Hope

[creativecause]

My Kingdom Come
Hope

To call Steve Wilson insane would be an understatement. Well, to Alex it would be. Putting a filly who hadn’t even won a maiden in a race against what could be the best turf juvenile sprinters was insane.
‘She could use the experience.’
That is what he told Alex, given Bay was an exceptional filly and he had no doubt that she could become a great race horse, she lacked experience. He had only been riding her for a week, and each of those six furlong works that he did with her she had buzzed through all of them in around 1:07. She was a great runner, when she was alone, maybe being around other horses freaked her out. All you could really do was hope, hope that she had the heart and ability to run down her far more experienced foes.
Regardless of how she ran, Alex instantly fell in love with her from the first moment he met her, the filly had such a calm and peaceful, yet totally dominant presence about her. She knew it too, he could tell. He could tell by how she lifted her head to give you a good stare, compared to Honorary she was the complete opposite. Well, not on the track she wasn’t but personality wise.
Alex gathered a lock of her long gray mane in his hand as he waited for the gates to open and the work to begin. He fixated his breathing with hers, matching it almost perfectly. There was a dead silence, then the gates rushed open. Bay sunk her heels into the plush turf and off they went. He counted her first strides, one, two, three- six strides was all it took for her to reach cruising speed. The wind howled in their ears as they moved together as one, her stride lengthened significantly as she caught sight of another horse.
“Easy, Easy,” Alex cooed to her. Despite his attempts to calm her, she accelerated past the horse with plenty left in the tank.
Entering the final stretch Alex gave Bay her head and a small tap on the rump. Her stride quickly became even more elongated, and her hooves devoured the turf. Maybe she could win, maybe if she fired she could beat her opponents, yes it seemed like a very long shot, but she deserved just as much of a chance as any other horse did.
Alex kept focus on Bay, and the wire. He slowed her once the wire had passed and let her continue at a leisurely pace for the gallop out. Alex gave Bay a good pat on her neck and trotted her over to Steve.
“How fast do you think you were going?” Steve asked, a smile like the cheshire cats came across his face.
“I dunno,” Alex said as Bay turned sharply to the side, still fired up from working.
Steve just kept smiling with his stopwatch in hand. “She can beat them,” he said confidently, pulling on her furlock to straighten it. “After she get’s a haircut,” he remarked.