Post by creativecause on Nov 15, 2014 15:16:16 GMT -5
Look How Far We've Come
Passion Heart and Andrew Martin
Time to take it over
Look how far we've come
Some were never meant to come around
Some were never meant to leave the ground
-Imagine Dragons Look How Far We've Come
“Well, at least she isn’t going to launch me today,” he said, recalling one of the first times he’d ever ridden her. She had been a particularly bad mood and it only worsened when he got on her back and she’d raised all sorts of hell. She’d never acted like that again since she got to know him, although he could recall a few days in which she very nearly got to that point. Today she seemed irritated as usual but was a bit more in a loving mood.
Sam quickly finished brushing the mare out and handed Steve the reins and he ran back off into the barn to grab the next horse up for a work, which for the first time Andrew didn’t know who it was.
“She’s a little irritated, and although she’s been good lately yesterdays incident at the gate may be repeated today.” Steve said, “take her around easy and then cut her loose at the home stretch, nine furlong breeze should be just fine. Let her run out for another eight furlongs, she should be nice and ready after this work.”
Andrew was given the leg up on Ally, and lead her out onto the track. He smirked, noticing the photographers in the stand all turn their cameras on them. She’d recently come off of win at eight furlongs and was pushing it up to eleven. Although it wasn’t a distance she commonly ran over, she could easily handle it as easily as she handled ten furlongs. Hopefully she would be adding another victory to her ever-improving 4 year old season. There were few people in the racing world that didn’t know about the daughter of Heart of Stone and Passionate Ruler’s epic comeback. She had never amounted to much and when Grayson Meadows bought her she was originally just meant to be an older horse to add to their roster and was more of a broodmare prospect. However, it only took a victory in the Summer Cup Grade Five Turf to get her rolling and she never went back to her old ways after that. Even a 4th place finish didn’t stop her from coming back and beating The Devil’s Hourglass in the Just A Game Stakes, the very race she’d finished 6th in her 3 year old season. She was the Seabiscuit of Grayson Meadows.
Andrew cautiously approached the gate with Ally, and just as Steve had said Ally wasn’t going to make this easy for anyone. She sat on her hind quarters at a dead halt and pinned her ears.
“Come on Ally,” Andrew growled and pulled her around in a circle and the moment he turned her back in the direction of the gate Ally bucked her rear end up, her ears where slicked flat against her head. In the end it took five men to get her loaded into the gate and she didn’t stand there for more than two seconds because the gates burst open and Ally surged forward so quickly that Andrew nearly fell off of her at the start.
Ally was off at a quick start, and looking at how her last work went, one could see that this wasn’t untypical. Ally was a very fast horse in general and her rare ability to carry that speed over a long distance is what made her a dangerous competitor. She was one of those horses that could run with the speed of a sprinter and the endurance of a stayer.
Ally continued her swift advance through the first turn, making every step look easier than the last. Switching leads like it was the most naturalist thing in the world for her to do. She never needed much urging to get her going. It was odd thinking that just 9 months ago Ally was a G5 mare with only three wins to her name and countless out of money finishes. Onto the back stretch Andrew sat chilly on her and let her dictate her own pace, which was of course pretty brisk but she wasn’t showing signs of slowing down. She continued on strongly and flew quickly into the final turn eating up turf with each massive stride she took. The homestretch came into view and they were soon dashing down it with a impressive speed. She was as quick as lightning, hitting the wire in what Andrew was sure an impressive time. Andrew gave Ally a pat, he was sure whatever Grey’s Wisedom and Samhain had in store for her.
