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#thoroughbred #victor #harpg #masterofvictory
Published: 2019-02-04 16:46:46 +0000 UTC; Views: 1239; Favourites: 10; Downloads: 0
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Description I am cranking these bad boys out!

Previously:


“Act my age? What the fuck is that, ‘act my age’? What do I care about how old I am? The ocean is old as fuck but it will still drown your ass with vigor.”

Season: 10

SEPTEMBER III

The day of the Woodward dawned dark and stormy, all the songbirds tucked into their summer nests to hide from the pelting rain that beat down upon their heads and made the trees shake from the weight of the water pouring from the heavens. The sun was nowhere to be seen and within hours, the track was so sloppy that nearly half of the day’s racers were scratched.

The Woodward itself was no exception. By midday, the field of sixteen was whittled down to a mere nine. The giants were not to be scared away, however, and a solid one hundred thousand people braved the downpour to watch the four leading three-year-olds of the season take each other on for the first time: Silenus, the tiny wonder; Master of Victory, the class; Overdraw, the power; and My Sanity, the defeater.

As the horses and their riders moved into the post parade, Dani was forced to tuck her soaking wet ponytail into her silks or risk having the wind whip the strands into her face. Her cheeks stung already and Silenus moved unhappily through the muck, head tucked low and ears pinned to his head. He was practically hiding his face underneath his pony rider and had to be pushed into the gate for the first time in his career.

Master of Victory and Overdraw seemed to endure the onslaught with little problem, but My Sanity and many of the other horses rejected the feeling much like Silenus. When the bell sounded and the metal gates clanged open, the field broke record slow with awkward, unhappy lurches. Within seconds, the jockeys in the back of the pack were covered in mud and muck; the ones in the lead were hardly any better, each rider and their mount soaked to the bone.

My Sanity proved to be a happy slop runner and made a surprising bid for the lead. He was best known for being a closer, after all. Dani and Silenus pushed against him early on, but the small colt hated the going and quickly lost the battle against My Sanity as they moved into the far turn. Overdraw, another frontrunner who had a habit of pushing Silenus in turn, was nowhere to be seen when Dani glanced under her shoulder.

With My Sanity free-wheeling down the backstretch, Dani guided Silenus toward the rail in front of the rest of the pack. He was struggling. She could feel his movements turn even choppier than normal. The rail meant a shorter race with less ground to cover, but she might have just made a losing decision, for the track was sloppiest along the rail.

Sure enough, Silenus lost the battle against the muck and slipped back into the middle of the pack. Suddenly, Dani could see Overdraw running alongside them, stuck in a box from the get-go with nowhere to run.

My Sanity still ran ahead, a good three lengths in front of the rest of them.

At the turn for home, however, the race changed.

Through the pelting rain, Master of Victory’s white muzzle sliced through the air, moving past the rest of the field in a great, impressive surge from behind. My Sanity, it seemed, was not the only mudder in the field today.

In less than a furlong, Master of Victory had surpassed the pack and was challenging My Sanity for the lead. The early surge made the chestnut panic and push harder, exhausting himself beyond redemption. At the wire, My Sanity was in fourth. Master of Victory claimed The Woodward by two lengths.

The late summer meets were about to bleed into fall, and the giants were back in the running. Master of Victory had just thrown down the gauntlet, and the world turned its attention to the Breeder’s Cup.

***

After The Woodward--in which Silenus had placed a dismal and disappointing seventh--the BCC team turned its attentions to the freshmen. Cora was full of piss and vinegar, ready to rumble against any competition they threw at her. Cyrus noted the energy and tossed her toward a maiden special weight. Her connections all thought she would dominate the race. She was Aztec’s full sibling, after all. She was betted down to an impressive 3/5. Those who believed in here were to be disappointed, however, as she flopped about and dicked around on the far outside all the way down the track. She placed a dismal, mind-boggling eighth.

Blood Diamond did far better than her stablemate a mere two hours later in the Grade II Pocahontas. The dark red filly was the image of a young champion in the making as she crossed the wire five lengths in front, ears pricked forward and head held high under a hand ride from Dani.

The following morning, headlines splashed across the racing news sites: “BLOOD DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH?” and “DIAMOND BETTER THAN BCC’S HEART?” And with that, Di and Cora were pitted against each other--the royally-bred, famous young filly with a shitty maiden debut versus the obscure and unknown filly already dominating the graded division.

***

The Saturday morning lesson group had grown bored of the arena, high off of the summer heat and too much youthful energy. Alex had lasted a whopping fifteen minutes before caving to their shrieks and demands and leading a train of twelve ponies and their juvenile riders to the track. They weren’t allowed to gallop, but maybe a good, long canter would satisfy their restless little souls.

Aztec plodded along faithfully, gently, giving Alex whatever she asked without a fuss. Quite a few mares made up the lesson group but he didn’t even bat an eye at them, far too focused on the woman on his back. When they approached the training track and Aztec saw the homestretch for the first time in over a year, all he did was prick his ears and flare his nostrils once before settling down once more and waiting for Alex’s commands.

A few exercise riders were posted as guards along the inside of the track and they unleashed the kids and their mounts. Faith and Teddy immediately broke the rules and let their horses loose into a full-on gallop, much to Alex’s displeasure. Luckily, they weren’t old enough for the OTTBs (so said Scott) and their barn-motivated ponies were less than enthused about the run. The minute they could, the two horses slowed back to a huffy canter. The rest of the group weaved around the track like ants, most of them bouncing along at uncomfortable-looking trots.

Alex and Aztec stood alongside the rail, just watching.

Around twenty minutes later, a horn sounded, making Aztec jerk slightly at the sudden noise. Luckily, the lesson horses were bomb-proof and didn’t seem to care, but Alex knew the horn meant a racer was about to breeze. Basically, it was Emma saying ‘get the hell off my track.’ Alex dutifully rounded the kids up and ushered them out onto the surrounding lawn. They wanted to see the horse work out though, and so Alex let them remain to watch a right proper breeze.

The buckskin that trotted onto the dirt was admittedly beautiful. Ward, as they had taken to calling him around the grounds, had improved dramatically the last month and Emma was already planning on sending him to Cyrus with the rest of the string come January. It was amazing what a proper diet and a good trainer could do to a horse.

Lia appeared along the rail with Mira on one side and Mick, Teddy’s father, on the other. Teddy groaned at seeing his dad but the man didn’t seem to be there to collect his son quite yet. Instead, he was focused on Ward.

The buckskin opened up into a sprinting gallop to the cheers and shrieks of the pint-sized crowd nearby.

“What do you think?” Lia asked after a bit.

Mick blinked and turned to look at her, startled. “Sorry?”

She just chuckled and shook her head. “You still think I treat all the parents this way?”

“Uhh…”

Mira leaned around her friend with an eye roll. “Don’t worry, she’s not hitting on you,” she said drolly. “She’s trying to hire you and you’re being dense.”

Mick just blinked, wide-eyed. “What?” he said stupidly after a minute.

Mira just sighed and disappeared back on the other side of Lia, watching Siward slow to a canter.

Lia gestured toward the colt. “Tell me what you would do.”

“About the colt?”

“Yes, about the colt.”

Mick hesitated, suddenly nervous and unsure. “Well,” he eventually spoke, “his left leg swings wide. You need to run him clockwise to even that out. And his tries to lean into the rail so blinders might help keep him straight.”

Lia hummed in encouragement and gestured for him to continue.

“I don’t have a watch on me but he seems to be running pretty slow, too. Have you raced him alongside a rabbit?” Rabbit, of course, referred to an old training technique of sending out a speedster alongside your trainee. The idea was that the speedster would run with the trainee for a bit before jolting ahead, hopefully triggering the inherent thoroughbred competitiveness in the trainee and pushing them to run faster to try and keep up. It was an interesting technique and wasn’t used much anymore by the more modern-philosophy trainers.

Lia stared at Mick for a moment before flicking her gaze back to Ward. She then glanced over to Mira, who just shrugged with a small smile, and Lia knew Mick had won the hardass woman over a bit.

“Mick, I’d like to offer you a job. Probationary, of course, pending success.”

Mick’s forehead had to hurt with his muscles all bunched up against his hairline like that, eyebrows raised as high as they could go. “Are you serious?” he practically squeaked. He cleared his throat and tried again. “A job? Here?”

“Sort of. I need another string trainer. We’re tripling our foal output for the coming years ahead and I want my racing string to reflect that. Cyrus can’t handle that amount of racers on his own. So, I need someone else.”

Mick just blinked back at her, dumbfounded. So, she continued. “You’d be salary with commission, and you’d sign an exclusivity contract. I don’t let my trainers play the field, if you know what I mean? You’d operate independently than Cyrus but you’d still be in Barn 12 with Cyrus’s string when you two operate on the same track.”

“Does he know about this?” Mick said eventually, hesitant to step on the toes of a trainer destined to join the Hall of Fame sooner rather than later.

But Lia and Mira both nodded at him, and Mick felt his heart quicken in excitement. “He knows,” Lia reassured. “It was sort of his idea, actually. So. What do you say? Are you interested?”

“Of course I’m interested.”

Lia grinned. She really was quite beautiful, all dark hair and pale skin. Those eyes of hers, though, could instill fear in the heart of any man. They were steely and intense and froze him in place. “Good,” she replied, flashing those sharp pearly whites at him. “Mira will work out the details with you in the morning. You can start whenever you want, but you’ll take over your own string come January.”

Mick swallowed tightly, heart practically beating out of his chest. It felt like he was about to sign his soul away, but hell if he wasn’t here for it.

***

Drew patted Javier on the shoulder as he walked past him and into Belmont’s Barn 12. His cane made a soft click, click, click against the concrete. It was surreal, being back here. Nearly thirty years now, but it seemed like little had changed. He could still hear Dawson’s classic rock thrumming from the office in his mind, could hear Erik’s soft snores and Sven’s Swedish murmurs as he groomed one horse or another in his downtime. It even smelled the same-- horseflesh and hay and alfalfa, with just a hint of sweat and a healthy layer of leather on top of it all.

“Still smells like horseshit,” Dawson grumped behind him. Drew huffed out a laugh and turned to raise an eyebrow at his adoptive father. The man looked ancient now. His hair was snow-white but his skin was tan and leathery. He had retired back to his island sanctuary decades ago and the exposure to the elements showed in every line and wrinkle on his face. His eyes still sparked with life and fire, though.

Behind Dawson stood another man whom Drew had only met a handful of times. He, too, was old and wrinkled, face covered in age spots and the occasional scar. A thick, burly mountain beard covered most of his face. Snake still looked mean, though, and was just as quick of mind as Drew remembered.

“Who’re you?” Snake asked Javier suspiciously.

Drew answered for him. “Javier Romero, one of BCC’s jockeys.” Then, he gestured to the others staring wide-eyed from against the barn stalls. “Liam Saroy, Dani Rivera, and Eddie Sinclair.”

“Sinclair,” Snake rumpled, eyes narrowing. “You’re the one we’re here to talk to?”

Eddie nodded nervously, shifting back and forth on his feet. Any one of them could take Dawson or Snake down in a fight--the men were in their seventies, after all--but the two veterans still commanded the room wherever they went. They practically oozed danger.

They were perfect, to be honest. Exactly what the young jockeys needed.

Snake hobbled farther into the barn, a bit hunched in the back but glaring at anyone, daring them to comment. (No one did.) Dawson followed behind, eyes scoping out the barn like he had never seen it before.

“Right,” Snake said determinedly. “Here’s what we’re going to do. None of you--” he pointed sharply at the four younger people-- “do anything alone. Ever. Not until we get this thing handled. Got it?”

“Already handled,” Liam spoke up bravely. Javier jabbed him nervously in the ribs but Liam just smacked his hand away and shoved the other jockey closer to Eddie. Snake narrowed his beady gaze at Liam and stepped closer, towering over the smaller man. His whiskery mountain beard practically quivered as he eyed Liam up and down suspiciously. (It was important to note that Snake was suspicious of everything.)

“Listen,” Snake hissed after a moment. “You do everything we say from here on out, got it? We’ll handle everything.”

“How?”

Snake swung around to glare at Eddie. “‘Scuse me?”

“I just… how? My family… April--”

“You leave the Irish bitch to me.” Snake jabbed his chest with his thumb. Behind him, Dawson just chuckled.

“Relax, kid,” he reassured Eddie. “We might be old but we still have a few tricks up our sleeves.” He nudged Snake. “You gonna take a look around?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Snake muttered like he had forgotten and just remembered why they were there. He glanced around the barn, eyeing the horses and noting the bits and baubles here and there. He walked away from the group, muttering to himself under his breath.

Dawson just grinned at them, nudged Drew fondly, and followed.


Shown:
Name: Master of Victory
Barn name: Victor
Gender: Colt
Age: 3
Breed: Thoroughbred
Height: 16hh
Color: Seal bay sabino
Genotype: Ee/Ata/nSb
Markings: Long snip with chin cap, small belly spot on right side
Build: n/a
Temperament: n/a
Discipline: Flat racing
Bloodlines: Violence x Biblical Point, Point Given

Art, Story, and Characters (C) me
Victor's design courtesy of decors

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Comments: 8

RacingBelle [2019-02-09 12:18:10 +0000 UTC]

Can I just say that I love the return of Snake and Dawson? They are the ultimate badass old men! Rotfl That quote makes a lot of sense now. Master of Victory is AMAZING! First thing I did when I saw him was go "Helllooo there handsome, who are you?" 

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

thunderjam12 In reply to RacingBelle [2019-02-11 04:37:38 +0000 UTC]

Thank you! I love Victor. He's such a handsome boy.

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

sealle [2019-02-05 00:30:30 +0000 UTC]

SNAAAAAAKE
YASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

The hairy beast returns!!! <3 <3 

i approve of this so so dang much. 

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

thunderjam12 In reply to sealle [2019-02-05 13:12:45 +0000 UTC]

I thought of you while writing it.

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

sealle In reply to thunderjam12 [2019-02-06 10:11:35 +0000 UTC]

You made me a very happy Frankie ;n; 

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

scaramouche2802 [2019-02-04 20:40:09 +0000 UTC]

Dum dum duuuuummmmm -cue the drama-

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

decors [2019-02-04 18:12:18 +0000 UTC]

wooo Dawson!! <3

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

KingdomHeartsOrgXII3 [2019-02-04 17:44:50 +0000 UTC]

-rubs hands excitedly- o boi its a partyyyyy o3o
A PARTY OF PLOTS AND SUSPENSE >8DDD

👍: 0 ⏩: 0