Following Cancelled Concert, Umamusume Fans Give Knott’s Berry Farm Blacksmith ‘Busiest Day Of His Life

This weekend was meant to mark the first official Umamusume concert in the United States, until a week ago when publisher Cygames abruptly announced it could not secure the documentation required to hold the event. For many fans, the news was a bitter disappointment. But for devoted Pretty Derby supporters, it became a chance to gather as a group, spending the day in Knott’s Berry Farm’s Old West town and giving the blacksmith the busiest day of his career.

“I was told that the horseshoe blacksmith at Knott’s today had the most business he ever had,” one Umamusume attendee wrote, noting that “his queue for the day [was] completely filled.”

It’s genuinely crazy to be getting FOMO for an LA umamusume event that literally got cancelled but all the pictures of the fan meetups happening across the weekend show such an amazing sense of community. You can’t help but be a little wistful you don’t get to experience that fan solidarity

— It’s CyGO!!!!! 🍻 (@cyonara.butchsky.social) 2026-10-23T22:15:17.046Z

It’s genuinely crazy to be getting FOMO for an LA umamusume event that literally got cancelled but all the pictures of the fan meetups happening across the weekend show such an amazing sense of community. You can’t help but be a little wistful you don’t get to experience that fan solidarity

— It’s CyGO!!!!! 🍻 (@cyonara.butchsky.social) 2026-10-23T22:15:17.046Z

With less than a week until the tour’s departure, Cygames stated that Trump’s recent changes to visa applications had barred its musicians and voice actors, forcing the cancellation of the sole American stop on the world tour. The mobile game, which has since spawned numerous animated series and comics, follows anthropomorphized girls based on real-world racetrack legends. Combine horse girls with anime aesthetics and you end up with a fairly devoted fanbase. Yet even under ordinary circumstances, such a sudden change of plans would have felt quite harsh. The publisher did soften the blow, however, by reimbursing any booked airfare and hotel accommodations in addition to refunding concert tickets.

For those who had already cleared their schedules, fans in the area chose not to let the bad news derail their plans. A herd of Umamusume fans decided to head on down to Knott’s Berry Farm. Not for their annual Halloween houses or the Elvira show, but for its ghost town—namely, an old-timey cowpoke ghost town. Spending the day out on the range, showing off plush toys, for horse girls and cowboys alike.

he’s the goat fr pic.twitter.com/WzKPnGlIl9

— trustworthy timmy (@nekolelouch) October 24, 2026

he’s the goat fr pic.twitter.com/WzKPnGlIl9

— trustworthy timmy (@nekolelouch) October 24, 2026

It seems the real star of this community event was Knott’s in-house blacksmith. A tradition dating back to when the park opened in 1947 and an institution within the ghost town pavilion, Knott’s keeps the smithy on staff to forge iron and share a bit of frontier history. This fixture lets parents turn their day of thrill rides into a captivating field trip, lasting around 20 breathless minutes.

Every dog has its day, and this metal worker wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Umamusume booked his day solid, with attendees calling it the busiest of his career. Fans requested horseshoes branded with the names of their favorite characters, who once again share their titles with real competing horses. It still doesn’t explain why anime girls without hooves would need a horseshoe at all—unless they’re also susceptible to fungal infections or those gross Facebook reels that keep showing up in your feed.