PEOPLE: Kirsten Jade & Aaron Phillips
PLACE: Akita Rose Stables Track
TIME: Y12 January Week One
Posted on July 3 2012
Kirsten yanked the back part of the metal gates open. The stewards would be here any minute to evaluate her two year olds for this year. There was always so much to do this time of the year. She was pretty stressed out with breeding season, the new horses making their debuts on the track and much more. She was glad she has mostly retired from jockeying. Now she would be able to focus more on the training of all the horses and make SURE they have a better year this year.
Since there was now two tracks that ARS would be racing at it would just be simpler to keep the horses at home from now on. Usually she kept them at the GHF track during racing season but now we would just be charting them back and forth. So she decided she would keep them training at home and then drive them down the day before their races. GHF was twenty minutes away and TW was two hours. This is why she called in a mutual steward to come test her horses in the gate at home. It's just easier.
Every two year old must always pass the gate test before they would be able to race on the track. If they fail they have to wait and test again in a month. Kirsten had already entered all her horses in races this weekend so she hoped all her juveniles passed the test today. The only horse she was worried about was Jazzaway. A fancy car pulled up to the track. Well, here goes.
Aaron glanced at the car that pulled up to the track. Well, the steward was here. Good. His mount was beyond ready. He smiled and patted the young juvenile beneath him. It was A Royal Legacy, a colt by Merry Bay King out of Queen of Hearts. He was a living legacy of his parents and will without a doubt show it to the world.
Legacy's muscles rippled under his sweating coat. He was very young but extremely talented already. The times he was putting in were already amazingly fast. He was also pretty big for his age. He was ready to run. Aaron bit his lip as Legacy shied away from the outside rail. The colt was still getting the hang of things on the track. He was ready for his first race but there was no guarantees how he will run with other horses on a racetrack during a race. It was always a dangerous ordeal to ride a green horse in their maiden race.
Aaron didn't care. This was what racing was all about. It was about risks, and challenges. You have to risk it to get the biscuit.