The Grey's and The Bay

[creativecause]

The Greys’ and the Bay

Honorary and Alex Shade
Silver Secret and Hadley Grayson
Van Guard and Andrew Martin
Sissy bulked at Honor’s attempt to bite her, in Sissy’s entire stay at Grayson Meadows Honor had done nothing but pick on her, and Sissy took it. Van however, seemed to pick on Honor at times, and Honor had none of it. Even if Van towered over her at 17.1 hands, Honor always had a ‘I-am-the-boss-deal-with-it’ attitude, which is part of what made her so loveable.
“What is her deal?” Hadley snapped, pulling Sissy away from Honor for about the fifth time since they had stepped onto The Wire’s dirt track that morning.
“She’s just a little sour from her loss, and Sissy is simply, well, a Sissy and Honor knows it.” Alex said, pushing Honor up to a trot to start running her through her warm ups.
“Well, as Andrew always says, you should learn to control your animal,” Hadley growled starting Sissy in on her workouts.
“He can’t change the pecking order Hadley,” Andrew said, doing the same with Van.
Hadley grumbled something under her breath and kept on with Sissy’s warmups. She wasn’t Sissy’s regular rider, but she was in love with the grey mare.
“Don’t get too attached,” Andrew smiled at Hadley.
“I’m not...” She muttered, she knew they were just having a little bit of fun with her, the way uncles always tease their nieces and nephews. After all, they were practically family.
Honor ducked her head and put on her ‘game-face’, all the while chomping on her bit furiously. The filly was hungering for a win, she wasn’t pleased with her 4th place finish in the Give Me A Chance stakes, and neither was anyone at Grayson Meadows. Of course everything that could have gone wrong in that race for her did. She was forced on the lead and pushed to her limit too early, which she reacted very poorly to. The filly was back with full force and ready to take down Flaming Confidenza. Their strategy, it was simple, keep her off the lead, or let her have it and don’t so much as let Flaming Confidenza touch her, if they managed that, the race was Honor’s for the taking. It was more than obvious to Alex that Honor would do anything to win, even if she ended up with an injury.
Meanwhile Sissy was in a bit of a winless streak since her win in the Zebra Stakes, with a second, third and fourth place finish since her blowout win, Sissy had to be hungering for a win. However the mare didn’t not show it. Sissy would be running against the highly regarded GS Supercharged, but the race showed to have little promise, seeing as they were both closers, and there were no other entrants at the time to even out the ratio. So, Sissy would have to either take the lead and keep it, or stay behind and let GS Supercharged take control and come down on him hard. Even though Alex would be riding her come race day, Hadley would love nothing more than to see Silver Secret roll down the stretch and crush GS Supercharged.
Van was an entirely different story, he was a new purchase that Grayson Meadows had high hopes for. In his first outing he had finished 3rd. Andrew was determined to get Van his next win to push him to G2 status, after that, they would only need 3 more wins and then he would be G1. That was team Grayson Meadows whole goal, get him to G1 and then retire him. His next race was still being determined. Grayson Meadows wanted to do right by the stallion, and they had to keep him sharp by working him with some of their stables tougher horses. Today, that was the ferious Honorary and the cowardly but incredibly fast Silver Secret.
They all approached the gate and loaded without a problem. The main objective of the workout was to push the horses faster than they normally would, push them a bit out of their comfort zones. So as soon as the gate opened Honor And Van shot out of the gate like rockets followed by Sissy, who was about a length behind. Hadley pushed Sissy to catch up and she was soon only half a length behind a dueling Van and Honor.
The only thing that could be heard at the wire at five in the morning that day was the short staccato of hooves hitting the dirt and propelling horses off the ground at 40 miles per hour.
Van snatched the lead by a head on the rail and Honor pushed him faster and faster with plenty of energy left to spare going into the final turn. Sissy still sat chilly on the outside of a Honor, glued to her withers. They continued their three way battle down to the homestretch where Honor stole the lead from Van and started pulling away from the group with massive strides. Hadley cut Sissy lose after Honor and the greys where soon battling with everything they had. Honor dug in and kept her nose in front, but Sissy kept baring down on her. Van was a good length behind the dueling pair, Andrew kept urging the stallion, but Honor had pushed him too hard from the start and he couldn't keep up withe the girls. The wire was quickly approaching and Alexa no Hadley called on their mounts for everything they had. Honor's nose hit the wire first followed subtly by Sissy and a length back Van came in bringing up the rear.
Honor let out a cry of victory and allowed Alex to ease her up after she'd made sure she was fifteen lengths clear of Sissy.
July week 1