Dante of the Maury River by Gigi Amateau Read Free Book Online Page B

here again. Which, well, you probably won’t.”
    A wisp of my mane got stuck in the stall door hinge, and I liked the thought of leaving some little part of me behind.
    Two hills away, off in the distance, I saw Marey standing in her field, watching me. She grazed alongside a freshly painted white fence in a field of tall bluegrass. She lifted her head to the wind and tossed her mane, and the most reliable light breeze in all the world — the one that starts and ends in Kentucky — carried Marey’s love and good wishes directly to me.
    I caught her final message by the tail. “Remember who you are. Race for your family.”
    I took one last look at Marey. Already her belly was starting to swell. A new foal would arrive in the spring. In the meantime, I planned to do right by my dam and by the colt or filly she was carrying.
    I halted before loading in order to make one last memory of my home. Marey lifted her head, turned, and trotted down the hill. Far behind her, upon my word, I think I saw the faintest trace of Grandfather Dante. I can’t be certain, but I nodded good-bye, even if only to his statue. Real or made up by my wishing mind, I was relieved to have a little something from both of them to take with me.
    Melody led me up the ramp, checked on my hay net, and patted my cheek. She wouldn’t let Red see her crying, but I felt those loving tears on my neck.
    “Be good, L.D.,” she told me. “And run fast, okay?”
    Red grew impatient to get moving, but Miss Feisty wouldn’t hear of it till she was good and ready.
    I whinnied good-bye, and Melody ran off the trailer. Before the doors closed, I saw her bury her face in Doctor Tom’s shirt. A new life awaited me, one of winning or losing or who-knew-what.

I was stuck in that slow-moving trailer for pretty near a full day. Red wouldn’t know a hurry if it whinnied in his ear. I got to stretch my legs only when Red stopped to stretch his. Believe me, what Red lacked in speed he really did make up for in endurance.
    Along the way, I learned firsthand that the world is a big place outside Edensway. Mountains and rivers, forests and fields, highways and backcountry roads.
    On a secluded compound down one of these backcountry roads, at the first line of Virginia’s blue mountains, the trailer came to a stop, and I came to train for the track.
    Like Marey always told me, people have had plans for me since before I was born. Before I was bred, even. The plan was mine to follow, or mine to fail. See, my visit to the in-between, where I met my grandfather, awoke in me a spirit of questioning and left me with a sense that fate had tapped me to deliver something special for the bloodlines. “The very spit of Triple Crown–winner and legendary racehorse Dante’s Paradiso,” people liked to say, even though everybody knows that while horses drool and salivate as sure as the day is long, we never spit. Ever.
    In Virginia, where I had come to train for a year, it was the job of my trainer, a man by the name of Gary, who was always grumbling and growling about time, to mold me into the champion I was bred to be. Presumably, he had some prior experience in this, because he was highly regarded by the Eden family. Darn near every other racing family, too, it seemed.
    Gary’s place in the blue mountains was a whole lot different from Edensway. For one, the barn was crowded with young Thoroughbreds. For two, all four walls were enclosed, so we looked across at one another instead of across the farm. Sure, we each had our own window facing out, and, sure, there was always something going on inside to keep us entertained.
    My stall wasn’t even near the doorway. I expect Gary had some preconceived ideas and speculations about me. He about told me as much when he first brought me off the trailer.
    “Here you go, friend,” he said as he unlatched my stall and led me into a clean, boxy space with plenty of soft footing. “Putting you right next to my office. We’ll be