Like Shooting Stars

AIRPLANES STUCK IN MY HEAD

Frankie wasn't supposed to look EXACTLY LIKE KEIN, and Chloe wasn't supposed to look EXACTLY LIKE NICOLY, but whatever, that's how they turned out. Apparently Kein and Nicoly wanted smoochies, and decided to invade my other story in order to get them.

Oh, and by the way, SMOOCHIES! Kein Frankie looks surprised to get them.

MARCH

The day Poltergeist was released from the hospital and shipped to Gulfstream Park was decorated with the lights from flashbulbs, and peppered with rumour and controversy. Though the motive for putting him in a stall at the racetrack was solely for the purpose of keeping him close to Ellie and therefore manageable while he completed his recovery, the rumour mill whirred away with whisperings that Brazen Fields was going to try to put him back in training. PETA gathered, waiting for a time to take their vengeance for the Hollywood Lecture by exposing the Fields as the profit-hungry animal torturers that we so obviously were, but they were to be disappointed. For the first two weeks of the month, Poltergeist was walked every day, grazed every afternoon, and fed ridiculous numbers of peppermints every evening. The press hounds eventually drifted away.

-----

The atmosphere at Oaklawn park crackled with electricity, and not only because of the towering black thunderheads looming on the horizon. Railbirds swarmed to watch the morning jaunts of Brazen Fields' tiny firebrand Anayehi, marveling as time after time, the pistol outgunned the assault rifles, the little filly outshone the rippling colts. Her breezes, and even her gallops, became the scenes of huge gatherings of journalists and handicappers, old hands and new fans straining for a glimpse: the undefeated little girl, already flirting with immortality, risking her record on the most cutthroat stage in her sport--the Kentucky Derby trail.

In her bid for a clean baker's dozen wins in a row, Anna was made the 3-2 morning-line favourite, and those odds plummetted when the windows opened. Self-proclaimed "value-loving" handicappers were left scratching their heads when they tried to find a viable alternative. Pipinoukhe's daughter, the runty twin sister of a filly who didn't want to run, had scared them all off. On the afternoon of the Rebel Stakes, Anna found herself facing a large field of has-beens and could-bes. There were no proven stakes winners here, only horses whose connections hoped a second or third might validate continuing toward Louisville.

Anayehi had been essentially handed the Rebel trophy on a silver platter, and she would not miss the opportunity to snatch it and parade it proudly: she was challenged very briefly on the backstretch, but once again those little legs whirled until they blurred to the inadequate eyes of humans and carried her nearly five lengths clear of second. The crowd at Oaklawn Park--nearly a full house drawn to watch the unlikeliest of little champions--trembled with delight.

Frankie, fresh from the hallowed saddle which had graced the back of Conclude, nearly buckled and toppled from his seat in the winner's circle as the implications washed over him. He had been aboard Veridical and Eidolon, then one of the greatest fillies of all time in Conclude, and fate still chose to gift him with another. He fully realized the responsibility he had, having had it before, but it still terrified him. He confided as much to Chloe, but she only scoffed and told him with as much practice as he had, he couldn't go wrong. Then she kissed him on the cheek, lingering a little longer than she had to, and he felt a good deal better about the whole thing.

He didn't have much time to think about it, anyway. After the Rebel he was on a plane back to the Gulfstream base, where another of his brilliant fillies was returning to her own division. Aiaru had been entered in the GII Inside Information Stakes, a sprint for fillies and mares, when it had become clear she needed to get out of her stall and race. It wasn't much more than a public workout, anyway, considering only four had entered against her and the field was hardly stellar (besides Roo herself). Tom and Frankie both knew that it would take no effort at all to put this field away, so the trainer instructed the jockey to allow the smoky filly to stretch her legs if she so desired.

Aiaru burst from the gate on a loose rein, ran hell-bent for leather down the backstretch on a loose rein, banked into the turn like a fighter jet (still on a loose rein), and smoked the top right off the stretch as she enjoyed total freedom to run like the devil, like the ghost of her grandsire. She ran seven furlongs in 1:20 2/5, and the official margin of victory was seventeen lengths. Frankie had never moved.

Six days later, the expectation was more of the same for Blizzard in the GII Swale Stakes. The only stakes performers in the field were horses the white colt had trampled in the Hutcheson, and the rest were maiden or allowance winners. Laurence took a seat on Awry's son confident that the solid favourite beneath him would run them into the ground, yet again.

At first, all went according to plan. Laurence pulled the trigger and Blitz fired from the gate and tore into the track, soaring to his usual, comfortable early lead. The mass behind him struggled and failed to be anywhere near him as he happily bounded along, stringing together a series of fractions that would have made daddy proud and daring anyone to bite into them.

Only one colt could.

His name was Baptism, a son of Pulpit out of the stakes-winning Giant's Causeway mare First Passage. He was a dark, rippling mass of muscle, and he was inhaling the entire field and taking aim at the little white leader.

Loose on the lead, Blitz seemed surprised when he heard hoofbeats behind him. He cocked his head, Laurence reported, and those baby blue eyes fixed on the dark bay shape that was growing larger and larger in his vision. Suddenly, Blizzard faced the scenario which ultimately reveals the fighting spirit of a Thoroughbred: the test any horse must pass before calling himself the best.

Blitz clamped hold of the bit and surged as Baptism drew alongside him, and through the final sixteenth there was nothing between them. Only in the final strides did the pain in Blizzard's exhausted muscles manifest itself, allowing the straining Baptism to thrust his neck in front. The time was 1:20 4/5, more than a full second faster than Blitz had run the Hutcheson. The white colt came back from defeat blowing and snorting, but fiery--something had lit up inside of him. Baptism had thrown oil onto the candle in Awry's son's heart and created a bonfire.

Out in California the following day, Nokomis tried the GII Santa Ana Handicap. She was outclassed by many of the mares in the field of ten, but then again Koko had shown a fondness for the underdog role, and once again showed grit and mettle in a dirty duel down the stretch. She lost by a half-length, but thrilled the crowd in doing so, and soundly outran her odds of 17-1.

She shipped back to Gulfstream two days later, where Ellie got on her back and deftly steered her around the oval for a gallop. Tom and Frankie watched from the rail, and Frankie swore that the old trainer's lips bore resemblance to a smile for some fraction of a second: Ellie was obviously much stronger than she had been even a month before, and her work ethic was driving her to improve at a brutal pace. Regular trips to the gym and morning assignments with Tom and a half-dozen other Gulfstream trainers had given her arms and torso definition, and her heart great endurance. At sixteen years old, she was almost race ready.


APRIL

"No Baptism, no problem."

With those four words, Tom greeted and dismissed the small party of press corps on the eve of the Bay Shore Stakes. The miniscule quote then made the rounds of the racing media as they only could during Derby season; though Blitz was certainly not on the trail to Louisville with his obvious distance limitations, he benefited from the fever nonetheless, and his trainer's short, almost lazily delivered assessment became common knowledge. A few journalists with too much time on their hands wrote columns claiming that Thomas Russell's arrogance would be an embarrassment to him one day, but mostly, there was a general agreement: no one in the Bay Shore was remotely the calibre of Baptism.

The colt in question made a magnificent paddock appearance at Aqueduct that afternoon. Though he'd always made his reputation as being a kind and friendly individual, that day Blitz reared and leapt, overflowing with energy he was desperate to expend. His coat gleamed porcelain white, his eyes flashed fiery blue, and the muscles beneath his skin rippled like waves on the sea; the four words of Tom Russell then began to seem prophetic.

Blizzard became the legacy of his father when the gates slammed open; as Awry had ever done, his white son heaved free of the contraption and whistled clear of the field in half a dozen strides, screaming through his opening quarter mile of the seven-furlong race in :21 1/5 and leading already by three lengths. With Laurence sitting perfectly still on his back, Blitz roared giddily along, clicking off a :44 flat half and sprinting into the stretch the leader by five. Only then did the colt grow lazy, began to loaf and drift and play on his comfortable lead; his jockey kept his head together, tried to keep him running in a straight line as Blizzard looked for some competition, but none was coming--he won the Bay Shore by eight lengths in 1:21 4/5, weaving like a seamstress to the wire.

-----

One week later, the eyes of the Derby trail turned to Oaklawn Park, where the marks of greatness were very rapidly appearing on the figure and story of the tiny twin Anayehi. Thirteen starts, thirteen victories, a prime Kentucky Derby contender--and a filly not even fifteen hands tall. It boggled conventional thought, turned the racing world on its ears, and no one felt the responsibility more heavily than Chloe Barnes or Jean-François Pellerin, who sat outside Anna's stall door together an hour or so before the race. Frankie didn't have any riding assignments in the two races preceding the Arkansas Derby, so he'd come down to find Chloe banging her forehead on a post near Anna while Arbanne looked rather curiously on. It had only been with plenty of coaxing that Frankie had cajoled her into sitting on an overturned feed bucket and entering into a little distracting nonsense conversation with him.

They passed through all manner of subjects, but the two things dominating their thoughts never quite managed to come up: first, of course, was Anna's assignment and the enormous possibility (and implications) of failure. Second was the fact that it was incredibly obvious that each wanted to kiss the worries right out of the other, and that both were oblivious. Ellie had been dropping hints left and right at the both of them, but neither had given her suspicions much credit, to the young lady's everlasting frustration.

There were many moments during that conversation when Chloe very nearly shut her eyes and made the leap, but inevitably anxiety overwhelmed her and she stayed where she was. Half an hour before post time for the Arkansas Derby, therefore, Frankie got up and left feeling not a little regretful.

-----

Just a few minutes later, Anayehi danced and flickered into the Oaklawn paddock, her stage presence easily overwhelming colts more than two full hands taller than she. The tiny filly, at a time in her career when most racehorses were just barely coming into themselves, was a seasoned warrior, an undefeated champion, a cabaret performer. She swaggered among the giants around her, lifted her tail, arched her neck and gloated. She surveyed her competition with the eyes of an old soul; eyes which her groom often swore were smiling.

Frankie could essentially just jump up onto her back without a leg up, but he was shaking so hard that he needed the help anyway. NBC cameras focused on his and his filly's every move, broadcasting them to millions of people around the world, and he felt nearly as naked as he had before Connie's Belmont.

He needn't have. Anna was already amassing a fan club the likes of which hadn't been seen in some time.

One of its members was a sixteen-year-old girl, who watched the NBC broadcast with the filly's official trainer in his office at Gulfstream. Tom watched very closely whenever the camera was on Anna and liked what he saw; Ellie could hardly contain her excitement. Both were silent as the grave, watching the horses and listening to the occasionally pertinent commentary provided by the hosts.

"It is truly amazing to think about what this filly has done given her circumstances."

"Yes, it is. For those in the audience who aren't yet familiar with Anayehi, she is the secondborn runt of a set of twins born to a very good racemare in Incandesce, known to some still as Big Yellow for her colouring."

"Right. Her projected mature height is less than fifteen hands--in fact, what you're looking at now is probably as tall as she's going to get--and she's in against colts eight, nine inches taller than she is."

"And on top of that, she was one of the first foals trained under a new program developed by the staff back at Brazen Fields, where she was born. Apparently, the only reason this little guinea pig is where she is now is because she took so well to that program. So really, this is just the absolute pinnacle of good luck and good thinking coming together in a very good horse."

"A great horse, even?"

A laugh. "Could be. If she isn't already, then she is well on her way. I know I've never seen the likes of her before."

"You can say that again. Now, you can see the horses coming onto the track for the post parade, and this is another extraordinary thing about this filly: she's got so much energy, but she's always so calm when she's got thousands of people screaming at her. You can see that Roger Roger, the bay colt on the screen right now, isn't nearly so composed, and that's closer to normal at this age."

"Roger Roger, once again, is our predicted pacesetter in this Grade One, one million dollar Arkansas Derby, but the betting folks aren't giving him nearly as much chance at upsetting the filly as the number four, on your screen now."

"That is Laughing Bird, a bay colt by Distorted Humor out of Golden Phoenix, by Suave, and he has been an up-and-coming force in Louisiana this spring, hasn't he?"

"Yes, he has. Won the Risen Star, won the Louisiana Derby in very good time, and his trainer decided to give him one more race before the big one right here in Arkansas."

In fact, Laughing Bird was a bay rabicano, the proprietor of a magnificent speckled flank and almost completely white tail as well as an impressive record. At 16.2 hands already, he towered over the filly to whom he conceded favouritism, his late moves had been compared to those of Silky Sullivan, and to be completely honest, Frankie feared him. Anayehi, he knew, would have to fight for it today, and harder than she ever had before, if she was going to keep her streak alive.

Frankie lost sight of Laughing Bird almost as soon as the field broke, as the huge, hulking son of Distorted Humor fell immediately back to his preferred early position at the back of the pack and Anna rocketed up to contend for the lead with Roger Roger. The dark colt to her outside cleared the filly and dropped to the rail, and neither the filly nor her jockey gave any resistance; the pacesetter was going much too fast too early. The quarter clicked in :22 4/5, with Anna a few lengths behind in about :23 2/5, still blistering speed on the heavy, tiring Oaklawn strip.

As the field straightened out onto the backstretch, Frankie looked under his left arm and caught sight of Laughing Bird at the back of the pack, running easily as could be. Underneath him, he felt Anna gliding along, her legs whirling as they ever did, her strides impossibly long for the comparative size of her body. The pace was fast, but the filly was in fine form; Anayehi and Laughing Bird were neither one at an advantage. It was up to the horses from here on out.

Tilting into the final turn, Roger Roger began to fade, dropping back on the rail. Anayehi glided a path out before the field could overtake her, and inherited the lead with three eighths of a mile to run. No sooner did the dark form drop into the throng behind her than the little bay filly's black-tipped ears snapped forward. Her tongue shot from her mouth and she accelerated, putting on a burst of speed that separated her from the pack as the stretch opened up before her.

But there was a presence to the outside as they wheeled toward home, a thundering beast splattered with mud bearing down, accelerating with every massive stride. He roared into second and the crowd shrieked as one; Frankie glanced behind him and his heart leaped into his throat, but Anna saw him, too. Laughing Bird thundered up to the filly, his nose bobbing at her haunch, saddlecloth, elbow, neck--he was even with her. And then came that moment, the one that defines every young horse's career. Then came the moment that Frankie asked that filly the question, and Anayehi answered.

With a disadvantage of eight inches of height, the daughter of Pipinoukhe and Incandesce pinned those tiny ears and ran. Frankie begged and pleaded with her, and she gave, over and over again. She was invisible to the crowd, eclipsed by Laughing Bird, and then her little head, low to the ground and straining, appeared, followed by her neck and her shoulder. The crowd very nearly imploded, because the runty filly was fighting, fighting for her life and winning. The camera flashed on Anna, half a length in front and refusing to give one single inch.

The immediate post-race interview, given just after he finally managed to pull Anna up, saw Frankie give a giant whoop into a microphone feeding right onto a live national broadcast. Other than that particularly eloquent form of communication, not much else he said was too coherent. And after stumbling off of the filly in the winner's circle, once the photo had been taken, Frankie was in for one last surprise: Chloe handed the filly over to her groom, jogged after the jockey, spun him around by his shoulders and planted a kiss right on his lips.

Live on national television.

On the Gulfstream backstretch, catcalls and whistles sounded for a full ten minutes.

-----

Naturally, the party returned to Florida to great fanfare; Anayehi was well deserving of her part of the attention, which was lavished on her at every opportunity, and the new couple were likewise followed everywhere by hoots and hollers. They soaked up the attention with great composure (usually--once or twice Frankie couldn't resist egging them on, and Chloe was by no means any less comfortable under the glare of a spotlight) and went on with their lives exactly as they had before, with the exception that they were each considerably happier because they could "have smoochies," as Ellie so effectively put it, whenever they pleased ("I told you so" was also a popular phrase with Ellie).

And so most of the rest of April passed in a happy blur. There was another trip to California for Frankie, Chloe and Nokomis, which resulted in a very promising second-place finish in the GII Santa Barbara Handicap (Koko surged at the finish, but missed victory by just over a length. The final time was 2:00 3/5 for ten furlongs) and gave a whole other jockey colony the opportunity to whistle and tease.

Then, just as April was about to slip into May under the flashbulbs of Kentucky Derby press, Churchill Downs opened its gates. Baptism streaked to victory in the Derby Trial Stakes, but it was the last race on that day's card which interested every member of the Brazen Fields team.

It was a maiden claiming race at seven furlongs; in it were elder horses, many of whom had gone twenty races without winning a single one. It was a race the likes of which is run a hundred times a week without anyone paying any attention at all. This one was special, though.

In post four was a six-year-old gelding who'd run twenty-four races in his career. He had never finished better than third, and the last time he'd done that, he'd been four. His name was Wish Right Now, he was only still running because his owner was sentimental and foolish, and his jockey was listed as Elizabeth Campbell.

He was trained by an old friend of Tom's, who had agreed to put the girl on the horse as something of a practice run. No one expected the hrose to do much, but Ellie had of course freaked out anyway at getting her very first mount, and so much sooner than she'd hoped. Tom had been the recipient of a giant bear hug for his efforts at securing the horse, and Frankie joined Tom and Chloe on the rail (Laurence was also riding the race, only he had the favourite) as the rangy gelding plodded postward. The girl on his back was wound tighter than she'd ever been, her heart pounding in her ears, a great wave of... something preparing to crest and crash.

The gates opened, and Ellie's whole body exploded with adrenaline, a pulse which carried right into the body of the animal beneath her. Wish Right Now squawked and broke, faster than he had in years. Two gates to her outside, Laurence felt his eyes go wide in wonder as the old gelding lunged into early contention, running freely in second on the rail as the field ran down the backstretch. In the stands, Wish Right Now's trainer knit his brow together. Chloe shrieked in delight. Frankie laughed uncontrollably.

Tom hid the shadow of a smile.

Halfway around the turn, Ellie tugged on the right rein and guided the gelding out into the three-path, and much to her delight (and the surprise of everyone), the 70-1 shot accelerated and overtook the pacesetter. It was too much to ask that he stay in front until the wire, but he took some beating, falling only to the favourite and one other, and securing his first third-place finish in almost two years.

Chloe whooped and screamed at the rail, bouncing and dancing in circles before Frankie swept her off into an impromptu waltz. Tom glanced at his friend, who raised an eyebrow and said simply, "Kid's got a hot seat," a statement which triggered a fresh set of hollers from Tom's assistant.

Two hours later, Ellie was about to slip into Poltergeist's stall for some quality time when an oddly familiar, but definitely new face poked over the barrier one door down. It was a rangy chestnut gelding.

"We can always use another pony," was Tom's curt explanation for the claim. "'Bout time that thing retired anyhow."

And so Ellie's first mount moved in next to her first love.


GAQ IS BACK, BITCHES.

Yeah, that's right. I come back, and the first thing I do is start pairing my characters off and otherwise ~*MAKIGN THER DREAMZ COM TRU*~ Actually, this is a pretty gosh durn happy year altogether. Some intrigue in the next couple of months and near the end, but the big dramas come later. Gotta have some happy times now anyway, after all that Poltergeist nonsense.

Blitz is sure growing into his Fairy Tale Stallion billing, innee?

Shown:
Name: Blizzard
Barn name: Blitz, Bee, Fuzzy Wuzzy, Tiny Fuzzbucket, Mr. Poofy, My Precious Little Snow Angel, Get This Thing Off of My New Shoes
Gender: Colt
Breed: Thoroughbred
Age: 3
Height: Projected 15.1hh
Color: Bay sabino-white splash
Genotype: EE Aa SbSb nSpl
Markings: Completely white; blue eyes
Temperament: Blitz is a bundle of incredibly obnoxious friendliness and curiosity. He gets into everyone's things, worked out how to get his halter off in record time, and has a harmless if somewhat slobbery habit of gaining people's attention by grabbing onto their clothes or shoes with his teeth. For something that's supposed to be the fairy tale white stallion someday, he's kind of an enormous goob.
Discipline: Racing prospect
Bloodlines: Awry x Lucky Lucy
Offspring: N/A
For stud/lease: Unavailable - too young

Also Jean-François Pellerin and Chloe Barnes, making with the smoochies.