Bloodless Day

Pain into Power

I halted the filly. She tugged, once, impatiently against the lead rope and then stood still, arcing her neck to peer warily at the still turbulent Bloodless Day in his stall. "Lilac? But she's gone."

"That's what I told her. You'd think she would have known that, right? Kept tabs and all?"

The thought made me uncomfortable, but I kept my tone level. "There's not much damage she can do from the east coast. Lilac is thousands of miles away. What she wants will have to wait."

Jack made an affirmative sound, and I led the filly away.

*****

It was most definitely getting colder. The air rattled in my lungs as I leaned against the railing, breathing in the freezing scent of horses and the Aqueduct track. Willifred leaned next to me; he'd told me he never went to the owner's box when he did go to the races. "Why are you here today?" I asked.

His eyes glittered with excitement. "I reckon this is going to be a memorable race."

"Yeah, but Lilac told me that you only go when you have a horse in, like, the Derby," I said. "This is just a normal race."

"Not normal. It's fairly high stakes. A good, challenging race for a good, challenging horse. I'm expecting good things."

Remembering the way Jack had been favoring his leg, the most I could do was hope for good things.

The horses were already in the gates. I squinted at the other side of the track and was rewarded with a flash of green of BD's blinkers in the third post. The cold had made the day unusually clear and crisp, and I could see far beyond what I usually could.

The gates flew open, and the horses were off.

They were long legs and streamlined bodies, tails that stretched out behind them and manes that flapped up and down, but I couldn't see BD. He must've been running on the outside, behind the other horses. In my mind he ran like the wind, Jack still on his back as the stallion found his own path, and then Jack grew a pony-tail, a more slender form, and it was me riding, flying across the track, boring down on the finish-

"What's that boy doing?" Willifred asked sharply. Abruptly snapping out of my daydream- oh, what a time to dream!-, I jerked my head to the bend of the track, where the horses were thundering towards the final stretch. BD had finally fought his way to the front of the group, but it wasn't speed he was fighting.

Jack usually rode with his horse. His hands kept a perfect, steady connection with the bit as the horse's head surged backwards and forwards, but today BD's head was up, straight in the air, mouth agape as he pulled frantically at the bit, trying to get room to move his head and surge forwards. My heart sank as two, three horses flew past BD.

He went wild. Desperate for traction, he curved his head to his chest, an evasion trick we'd only barely stopped him from doing, and then slammed forwards, bit firmly in his teeth. Jack was yanked forwards and only managed to stay on, precariously balanced in the saddle. Finally given his head, BD settled and roared into gear. He flew past the third horse and into third place, arrowing for the horses battling for the honor of being champion. But they were knights of the track and BD a king, and he powered past them and burst into first, clear.

Then he was under the wire and a little dark mare had won second and the grandstand went wild and still BD did not slow.

Jack, I suddenly realized, could not stop him. To fall off at this speed would surely cause more injury to the jockey, something he could not afford. And with the reins loosed from BD's vicious tug, he could not pull the horse up. I gripped the rail helplessly as Willifred swore softly. BD rounded the bend and charged back up the backstretch, seeming to gain speed and energy as the other racehorses slowed in front of us, breathing heavily. "I don't understand! Has he forgotten how to ride?"