Uma Musume - Cinderella Gray - Vol. 21 Ch. 190 - Idol

[MangaDex]

 

[SuperOniichan]

Oguri is so OP, that in fact she's the last boss of the story, not her arc rivals.

 

[Kensou]

An act making her as much of a "heel" as Creek; an act intended to help. Not that Oguri will think about it in that way...

 

[norctune]

A great victory but the "taking down the monster angle" isn't really valid tbh considering Oguri isn't in peak condition. Should of focused more on Yaeno's amazing achievement rather than defeating the monster.
Just my two cents.

 

[RollOmega]

A great victory but the "taking down the monster angle" isn't really valid tbh considering Oguri isn't in peak condition.

Well, we the readers know that from seeing as much behind-the-scenes content as we have (including the clock metaphors), but the in-setting audience doesn't. It's a reflection of how the real Oguri Cap was indeed the overwhelming #1 favorite for the 1990 Autumn Tenno, even despite recently losing to Osaichi George (Mill Wakaba) at the Takarazuka. That result could be handwaved as a fluke, or a natural result of variance - Oguri still came in second, and it's not like she was undefeated, plus Wakaba is a known up-and-coming high-level talent. This result, on the other hand - Oguri off the board entirely, with the winner being a fairly ordinary age-contemporary that hadn't won a G1 in 2.5 years - has now forced the racing audience to well and truly realize that Oguri is vulnerable. (One could even say Oguri is washed, given the 6th place finish, but presumably Yaeno wasn't trying for a specific Oguri placement beyond Not 1st, since she can't really control that.)

There's a thing in sports where audience perception tries really really hard to be reality, and once-great athletes that are clearly in the downswing/twilight of their careers still carry fan expectations of what they could do in their prime, even when they very obviously cannot if one is willing to be honest with oneself. If you'll pardon the USA-centrism for a moment, guys like Kobe Bryant and Ichiro Suzuki are good examples of this, and Patrick Mahomes is rapidly becoming another, if he isn't one already. If the fans were considering age at all, they were dearly hoping that better comps would be the likes of LeBron James or Alexander Ovechkin, guys who seem completely immune to the passage of time. But reality slapped them across their collective face with this race, forcing them to awaken from their collective delusion.

(If one is willing to indulge in a little bit of clairvoyance, the 1990 Autumn Tenno was the last race Oguri Cap ran as the favorite, so fan perception does indeed change going forward.)