Yearning to Live

Gates

I quickly walked down the stairs on my way to the paddock. Once in the paddock, our trainer Mady gave me instructions on how to ride the race today. " Just make sure you're paying attention to her, if she starts to move unevenly, don't force her to run. Keep her reined in early on, if she's behind, you can give her a little bit of her head. Okay?"

" Okay will do Ms. Mady," with the directions, I walked over to my mount. I looked over at her, she looked nervous but also, somewhat excited. I knew she loves to run and the challenge will be to get her to race, but not waste all of her energy.

I heard a call from the edge of the paddock that I had seeked to hear this whole time, " Riders Up!" With the que, I walked over to the side of the tall horse and Mady boosted me up into the air. I put my hands on her withers and swung my leg into the saddle. I put my feet in the irons and crouched into the saddle. The reins were thrown over her neck and I took them in hand. Another person on the ground took the halter under the chin, clipped a lead rope to her and started to lead her out of the paddock. We then paraded past the grandstand on the dirt. The dirt was slightly squishy and spongy, but it was also firm, for a moderately fast track.

We soon approached the gates. Then the assistant holding Wild Survivor, unclipped the lead and walked off. he was quickly replaced by another person in a green t-shirt with the track name embroidered on it. He then grabbed the start of the reins. He circled her around a couple of times then quickly proceeded into the gate. I heard the gate shut behind us. Wild Survivor started shifting slightly. She must've thought we started, which we hadn't. She hit the front of the gate, spooked herself, and backed up. I tried to keep her still but instead, she didn't expect the back of the gate to be closed. In an instant, Wild Survivor was up in the air as far as she could within the gate. She then fell back and sat down in the gate which is usually how horses can get scratched at the gate. But instead, they opened up the back of the gate, and she flopped to the side, landing on her bag leg. For me, I was bucked off, I landed in the dirt with a thud. Assistants came over and kneeled next to me. They tried to make sure I was ok, but I shook them off. I insisted I see Wild Survivor, and I stood up and the crew swamped me. I limped slightly over to Wild Survivor who had luckily gotten up. I saw someone walking her around making sure she was sound to race. The on site vet gave her the okay to race. With that, the crew reluctantly let me race, and I remounted Wild Survivor. They unloaded all the horses and would reload them into the gate. This time, when Wild Survivor went in, she again shifted, but made no other attempt to move. Then the bell rang. We shot out of the gate and headed toward the rail.

We secured second place along the rail and sat there making sure the gap between us and the front runner only got smaller. We caught up to the pace setter and locked gazes. The jockey had surprise written on her face, I guess it was a miracle that we were still able to race. We slowly took the lead in this ten furlong race. At the six furlong, we over took the leader. We started slowly gaining ground up to the nine furlong mark. One furlong to go, and the what everyone feared, became reality.