ways to get energy back

Rest is the blunt tool. The cheap ones:

• Wit training gives back about 5 energy instead of costing any. It's the only facility that pays you. When you're low but not desperate, a Wit turn is nearly free stats plus skill points plus a little energy.
• Events from your trainee and your support cards hand out energy pretty often.
• Dialogue choices about food or rest. The New Year one in early January gives 30.
• Summer rest and recreation, during July-August camp, gives +40 energy, a mood step, and heals negative conditions all in one turn. Best rest in the game, only available those two months.
• The infirmary, +20 energy plus a shot at removing whatever condition you picked up.

The trick experienced players use is treating rest as a last resort rather than a plan. A rest turn produces zero stats. Wit turns, good event choices, and camp timing cover most of your recovery for free, and every turn you save goes into a facility instead.

Racing and energy

Here's a fun one: racing barely costs energy. You just need at least 1 point in the bar, and full versus nearly empty makes no difference to how she runs. What does matter is running three races back to back, or entering one at 0 energy. That can trigger Race Fatigue afterward, dropping her mood and sometimes adding a condition. So don't stack races three turns in a row, and don't send her out on a dead bar, but a race at 30 energy is completely fine. Plan races on the calendar, not on the energy bar.

Picking Races and Fan Count Goals

Reading the race calendar

Career goal races come first, always. They're required, so build your stat plan around their distances and track. Everything else is optional, and optional races are where you get to be picky.

Optional races pay out fans, skill points, stat bumps, and sometimes skill hints. G1 races can even drop inheritance factors for your next run. On the race selection screen, stars next to an event mean your girl's aptitudes fit it well. Trust the stars. A race that matches her distance and track aptitudes at A or S rank is worth far more than a bigger race where she's a C.

Two payout rules worth memorizing. Medium and long races hand out more fans than sprint and mile races at the same grade. And first place pays dramatically more than second or worse, so a winnable G2 beats a hopeful G1 almost every time. Racing for participation trophies doesn't build a fan base.

Fan checkpoints worth knowing

Fans aren't just a vanity number. They gate real rewards at fixed dates, mostly stacked into the Senior year. Here's the full list:

| Checkpoint | Fans needed | Reward | | --- | --- | --- | | Classic year, November | 50,000 | 20 Wit, 20 skill points, a gold skill from Aoi | | End of Classic year | 100,000 | +30 skill points | | Senior year, early February | 60,000 | Unique skill level up | | Senior year, early April | 70,000 | Unique skill level up, needs a green bond with the President too | | Senior year, late December | 120,000 | Unique skill level up | | End of Senior year | 240,000 | +30 skill points |

Haru Urara and Falcon Bomb have lower bars on the three Senior checkpoints, at 40,000, 60,000, and 80,000. Everyone else uses the numbers above.

The three Senior checkpoints are the ones that matter most, because they're the only way to level her unique skill during a career. Miss the February 60,000 and that skill level is gone for the run. Hitting all three sends her out with a maxed unique skill, and that carries straight into what she passes down as a legacy later.

Actually getting to those numbers

Sixty thousand by early February sounds like a lot. It isn't, if you're winning. Two races do most of the work: the Japan Cup and the Arima Kinen each pay around 30,000 fans for a first-place finish, and both are open in the Classic and Senior years. Win your scheduled goals, add those two, and slot in whatever else fits her distances, and 60k arrives on schedule without any special effort.

Support cards with fan bonus stretch every result a bit further, and that effect grows as the card levels. If two races look equal on the calendar, take the one with the bigger grade and the longer distance. And check the fan count on her profile page now and then, since the game doesn't warn you when a checkpoint is coming up short.

The habit that ties all of this together: open Career Info before every run, write down the goal distances, and train for those races instead of training in general. Do that, keep her above half energy, keep the mood at Good or better, and get two friendship gauges orange before the Classic year ends. That's a competent trainer, and the rest is just refining the deck.