Caution: Terribly romanticized horsey rant
For six weeks out of the year, Saratoga Springs is a racing city. The track’s vibrant spirit flows through the whole place, lets you feel the buzz of the crowd even downtown. On the weekend, the daily news features the major upcoming races; the anchors talk up the latest Travers favourite with an energy they lack while reporting on the latest goings-on in politics or the stock market.
But no one, for as long as they could remember, had ever seen anything like this.
Great banners flew on the main street; the image of a red Adonis of a horse billowed in the wind, muscles bulging and gleaming, eyes bright and ears pricked forward. The city was holding a contest for all the shopkeepers downtown: decorate your shop fronts, they said, in burgundy and gold. Let us paint the city in his colours.
On August 29th, 2008, Saratoga mayor Scott Johnson presented a racehorse with a key to the city. A day later, the usually quiet closing weekend crowd at Saratoga Race Course had been stirred into a frenzy. The Sun beat relentlessly down onto the track well into the afternoon, but still tens of thousands braved the heat and crowded the rail to see him.
And then he appeared.
He walked like he was immortal; a God among insects. His bronze neck was arched and gleaming, his ears were pricked, and the tip of his tail, red like fire, swept the earth. He surveyed the more-than-appreciative crowd and then touched his nose to his near-white lead pony (and constant companion); the enormous grey quarter horse bobbed his head and twitched his ears.
There was trouble at the gate for many, but he just cast a glance at the contraption, decided and strode in. A horse to his outside squawked and backed away from his stall. Several of the others, already loaded, fidgeted and bustled, while he stood still, occasionally shifting his weight but altogether quiet, focused, ready.
When the iron bars parted before him, the horses sprang forward in unison and then the field began to fold inward, each jockey making an individual attempt to get their mount to the rail before the clubhouse turn rushed to meet them. The golden favourite was among the less fortunate: a horse to his inside, the second choice of seven, carried him out on the turn while the horse to his outside moved inward. He made contact once with each. They bounced off of him.
Around the first turn and into the backstretch he settled into fourth behind a scorching fast long-shot pacemaker. As he always did, he turned his broad bronze head to his left, toward the rail, at the horse to his inside. It was the same horse which had shoved him outward on the first turn, and which was keeping him out about five paths wide down the back side. Out of one eye, he stared that rival down for more than a half mile.
Just past the half-mile pole, his jockey shifted in the saddle, let loose a bit of rein. To his inside, the rider on the second favourite shoved his hands into his mount’s neck to urge him faster, but the golden horse’s great stride, product of the absurd length of his body rather than any remarkable excess of height, was growing more fluid. Track announcer Tom Durkin noticed. He flowed away from the struggling colt to his inside and took aim at the two leaders while his own jockey wound him up, urged him forward, asked him in that furtive language of horse and rider to sprout wings and fly.
He swung into the stretch and took over second in a matter of moments, having gobbled up four lengths on his rivals in the time it took for a fan in the grandstand to remove his binoculars. The same long-shot leader still pushed forward, his jockey begging for the finish line to come faster, to jump backward on the track so they might have half a chance against the red giant thundering up to his horse’s haunch, his saddle cloth, his shoulder, his waving cheekpiece, his nose... they were on even terms for five or six strides before the favourite put on just a touch more speed, gliding away from the last of his challengers. And then he paused, slowed, as if he had been expecting something more. The long-shot closed about a foot of ground on him, but soon he accelerated just enough to pull away by the time the finish line passed overhead.
The crowd roared with delight; they had flocked here to see a champion take flight, and each would walk away with the memory of having witnessed that very thing.
“Curlin,” announced Durkin, “has conquered Saratoga.”
*Leetle note* If I was ever to write a Curlin biography, this would be how I started it. A prologue, kinda. I just adored the stuff about him getting a key to the city, Saratoga Springs being draped in burgundy and gold in his honour... *sigh* Makes a horse-obsessed gal very, very happy.