Running

Today was different, I wasn’t quite sure how exactly. The energy was off somehow from what I had come to know as a normal race day. The energy was higher and my trainer, a man named Frank Whiteley seemed more hesitant for me to run. He looked me over thoroughly many times before he allowed my groom to lead me on to the saddling paddock. Not sure what he was looking for exactly. My dark bay coat gleamed over my lean well muscled body. I pawed the ground in impatience, ready to go. My solid hooves thudded on the compact stable yard ground. The sunlight reflected off my metal shoes. All this was normal to me. As normal as the other fillies in the stall behind me, still dozing or waiting for their turn for a groom or gallop. I heard my neighbor across from my stall snort in irritation of not being raced when I was. In comparison her own neighbor next to her, an older claimer mare was still dozing in her stall. I wondered briefly if I would be like that one day, calm as can be with not racing. I couldn’t imagine it. I loved the track too much. Running as fast as I could. Hearing the crowds cheering as I cross the wire first, and the camera flashes as I stand in the winner’s circle.

My name is Ruffian, some call me the greatest 3 year old filly of 1975. Others say I’m the best currently running. I’ve won every race I’ve entered. As the saddle is finally tightened I have no doubt I’ll win again. Running is in my blood after all. My father’s father is the Great Bold Ruler and my mother’s father is Native dancer. When I was a yearling my paternal Uncle Secretariat broke a 25 year dry spell when he won the triple crown. I’d won the filly equivalent myself winning the Acorn stakes, Mother Goose stakes, and the Coaching Club American Oaks. So you can see why some thought I was just as great as my Uncle Big Red. The thoughts of strangers mean little to a horse.

Jacinto Vasquez is boosted into the saddle and we make our way to the track. He had been my jockey before and in contrast to my trainer he seemed confident. His attitude spread into me just as easily as Whiteley’s nerves had. The large crowds cheer and I give them a show. I arch my long swan-like neck and jog along. The only other horse to join us in the starting gate is a bay colt the same age as I, Foolish Pleasure he is called. It got very quiet then the gate opened.

I slammed my shoulder hard on the gate and just my luck it was my lead leg. Dang it, Foolish Pleasure broke clean and was charging along fast. Despite the pain in my shoulder I charged after him leading with my other leg. It was a strain to use my weaker side this early in a race, but the will to win burned bright inside me. “This is what you were born to do.” The memory of my exercise riders stuck in my mind. Those that had first taught me how to ride. Under their careful tutelage I learned what it meant to be a racehorse. Slowly, inch by inch I caught the colt then passed him. Not by much though and we battled it out, but I didn’t lose my lead. For a while all I could hear was our own breathing and the loud pounding of our hooves, all other sounds seemed like I was hearing them though water. The encouragement of our jockeys, the announcer calling the race, and the crowds. All of it was simply less then background noise to me at least. Some pigeons had settled on the track and took flight as we thundered past.

CRACK, pain shot throughout my leg, despite this I tried to keep running even with Vasquez trying to pull me up. When I finally slowed down he jumped off and moved to support my by now bloody leg. So many things happened next, the chaos almost over loading my sensitive equine hearing. The crowd was a mess of different reactions. Some who had been routing for Foolish Pleasure and had no idea how serious my injury was, laughed and mocked me. Others were saddened or panicked for me. For some it was their first ever horse race and I can’t imagine they went to another. There was a rush to get my leg stabilized and to load me onto a trailer so that I could be moved to hospital. What hurt worse then the leg to me though was the bitter pain of defeat. Something I had yet to experience as Foolish Pleasure soared around the track, almost running over a reporter, and winning uncontested. I couldn’t see him, but I could hear his hoof-beats, and the announcer calling the pitiful excuse for a race. I could hear the reporter’s sharp intake of breath as he narrowly missed getting trampled.

My mind was fuzzy as I tried to recall where I was. The track, I remembered and started running. I heard human voices, but didn’t comprehend any of them. Then pain shot through my elbow. I hadn’t been at the track that was just the last thing I remembered doing. In reality I had gone though surgery to repair my shattered bones. Now by running while waking up I had banged my cast on my elbow and broken it. I had reopened my leg as well. Eight hours after breaking my leg I was put down to end my suffering.

Some blame the pigeons. Others blame my bad start. Still more people claim my Native Dancer blood killed me. Foolish Pleasure, my owners, and even my poor trainer who didn’t want to run me that day, are cast as villains in my story. It’s simply not true as no one is to blame for bad luck. I’m buried at my home track were the race happened, Belmont part home of the final jewel of the triple crown. I face the finish line forever in the race. I never fully left here, if there is an afterlife for horses I wouldn’t know it. Belmont park will always be home. I watch and take solace in my death having helped prevent other’s deaths. Was I the greatest race horse as so many had claimed? In my mind I was, but every horse has an ego to feed.