May Story Contest

The Soul of a Champion
By: GummyBear
Age: 11

No-one remembers king anymore. It was too long ago and the memory was washed away like imprints on sand at the beach.

The ring was hectic, hot blooded thoroughbreds tossed their heads impatiently and nipped at each other, acting for all they were worth like the high bred mares and stallions they were. All except one. Hidden by the rushing of horses and jockeys he stood, around 17hh, a stallion. He  wasn't proud, nor magnificent, but he would one day  be both. He watched the other horses warily. He wasn't high bred, he wasn't hot tempered, he wasn't worth millions. He was different. His chestnut coat shone in the sunlight and his mane blew gently in the breeze. He didn't have the kind of beauty that people looked for, he had an inner beauty that showed in his wild eyes that flicked this way and that. His purple saddle cloth was sewn with the number 13 in yellow, and his jockey moaned as he mounted, about having the worst horse there. But he was wrong, underneath his disguise he was a real champion, powerful and fast, yes, but in his soul, a champion.

"Under starters orders!"
The crowd waited eagerly for the gates to open, and all eyes were on a muscled black horse, fiesty and hot tempered more than most. None of the horses there had raced before, but they raced because they had been bred to race, and racing was supposed to be in their blood. In some ways it was, but for the  chestnut stallion it really was. Winning was not a care of his, he wanted to feel the wind in his mane, the grass on his hooves and the power exploding from him. He didn't know that yet though, but as soon as he began to run, he would.

With a  bang and a thundering of hooves the gates opened and the horses shot out of the gates. Then he felt it, the wind....the grass...the power, and he knew, that this was for him. so he ran, not to win but so that that feeling would be even stronger, and even more memorable. He forgot the other horses and left them behind as he raced on, every thought on his mind about that moment. That was the first of his many races.

Every race he ran, he felt it, even better than before, and with every race he won, he  became more loved. For years he ran, feeling the Wind and the Grass and the Freedom. For years he raced, but horses don't live forever.

 Now he was an older horse, not old but not young either. H was not old when he left, but when he did, as he lay in his stable at night, staring at the moon, he remembered. The wind. The grass. The Freedom.

But Miles away, in Germany, a filly was born, a chestnut filly with a beauty that people did not look for, but an inner  beauty that showed in her wild eyes. As memories faded away, and people forget the horse that "could catch you but could not be caught", only one Filly remembered him. And like her father, she wanted to feel the wind in her mane, the grass beneath her hooves, and power exploding from her.
She too had racing in her blood, and she too, was, in her soul, a Champion.