Bloodless Day

Your present is a happy chapter

Wes turned out to be irritatingly nice.

I wasn't sure if it was to rub in Lilac's command the first day, or if she just was mean only where Lilac was concerned, but without the stress of the Santa Anita looming or Lilac's presence, Wes was a pretty nice person. 

"Here, I grabbed these for you," she said one cheerfully blue morning, swinging BD's tack over the stall door, startling both me and the horse. "I heard you ask Willifred about going on a trail ride and thought I could tag along. Spain needs a getaway from the track."

I suspiciously poked the saddle, wondering if the girth was cut or something. "Spain?"

She grinned. "His nickname used to be 'Pain', as in the ass, but one of our grooms has a lisp. It stuck."

Oh. Bloody Murder.

The girth turned out to be fully intact. I slipped the pad over BD's sleek back and followed up with the saddle. "I guess you can come," I said grudgingly. Something told me that she would either way, and I would have more power in the situation if I was the one who allowed her to come, rather than setting a rule she could- would- break.

"Great! I already had that one groom- Mellie- tack him up, so we won't take too long to be ready."

With that, she was gone. "We don't have a Mellie," I said to BD, who flicked his ears but gave me a bored stare. "So she must've meant Mary. Poor thing. 'Spain' truly is a pain in the ass."

He was. The colt had only been at Piperson Farms for two days and already he'd broken three fences, run over an older groom, tore his automatic waterer from its corner in the stall, and spent the rest of his energy terrorizing us with screams and whinnies. My first impression, that he was like the old Bloodless Day, was entirely wrong. The old BD had been dark and angry and cunning, like a shark. Bloody Murder was more obviously dangerous- a pond of pirhanas.

I swung onto BD, savoring the view. Long green Kentucky hills spilled out before us, speckled with sleek brown Thoroughbreds under a cloudless sky. BD had yet to recover, but I'd hoped that a ride on such a gorgeous day would help him. "We should visit the pond in the east field," I murmured. "Maybe some water will help."

The fire inside the colt had dimmed and dangerously rode the line of burning out. He was exhausted, and now we only had two weeks to fix him. I lifted my reins and turned him towards the woods, trusting but not hoping that Wes would catch up.

She did. Spain jingled furiously at his bit as they trotted up behind us, eyes rolling and chest flecked with foam. Despite myself, I could not help but admire Wes's riding- certain in her seat, an unmoving leg, and soft hands that kept the Thoroughbred from bolting but didn't hinder him. "Sorry," she said cheerfully as he bumped into BD's shoulder, making him stumble as we started up the hill towards the trails. "He's a bit excited. We gave him yesterday to rest after the trailer ride."

I glowered at Spain and he glowered back, gaze filled with defiance and malevolence. This wasn't a horse that wanted to be told to run. This was a horse that wanted to fight, to tear into other stallions and completely dominate them. The only thing that stood between him and injury or death to BD was a slender silver bit.

"It's okay." It wasn't. We concentrated on keeping the racehorses away from each other until we entered the woods, where I let BD drop back behind the jigging Spain. Dappled sunlight fell through the trees, patching the woods in a quilt of dark green and light. Fallen leaves crunched beneath the horse's hooves, silencing them in areas of moisture.

"This is nice," Wes called back. Spain had lengthened the distance between us, and her braid swung side to side as he jigged. "We don't have things like this at home."