Behold, the Great Horse

Before I start, I would like to say that there are some things, sacred things, in horse racing I don't dare touch in the HARPG. I will never fill my stable with six Triple Crown winners, nor will any horse of mine win everything in sight without a little adversity. Nonetheless, feats of great strength and speed are what drives the story of a Thoroughbred, and it is with the utmost respect for the living, breathing athletes of the past that I do occasionally break my own rule.

Having said that, enjoy Connie's Derby! May will be split in two for the sake of narrative.


MAY I

He was a son of GI winner Flower Alley, out of the Langfuhr mare Casanova Move. Regally bred, from the richest lines of high-performance racers, he was a grandson of two of the most powerful sires of his time, and he showed it. Raining Roses seemed destined to live up to his name: he was dark, almost black, with only the barest hint of colour on his nose and flank to betray him as brown, and he gleamed in the sun like polished onyx. He was a magnificent specimen, cultivated into a racing machine by an expert team of handlers.

It truly was a pity his jockey was an asshole.

Good thing Tom and Frankie had up their sleeves the one Derby runner with a better pedigree. And boy, did she look it. Connie shipped to Churchill Downs a fiery tempest, glorious in the fury which had descended upon her at Oaklawn Park--at the hands of the asshole jockey in question, in fact. Something terribly dangerous was simmering beneath the skin of Veridical's last daughter, and Frankie could barely contain the excitement he felt at the prospect of unleashing it. And on racing's grandest stage, too: he almost wanted to thank his moron colleague for igniting the filly.

In the week leading up to the first Saturday in May, Conclude claimed ownership of the Churchill strip, outworking every horse on the grounds, with the possible exception of Raining Roses himself. The two horses became instant celebrities, press magnets: the black and the grey, the colt and the filly, destined to clash in America's greatest race.

Hopes only rose when both runners were lucky enough to draw decent post positions: Connie would break from the fifth post, while Raining Roses landed three stalls to her outside.

At the same time, Sophie and Freckles quietly worked under the radar after their narrow defeats at Keeneland; Tom couldn't believe how little regard had been paid to either, and was fully prepared to spring some major surprises on the Derby undercard. Eidolon's splashed daughter would be entered in the GIII Eight Belles Stakes, while Lucy's baby would go in the GII Churchill Distaff Turf Mile against older mares. The former would start the day at odds of 10-1, while Freckles did only half as well, disregarded on the morning line at 20-1.

In the jockeys' room at Churchill Downs, Frankie and Laurence read their fillies' odds and grinned at each other from across the room.

The dawn broke clear and bright on the first Saturday in May, the sky unbroken blue. Sophie entered the paddock just before 1:00pm, her dark chestnut hide turned copper in the springtime sun. She was feeling good, too, snorting and crow-hopping and twisting playfully in her handlers' grip. The masses around the paddock only served to improve her mood as she turned bright blue eyes on them and whinnied as if inviting them to play.

The bundle of energy that loaded into the gate had been sharpened to a knife's edge for this seven and a half furlong race, which was admittedly a touch too long for Sophie's best efforts. The painted filly gave the impression of having jumped through the gate before they'd opened; she was lengths ahead in the blink of an eye, and Laurence couldn't help but let out a laugh as his mount, now 13-1, widened her advantage with gusto. She bounded away until she was seven or eight clear down the backstretch, her tiny body and little legs whirling as she sped through fractions of :21, :43. When the six furlong marker clipped by in 1:09 1/5 and the field was still struggling to cut her margin to four, Laurence started to push for something extra.

Sophie gave it to him. She was tiring, the extra furlong and a half beyond her scope, but there was fire still running through her veins and the painted filly fought tooth and claw right down to the wire, where the photo finish awarded her victory by a nose. Laurence, drunk on the rush that comes from such speed, power and heart underneath you, pumped his arm like he'd won the Kentucky Derby.

Freckles' race was next on the card, and Frankie exited the jockey room just as Laurence was coming back from a few post-race interviews; the pair clapped each other on the back and flashed the same grin they'd shared when they'd seen the odds. The reason for their mirth was twofold: not only had Sophie won her race, but Freckles' odds were climbing from her 20-1 morning line. Frankie felt certain that she would shock the older mares.

On behaviour alone, that seemed more and more likely. It was a good day for Tom's fillies in the paddock. Freckles seemed intent on improving on Sophie's good showing in the pre-race rituals: sparkling white without an extra pound of fat on her, Fortuitous gave the impression of a horse made of elastic bands, stretched taut. Her large eyes and ears were focused on the crowds, just as Sophie's had been, and, fascinated by the people, Freckles made several attempts to drag her handlers over to them.

Nevertheless, the white filly went off at 28-1, and would probably have been higher if not for the sentimental bets she attracted just by being a white horse. Really, it was occasionally embarrassing how the bettors were swayed by the length of a nostril--had she beaten the boys at Keeneland, her odds probably would have been in the single digits. Frankie wasn't bothered, though. This way, he got to cash some major tickets.

Freckles did not break quickly, but that was to be expected. All Frankie wanted was for her not to fall too far off of it early, and after the opening quarter it appeared the filly was going to deal him all aces. Opening her stride from the get-go, the white sophomore loped along, gobbling up the turf with frightening ease while her nine elders sorted themselves out up ahead.

Tenth and last down the backstretch and into the turn, Freckles kept her pace even and easy, waiting for the field to begin to back up into her. With three eighths left to run, it did so, and Frankie clucked in his filly's ear: the response was immediate and terrifying in its efficiency. The duo aimed for the outside, fanned five wide and rocketed into contention as the few in the crowd with sentimental bets on the white horse cheered her on.

She careened under the finish a length and a half in front, having put the mile behind her in 1:33 3/5. It was as stunning a performance by a 28-1 shot as anyone present could remember.

And then, it was time. The long walk from the barns to the paddock seemed longer than it had ever been with a prancing, snorting Conclude beside us, kicking up a storm to rival her sister, Eidolon. But despite her temper, Connie's body remained dry and cool, the ultimate paradox. She calmed a bit in the saddling area, standing with her head high and her neck arched as she accepted her tack, her ears pricked and her eyes frighteningly human. Frankie took part in the procession of jockeys into the paddock, broke away from his colleagues and stood with Tom for a few minutes, talking quietly. Tom had little to say. Frankie once made eye contact with Raining Roses's rider. The call came for riders up.

The parade to post rushed past in a blur as strains of My Old Kentucky Home wafted over Louisville. Regardless of the presence of the Florida Derby, Arkansas Derby and Wood Memorial winners in the race, the betting public saw only two: the black and the grey. They traded favouritism right up until the break, and even then, their odds had both been rounded to 2-1.

The favourites loaded quietly, and chaos erupted around them. It was, some turf writers would later claim, one of the worst-behaved Derby fields in memory, with not one but three horses scratched at the gate because they simply would not load. Through the madness, Conclude and Raining Roses were backed out of their stalls three times, and every time re-entered with little more than cursory annoyance. It didn't matter, for when the gate finally sprung open to admit seventeen to combat on America's grandest stage, the filly and the colt were the only horses worth watching.

In a magnificent display of acceleration and power, Conclude was fastest from the machine, launching herself into battle from the bell, her movement fluid and focused. Three stalls out, Raining Roses's break was nearly as good, and no sooner had the first six strides been run than his jockey cut across the two to his inside and aimed for Connie's hide. By the time the field crossed under the wire for the first time, the duel had already begun: Conclude held a three-quarter length advantage, with a black muzzle bobbing at her hindquarter, and the rest of the field strung out three and more behind them.

The scene was eerily familiar: a Brazen Fields filly on the lead in the Kentucky Derby, setting suicidal fractions and holding off the most well-regarded colt in the country. Quarters clicked off in :23 2/5, :46 4/5, 1:10 4/5, and still there were only two, running freely while chaos unfolded in their wake. Connie banked into the turn and glued herself to the rail, bending her body, angling her legs and accelerating; Raining Roses was left floundering by the move, his larger body unable to match his rival's agility. The grey filly straightened into the Churchill stretch after a mile in 1:35 1/5 with an advantage of two lengths, and the crowd was eating it up, bellowing and thundering and shaking the spires.

Frankie whooped and flattened his body in the saddle, pumping his arms into Connie's neck as his colleague drew the whip on Raining Roses. The filly pinned her ears and dove for the wire as the colt drew nearer again, his momentum building without the arc of the turn to hinder his acceleration. Frankie waved his stick frantically at his mount, and Connie ran yet harder, staving off the colt's advance.

Their pace had been impossible, enough to drop most Derby frontrunners into the footnotes of the form, and yet, as Raining Roses strained to push his nose any further up than Connie's saddle blanket, the two young horses fought on. In the stands, a collective gasp was building in the throats of any and all with a stopwatch in their hands: the seconds were ticking, and the horses were battling, and an impossibility was beginning to look more and more possible.

A dozen thumbs slammed down on their timers at the moment the cameras flashed on Connie's victory. Frankie stood in the stirrups and thrashed his right arm so hard that he lost grip on his whip and tossed it up into the air, then collapsed on his filly's neck and embraced her while she was still galloping out. The crowd made such noise that the grandstand literally rumbled with it, and the infield matched it decibel for decibel. Veridical's daughter arched her neck and cantered into the grip of a red-coated outrider just as the second, inevitable shudder overtook every person with eyes to see a stopwatch or a tote board.

The television hosts on NBC were perhaps the most publicly incredulous, struggling to come to terms the statistic long enough to announce it to their viewers.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the announcer at Churchill finally laughed into his microphone, "if you would please divert your attention to the final time of the Kentucky Derby: the filly Conclude has just broken the old track record."

Shown:
Name: Conclude
Barn name: Connie, Legs
Gender: Filly
Breed: Thoroughbred
Age: 3
Height: 16.1hh
Color: Grey (dark bay)
Genotype: Ee Aa Gg
Markings: LF coronet, RF half-coronet, RH sock; star and snip
Temperament: Connie lives as if aware of her blue blood; she constantly moves with her head high and her tail flagging, and takes after her mother in elegance. And she's smart, to boot.
Discipline: Racing
Preferred distance: 8f+
Running style: First flight
Bloodlines: Acute x Veridical
Offspring: N/A
For stud/lease: Unavailable - too young

AND
Raining Roses
Brown colt (EE A^ta), 16.3hh
Flower Alley--Casanova Move (Langfuhr)