Post by creativecause on Feb 7, 2015 21:35:30 GMT -5
Time To Take It Over
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
"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
Ally was ferocious, merciless, she couldn’t work with any other horse because if they so much as got close to her rump she’d lash out. She left the members of team Grayson Meadows to question how much further she could go. How much more could she take? It was like the black mare couldn’t breath. She was possessed by something and no one could find a way to get her to go back to the way she was during the Breeders’ Cup. No. This wasn’t the same animal. She was nearly untouchable, unhandleable. She had to be sedated to get her hooves trimmed, which never happened before. She was a wild beast, one that needed to be tamed before she hurt anyone or worse, herself. But that was just the thing, you couldn’t tame Ally, but you could manage her and that was a very difficult task in the current state that she was in.
However, on this early, cool morning in January, there she stood. The sun warming her coat, the breeze ruffling her mane and blowing her tail majestically. Ally was standing she wasn’t bucking, rearing or trying to kill anyone. She was standing, given she had blasted through a ten furlong work in 1:35 3/5 the previous day, but she’d run that same time before the Breeders’ Cup and had little issues with it the following day. Her behavior in the barn said otherwise as well. So was she sick? No. Believe it or not she could be quite the dramatic animal and she was likely taking a moment to slow down, to breath in the track and all of its glory in the early morning air. Wisps of water-vapor rose from her fine nostrils and her eyes dragged across the turf. She was planning, scheming. As if she was thinking of the quickest way to unseat Andrew, or the quickest way to fly through the turns and sprint the straights.
She’d never been asked for everything she had before, she had yet to over-extended herself. But she wasn’t lazy by any means. Perhaps she was waiting for just the right race, perhaps her final one? What was it she was waiting for. Andrew knew that she could do better, she could run better, she could obliterate her competition but she seemed to choose not to at times. Of course, Ally’s logic made little to no sense so he allowed her to do as she wished, he was just there to steer her and make sure she didn’t trample another horse.
Andrew clicked his tongue at her and lightly pressed her sides with his heels. Ally launched herself into a trot and bobbed her head up and down, ears perked with excitement. She hooked her mouth up in a loop to try and get Andrew to give her more rein and to take off on him. Of course he knew this horse like he knew the lines on his palm and their exact location. Ally wasn’t getting away with anything, that was for sure.
She shook her dark head malevolently in frustration and launched herself up into the air, but he hung on and jerked her left rein to the side and she came back down with a small hop. She tried to take the bit in her mouth and run and he took it back. Her frustration was building and Andrew knew it, so he one rein stopped her mid-trot and flexed her before continuing on. He had her full attention again and Andrew glanced over at Steve on the side of the turf track.
He shivered in his blue sweatshirt and Ally followed suit, not because of the cold, but because her muscles ached to run. To sprint. To run from everyone and everything. To run from her problems, so she could truly be free.
See, many thought she was done. Many thought that she couldn’t handle the horse of the year races. They would soon learn they couldn’t be more wrong. No, she didn’t have the oh so precious blue-blood pedigree, she didn’t have a fancy grade one title to carry along with her, she didn’t have over thirteen wins under her belt or a Breeders’ Cup Victory to boot. What she had was ten wins and ten out of money finishes. She had the blood, the sweat, and the tears. She had the leap from Grade Five to Grade Two in just seven months all in one season. She would always be seen as a threat but never a big enough one to beat out the likes of hall of famers offspring. On paper she should never beat any of them. This wasn’t paper though. This sport wasn’t made by the statistics, or the pedigrees, or even the odds. It wasn’t run on paper. It was run on the track, where you had to put in a mighty large effort to win. But it wasn’t always about winning. It was about the heart, and the work put in to cross the finish line. Of course, Ally didn’t exactly know that because she rather liked winning. But who didn’t? However, Ally needed a win in the near future or she was going to kill someone.
Life was full of disappointments and perhaps they were looking at all of this the wrong way, perhaps they needed to look at it from a different angle. But that isn’t the point, there wasn’t a horse out there that could take away what she was. No horse could ruin her forever, a large amount of losses couldn’t set her back. No. She was coming guns blazing and anyone who dared to have the audacity to face her was going to get a very rude awakening.
In The Spotlight was the only other entrant at the time, which team Grayson Meadows found quite odd. Only problem was In The Spotlight was also something of a speed demon, which meant that all the work that they’d previously been putting in to help Ally rate was finally going to pay off. Yes, Ally for once in her life wasn’t going to be out on the lead, but she would be pretty darn close to it. In the end it was going to be who had the most guts and if anyone thought Ally lacked them they were a fool.
Andrew nodded to Steve as he let Ally canter and as they approached the beginning of her work he grabbed a handful of her mane and squeezed her sides. He held on tight as she right then and there took off flying. Her muscles all worked together flawlessly, her large strides gripped the frost-covered turf and she came alive beneath him.
Every ounce of crap she had previously been feeling was gone, her ears flicked with glee and Andrew let her have some more rein, which she of course flourished off of. The thud-dump of her hooves and their breathing was all that could be heard, and the sound was music to both of their ears.
Ally could be rather deceiving to anyone who didn’t know her, how she acted out on the track before she ran may lead one to think she hated racing. But looking at her now, you wouldn’t know it was the same horse. She looked like a big kid just having fun, kicking her heels out as she extended her stride and flying effortlessly over the turf.
They flew into the final turn and Andrew allowed Ally to build up some momentum. Her head bobbed up and down with every stride and Andrew could feel her growing anticipation of the stretch not to far ahead.
Turf flew in her wake and when they reached the top of the stretch Andrew cut the ebony mare lose, and by lose I mean he essentially gave her all of the rein she could possibly need and maybe more and let her run her heart out. She bounded down the stretch with glee, for a few short minutes she could be truly happy about her current situation and she was soaking it all up.
The ground rumbled as she stormed down the stretch. Her legs carried her with such speed, such grace. Her eyes, although from this distance, anyone could see the hatred in them; anyone that knew Ally saw the excitement, the glee, the love of the game. They saw her heart, they saw her passion, just from one look and it made Aaron and Steve smile as they watched her cross the wire as a black blur.
