Post by creativecause on Nov 20, 2014 17:41:03 GMT -5
You’re on HIS Turf Now
Take Flight and Alex Shade
Fly tossed his head and flared his nostrils as Alex guided him over to the gate. The whites of his eyes could be seen as clear as day from about any distance. The colt was top caliber to say the least, his pedigree suggested it, his workouts suggested it, his confirmation suggested it, and as did his Grade Three status. However, running in the Turf Challenge seemed to do nothing but degrade him. He’d pulled off a very nice second to Devil’s Flair in the first leg and followed that up with a total flop in the second leg. However, the Champagne Stakes would prove to be on a totally different turf than the other races. It wasn’t unknown fact that Fly flourished over distance and mostly eleven furlongs, which if you couldn’t guess, was the distance of the Champagne stakes.
Loss after loss seemed to have frustrated the colt and he took out much of that anger on the likes of Girl Talk, Mardi Gras, and even Prima Donna. He’d fight with every ounce of strength he had and it had lead to all of their defeats, no matter whom it was, they could not hold off Fly’s furious closing kick. Prima Donna had run at him with everything she had and came from the clouds to try and catch him but it appeared that Fly seemed to have learned his lesson from numerous losses and learned to watch out who was coming from behind him. He acted like he wanted to smash any other horse around him to bits when they ran back at him and he wasn’t going to have any of it. Refute and Devil’s Flare wouldn’t know what hit them.
His powerful and growing muscles rippled beneath his beautiful bay coat, the stripe upon his face was recognizable by almost anyone. He seemed to stop and look over at a few people taking pictures at the track that morning. Alex smiled as he perked his ears forward and looked over at them. Must have been a beautiful shot with the sun just beginning to rise.
Fly loaded into the gate without an issue and sprung from it flawlessly. He would likely be trailing the field come race day so a quick break wasn’t needed. Refute would be out on the lead being pushed to exhaustion by Devil’s Flare, then followed by Impress the Moonlight, a relation of his. He strode out strongly into the back stretch looking every ounce the incredible animal that he was, with relations to two triple crown winners and a turf triple crown near misser, Take Flight was definitely the favorite for the Y15 Turf Triple Crown at the moment although many would probably tell you he didn’t deserve it as he hadn’t won since September, but everyone at Grayson Meadows knew better. He’d lost his scrawny, dinky-legged look and had begun to fill out with muscle.
Fly was a powerful animal, and he certainly worked like one. The final turn was about over and when the stretch came upon him he didn’t hesitate to fully out sprint the final three furlongs. He took off and under Alex’s fine riding, he switched leads to perfection. Turf flew in his wake, the thunder of his hooves echoed around the world. Fly seemed to own the turf, Flying past horse after horse after horse and hitting the wire. Another rock solid work was under his belt and Alex was satisfied that Refute, Devil’s Flare, and Impress the Moonlight didn’t have the upper hand on Fly, they were running on his turf, and Fly was going to make sure they knew it.
