Bloodless Day

During

Eleven horses surged forwards, joined by a single thought- to win. They flashed black, bay, chestnut, gray, some with high white socks that leaped above the track and some with slender golden legs that flashed alongside the railing as they strove towards it. Bobbing heads and mouths cracked open, weaving manes and spots of color as jockeys wove along their necks.

Three charged ahead, each darker than anything imaginable. Like a tail on a comet, the one competing gray followed along, businesslike. CZ Speed Trap. His head lowered, his ears laced back, his eyes honed onto the black stallions running in front of him.

And which were which? So Far So Good was on the inside, Bloody Murder ricocheting along next to him, but the third...

"And it's So Far So Good hugging the rail, Bloody Murder and Getcha Getcha Getcha, with CZ Speed Trap settling into pace behind them."

My heart sank. Where was BD?

There was a flash of black in the herd of chestnuts and bays. Was he jammed into the pack? I couldn't tell. I pitched against the rail; my fingertips jammed into it, scrabbling at the hard surface, searching for reins. I felt the motion of the horses beneath me, their breathless speed and the wind and the rise and fall of their bodies in gallop.

"Albaron is making his move! He's surging past the pack, engaging CZ Speed Trap in a speed duel."

Too much, too soon. Like patient lionesses on the hunt, Bloody Murder and So Far So Good waited as the gray and chestnut battled it out. They flew ahead, heads lifted and legs flashing, but did no good. They tired and dropped back.

"Idiot!" Wes shouted. I fell off the horse and was just Anna again, watching a race. 

As Bloody Murder and So Far So Good rounded the bend, tearing onto the backstretch, the crowd erupted. They screamed and shouted their favorites as the two stallions battled forwards, fast and faster and fastest. But there! In the pack behind them I finally saw my horse, my best friend, head lifted high as he glowered, caught behind two bickering horses.

"Come on, BD..."

Behind me, the crowd screamed. Bloody Murder had a nose on Goodie. Behind BD, another jockey went wide, frustrated by being stuck behind the two. Not Jack.

The horses were close to us, too close, and with us, the finish line. I felt the thunder of their hooves in my heart, the sucking and pulling as they drew air into their lungs.

The horse further from the rail that blocked BD began to falter. Maronini, with the bloodlines of a sprinter.

"Come on, BD," I said, softly.

Beside me, Wes screamed. "Go Spain! You can do it!"

The horses parted.

"COME ON BD!"

And then, dark dark dark, blacker than the new moon, came Bloodless Day, shooting out of the pack and down the center of the track. The other horses could have been standing still. He flew past them, Jack sticking like a burr to his mane. And as he ran, the clouds finally cracked open. Golden sunlight fell to the track, paving his path to victory. It smiled down on him, the light burning his coat into a blinding white. Then, like the moon rising over the horizon, Bloodless Day opened his lead.

He swept under the wire.