session

[archibald]

destined for glory & calle ocho ,

Eight had been coming along in leaps and bounds this season, although he hadn’t really raced all that much since the start of it, he was doing a lot better than he had been in his two year old season. Destiny was going along fairly steadily herself, but that was expected really, she was a solid racer when the right amount of work went into her. And Mitch could only hope that they would both get better with time.

The two bay horses went through their warm up lap side by side, almost undiscernible from each other from a distance, except for the difference in their jockeys. Every now and again one of them would make a bid to try and pull ahead of the other, only to be pulled back into line by their rider, it really was no use if they used up all of their energy merely warming up, after all. The pair headed towards the practice gates, where they were promptly loaded by the workers there, and there were a few moments of almost silence bar the faint sounds of the horses moving around in the gates that Mitch could hear from where he was standing.

Soon they flew open, and the two horses were bursting from the gate, both breaking cleanly and settling in like they had during their warm up, neck by neck, as they started to make their way to the finish line. They continued on the same way, occasionally swapping who had their nose in front of the other every now and again, but the real action didn’t start until they hit the backstretch sprint. Eight pulled ahead by a head when they hit it, striving to keep up the burst of speed he put on, but unfortunately he’d hit the accelerator too early, tiring out in the last few metres to give Destiny an easy shot at the lead, the older mare taking the opportunity to breeze easily past the colt and over the line before he did.