Through The Dirt and Fame (major revisions)

Chapter Thirty-Four

-Whitney Day, Saratoga Race Course-

The field for the Whitney had 11 runners. Two being fillies.

The positions were:

1. I See Giants

2. First Man

3. Soreno

4. Wicked Revenge

5. Fed Tiz

6. Prince Sham

7. Steeletastic

8. I've Had A Vision

9. Duchess Of Winter

10. Unwanted

11. Emily The First

I looked at Emily, Michael was nearly recovered, he walked Emily around the paddock. She suddenly stopped and looked around, she looked at her competition, she looked at the people and she looked at Michael and nuzzled his chest and started walking again. She let out a playful whinny and bucked like a rambunctious yearling. Michael smiled at her and she pranced around. I smiled at her as they came close.

"Our girl, she's feeling good." I said and pet her face, she relaxed at my touch and nuzzled my cheek and I hugged her neck. I heard the awes of the fans around the paddock and Emily heard the click of the cameras and pricked her ears forward and posed, I laughed.

"Little attention lover-sorry our BIG attention lover. My mistake Nathan." Michael said and playfully pushed me and winked and continued to walks around the paddoc, Emily continued to act like she was a yearling and prance around like she owned the paddock. And she absolutely did.

I turned to see how Caitlyn and Duchess were doing and I heard Jones.

"Hold the horse! Do your job for God's sake boy!" Jones says sarcastically to Mike. Duchess snorted and "spat" in Jones face.

I smiled at the sight.

"See Duchess defends me." Mike says giving the filly a kiss on the nose. Then he whispers something to the filly, and she curled her lip up as to smile.

"What a character." I say. Caitlyn jerks her head around to see me. She looked beautiful in her dress, she turned to the connections behind her and they walk away.

"So how are you?" She says continuing to pet Duchess with her head resting on her shoulder.

"Well, you see, it was going well till Jack and I read in the paper on a good day that a certain filly was entered in the race that Emily was destined to win, and that filly had to be the only horse to ever beat Emily." I says as if he was venting to a close friend. She laughs a little. I looks up, "What?"

"Does that filly happen to be Duchess?" She asked. Duchess starts bobing her head up and down as if to say "well duh it's me".

I smiles, "Why yes."

Everything was silent. She just looked at Duchess and traced her face with her finger. I stared at her without knowing. She yanks her head back at me and our eyes locked. I shook my head and muttered, "Sorry," and began to walk away.

"Nathan, wait!" I looked at her, "Uh... good luck today."

"You too."

I walked to Jack who was in the center of the paddock with Nicole.

"We don't have much time, but let her run her race Nicole. Get her a good start and just let her go from there." Jack said and pat Nicole's shoulder and the paddock judge called for riders up and gave her a leg up.

I walked with Emily for a moment an looked up to Nicole.

"Give her the ride of her life Nicole." I said and let them go and watched them walk on to the track, as I stood there I saw Duchess elegantly make her way to the track.

These fillies are both different and the same all at once.

-Nicole's POV-

We stood in front of the gates, I watched Duchess go into the gates and them after we were lead into stall 11. The outside. We were last to load.

I looked to the left and saw the whole field. But I saw Unwanted and Victor Espinosa first, and then Duchess next to him. I looked forward, I saw the track, but the barred barrier blocked me from seeing it perfectly. But I knew in seconds I would see it all.

The bell rang and Duchess pitched a fit and them leaped out. Instantly I gave Emily all rights to do whatever she needed to do to win. She went towards the rail and we quickly joined Unwanted, Duchess and Prince Sham. The four of us lead the way into the backstretach. Victor and Unwanted pushed Emily and I wide and she stayed close to Unwanted almost touching him. I looked at Victor with an angered look and looked a head. I made no move to get Emily away from him, cause the pace was already suicidal.

Into the backstretch I looked behind us and saw that the closest horse was about 7 lengths behind us. I sat about 4 wide on the track with Emily. I still made to move to get the rail. All that we heard was the beat of our horses hooves pounding into the fast track, the heavy breathing and sometimes the occasional chirp that Gary Stevens made to Prince Sham. We stormed down the backstretch, I could hear the crowd cheering from all the way over here. Prince Sham and Unwanted started to lose ground as we closed on the turn. Duchess and Emily stormed into the turn maintaining their blistering fast pace, Emily got along side Duchess and the two had a big lead on the field. The crowd got louder and louder as the two ran stride-for-stride through the far turn, no step was missed and no one poked a head in front. We flew out of the turn and into the home stretch and I didn't make any move on Emily yet, neither did Pablo on Duchess. We just ran along side each other. I got impatient on waiting for them to move so I took the whip and swung it back and used it on Emily, she responded powerfully and then Pablo moved on Emily and the two stayed close together. I used the whip again and Emily gave me another gear. But Duchess stayed with her. I gave up on the whip and hand rode her and yelled "Hey yeah! Come on girl!" and I saw Duchess inch forward and I yelled at Emily again and she pinned her ears back at me and I became confused and then all of a sudden Emily slightly drifted away from Duchess and the moment she did, I saw Duchess fall and land on Pablo. I could not stop to see what possibly happen after so I just kept riding and we crossed the finish and I pulled Emily up quickly and turned her to Duchess.

What I saw broke my heart. I saw Duchess limping to the finish and then I saw Caitlyn burst on to the track. I stopped in front of the Winners Circle and hopped off as the Stewards reviews the replay. Quickly a TVG reporter came up to me.

"Nicole, do you know what happen before Duchess Of Winter went down? Did you guys bump, brush, battle back and forth? What happen?" He asked.

"Well nothing happen between the fillies. Emily drifted out away from Duchess the moment she went down so there was no contact. She must have missed a step, bobbled or maybe the pace was just too muck to handle. It's a very sad ending to a Classic race. I-I hope she makes it. She didn't exactly land softly on the dirt." I said, I was holding back tears.

"It looked like Duchess Of Winter started to open on you, did you see that?"

"I actually did. The filly was game enough to push herself past her limits to win, but she just ended up pushing too far." I said.

"Thank you for your time Nicole." I nodded and turned back to Emily, whose ears was still pinned back and she tossed furious bucks.

"The stewards have officially made Emily The First the winner, there was no contact coming down the stretch between the fillies. Emily, your official Whitney winner."

I hopped on Emily and Michael lead us into the Winners Circle and we posed for a moment I hopped off after the photo, pet Emily and weight in.

Before going to the Jockeys Room I saw Nathan run over to Caitlyn and Duchess and finally the tears broke through and I turned and slowly walked away.