April Story Contest
The Big Race
By: Kaitlin Smile
Age: 13I try to swallow nervous feelings but it doesn’t work. I watch the race before mine. I watch all of the rider’s line up and hear the pistol being shot up into the sky. I hear the rush of horses racing, all riders and horses fighting for the lead. I decide that preparing for my race would help more than worrying so I brush Dido, my horse’s golden coat until it shines. Making sure the saddle is on right and giving him one final, cooling drink, I finally feel ready.
“Good luck sweetie!” I hear a familiar, kind voice interrupt my thoughts. “I know you’ll win the blue ribbon!” my mom continues.
“Way to put on the pressure,” I grumble but manage to keep the smile on my face to let her know I was only joking.
I place my foot in the right position on the stirrup and swing my other leg gently over so I’m seated right in the saddle. My mom is on her tippy toes trying to fix the braid resting on my back. I tell her everything is fine even though I’m still worried and remind her that she still needs to find a good seat. Somebody needed to get her off of me or else I wouldn’t be able race at all.
“Hey, girl! Good luck on the race, we know you’ll win!” I recognize the three faces of girls from my school. They call themselves the Pony Pals and by the looks of their ribbons, they must be great at riding.
“Thanks!” I say to Pam, Anna, and Lulu, “You did great in your dressage performance.”
I make sure to smile. I want to leave a good impression on the best riders at the school. I hoped to become good friends with them and their ponies.
I hear a loud voice over the speakers and my heart immediately starts pounding like the drums I hear in my brother’s band at school. “All riders in the next half-mile race from ages 9 through 13 line up at the starting line.”
“That’s you, Good luck again!” She says and leads the rest of the Pony Pals in the stands to cheer.
Leading Dido to the starting line, I can feel him getting excited, motivated and ready to let the other horses look at his long, flowing tail as he crosses the finish line before them. Everything except the snorting of horses and cheering of fans is muted as we line up. Over the shouting of the Pony Pals yelling my name, I can actually hear my heart beating. It’s lucky I can hear anything, because I hear the pistol and the race is on. Dido and I fall close to the back, but this is usual. We still have time to catch up. I feel the fire in Dido light up as we pass number 5, and number 13, and we keep going until only number 2 is in our way to getting the silver cup and blue ribbon.
“You can do this Dido,” I whisper, “We’ve gotten this far, we can go farther!” Only a matter of seconds pass as Dido takes a mighty leap across the finish line.
I look back to see number 2, looking disappointed but happy at the same time. We both did better than we thought we would.
I pat Dido on the back to tell him what a great job we did. I hear a shout and a yell and I see Pam, Lulu, and Anna.
“Great job, you got first. We knew you would.” Anna comments. I smile because it feels great to be a winner. It feels great to know you can win. I’ll just remind myself that at the next race I enter.
“Great job,” I told Dido, “We did it, and we have a blue ribbon to prove it.”
The End