Post by archibald on Jan 6, 2012 4:41:04 GMT -5
crowned clown, erin shore & xalbadora
As it turned out, working Clown and Erin with Xal was turning out the best the best idea. The more experienced horse was helping them calm down, and putting them to the test. In fact, Clown had even managed to finally break his maiden not longer after starting workouts with the other mare. Erin still had a long way to go, they figured, but her temperament was still mostly unpredictable, and it was always a gamble as to whether or not she was going to listen to her rider enough to run properly with every race. The closest she’d gotten was three shows out of nine runs, which wasn’t terrible but it wasn’t exactly fantastic either.
They were doing a longer run today, twelve furlongs. Loading the gate wasn’t as much hassle as it used to be, Xal loading nicely as always, Clown following pretty close behind her but Erin took a bit more coaxing, throwing her head around and baulking for a few moments before finally allowing the gate steward to load her into the gate on the other side of Xal. They all stood there fairly well, naturally a little impatient from being made to stand for a while in a confined space. The bells were soon ringing, and the gates were open, and they were off.
All three horses broke cleanly, clumping into a three horse pack for most of the distance, not really changing position much at all throughout the run. At the backstretch, Clown released a little too soon, trying to sprint his way to the finish line before he was really ready too, and once the two girls had started their backstretch sprints, he was starting to tire. Erin seemed a bit more focused now, battling with Xal for the lead position but coming up just a nose short of Xal despite an extra spurt of speed near the finish line. Clown crossed half a length behind, obviously bored with the race now that they had passed him.