Getting Away With Murder (Open)

[massacre]

Getting settled after the transfer to Louisville had been a nightmare. It was bad enough that Emilia had experienced the terror her black colt, Diablo d'Oro had for planes when she flew him over from Florida once when she first bought him, but when she flew him back over to Louisville for their move, Dee had been moments away from a complete and total meltdown. Once they got him off the plane, the only times Emilia had not witnessed the unholy terror that was Dee was when he stood in the corner of his stall and shook within the first few hours of getting off the plane.

Her baby was scared of planes. It was something she never would have originally expected.

But given a day or so, Dee was recovered from his endeavor but it made him cranky. Cranky for this colt was like a magnified rage for other horses. The best thing Emilia could think to do was get him out on the track and let loose some of that excess energy so Dee didn't end up killing someone. Watching as three grooms attempted to tack up the black bouncing, squealing, snake-faced colt all the while dodging his attempts at either cow-kicking or swinging his head with bared teeth at them, they got the blue-eyed two-year-old out onto the track where he pressed himself against the track pony until they let him loose. Emilia stood by the side of the rail. This would be a hell of a lot easier once she found herself a trainer but in the meantime, her knowledge of the sport gave her the upper hand in knowing just what was going to be needed to challenge Diablo d'Oro.

"Warm him up on the rail, trot him and canter him, then when you reach the first of the last six furlong gallop him for the first two, then let him out the last four. I'm not expecting brilliant times out of him a day or two after moving, I just want to let him let off steam," Emilia told the exercise rider with a wry grin before the next sentence. "Might be safer for all of us."

The bug grinned and nodded, turning Dee and asking him for a trot and eventually a canter. The colt braced himself against the bit, chewing it and wringing his head. He wanted out, that was clear. His ears were pressed against his head, those ominous blue eyes an eerie contrast to the rest of his solid black frame. Emilia didn't know where they came from, all she could think was somewhere in his line he possessed the splash gene. It did give him a startlingly powerful appearance though.

Emilia's eyes drifted momentarily to a few of the other horses working on the track. Her attention was snatched back when she heard a snort and a reprimanding shout, looking over to see Dee rearing up and wringing his head, bouncing forward and almost unseating his rider. The rider let him out and Dee launched himself forward, ears buried against the side of his stall. He kicked it into his highest gear and tore around the bend. He zigzagged for the first twenty feet or so before the rider straightened him out. It was obvious Dee made the jock nervous, confirming to Emilia that she needed to find a jockey out there who could handle a difficult--or in other words homicidal horse. But the way Dee thundered down the stretch, Emilia looked at the stopwatch. Sure enough, it didn't seem the travels had put Dee off his game at all. According to the times, he clocked three seconds faster than he had before the move.

Emilia shook her head in amazement. She wanted more than anything to harness that power and speed. It was just a matter of focusing Dee's aggression on the task at hand and using it for good rather than evil.

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[symphony]

Tally Cremer, Selena Hassen and Eidolon

Tally couldn't help but shake her head as she watched Eidolon careening down the track, Selena struggling to keep the bay filly under check. She hated to say it, but she was about ready to give up on Sola's second daughter; sired by Daemon, Eidolon had taken her sire's reputation for producing less than pleasant foals to a whole new level, refusing to do anything you asked of her under saddle and seeming to not understand the point of a race. It wasn't that she couldn't run - when she was in a half agreeable mood, the filly absolutely rocketed along the rail, and there was nothing in the world that could slow her down. It was just a matter of finding some way to harness that power.

Currently, she was zigzagging all over the track, snorting loudly and shying at anything remotely like a horse eating monster and kicking up her heels in defiance as Selena tried to ask her to slow down a little. Well, at least it looked like she would get a decent workout today; many times, when pitted against her stablemates, the filly had decided to simply drop back and tail the other horse the entire way, and at every work had shown nothing but an inability to run straight.

Sighing, the trainer cast her eyes away from the difficult filly, settling upon watching a inky black colwho seemed to be pulling the same stunt Eidolon always did - his jockey, however, managed to pull him straight, something their filly was incapable of. Interested, she continued watching him breeze; it would be some time before Eidolon even reached that part of the track. Surprisingly, she found she couldn't place the stable or trainer of the colt. A newcomer then. He looked to be quite talented, firing along the rail in very good time. Mentally, she made a note to find who owned him - it was always good to know who owned which horses, and she wanted to know more about this talented colt.

[massacre]

Breezing past each quarter pole, Diablo d'Oro's exercise rider stood in the stirrups and got the monstrous colt to throttle back, and Dee fought him every step of the way. When he was finally pulled Dee to an exuberant walk, Emilia ducked under the railing to aid them, lead shank in hand.

"Alright, we'll call it a day for him, he did brilliantly," The British-born blonde woman instructed gently. When she approached Dee's shoulder, he swung his head but didn't react violently. She slapped his neck in praise, clipping the shank to his bridle. She was actually quite pleased with how Dee had performed, especially when just getting settled. When they got Dee untacked, and even that resulted in a bit of a fight, Emilia moved toward his head.

"I'll take him from here," She said with a light smile, and the grooms apprehensively handed his lead shank over to her. Emilia was still getting her entire crew together, but even as the owner, it didn't stop her from wanting to be hands on. Leading Dee over to the wash bays; and the word 'led' could be used very loosely because Dee was pulling and dancing the entire time, tugging forward and Emilia braced her elbow against his chest, growling "Whoa" at him as she finally got him in the wash bays. It was sort of a bonding moment with him as well. Emilia knew that Dee had pretty much connected with her and felt it important to spend as much time with him as possible rather than handing him off to a groom all the time; not to mention that it prevented him from maiming any of the grooms.

After hosing the colt off and washing him, Emilia went back over to the track with Dee in hand and with a cooler over him to let him dry a bit before she put him back. Seeing a woman standing by the rail, she kept Dee on the other side of her so he wasn't the one next to her, if not standing back a foot or so, watching a light bay youngster careening back and forth across the track. Judging by the way the woman at the rail was watching the filly, she could only assume the filly was hers.

"She seems like a handful," Emilia remarked, looking in the other girl's direction.

[symphony]

Tally Cremer, Selena Hassen and Eidolon

Eidolon was just beginning her breeze when Tally heard the other woman's remark from beside her. The filly seemed to be at an indecision as to whether she wanted to run along the rail or the centre of the track, and was absolutely everywhere at once. Luckily, there seemed to be a break in the traffic on the actual track; Eidolon was close to being banned from morning works until she learnt to run properly. It was dangerous, having a horse careening all over the track with no rhyme or reason.

Glancing back to the woman, Tally flashed her a quick smile before turning back to watch Eidolon. She was holding the big black colt from earlier, the trainer noticed; interesting. "Your colt does too, though you seem to have gotten him pretty well under control," she replied with a light tone, scribbling in her notebook as the bay filly finished her work. "We're still working on that part." Keeping Selena and Eidolon in the corner of her eye, she finally turned to face the other woman with a smile. "You're new around here, aren't you? I'm Tally Cremer; I own King's Park Racing, just down the road." She felt quite proud to be able to say that; ten years on, and now most everyone knew King's Park.