Silver Blaze: Home to Roost

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

Title: Silver Blaze: Home to Roost
Author: gardnerhill               
Word Count: 60
Rating: G
Warning: None
Summary: “The trainer, John Straker, is a retired jockey…before he became too heavy for the weighing-chair.”
                                                                                       
***

We had our orders – all four of us in the stables. Wait. Wait till one of us was alone with him.

He was our stable-boss now. But in the days when he rode we called him The Whip.

That blow I struck was for every flank he’d cut to bleeding ribbons, every bit he’d yanked. We were avenged at last.

Comments

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

Well done that horse!

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

No one abuses star athletes and gets away with it. And this isn't the first time I've had Silver Blaze be a deliberate murderer.

[debriswoman]

Now that puts an interesting light on matters...I had assumed he was an exemplary employee prior to temptation.

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

An exemplary trainer - but who knows what his past as a jockey was like? Did he receive acclaim for his "win at all costs" treatment of the mounts?

[debriswoman]

A fair point

[tripleransom.livejournal.com]

Heh. It doesn't pay to get the horses mad at you. Served him right, the rotter.

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

Yep - the rotter got a trotter.

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

A clever twist. And I suppose the fact Straker was willing to harm Silver Blaze and make him lame suggests he might have been willing to harm horses in other ways previously.

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

Right. Maybe he was known as a "winning" jockey precisely because he abused his mounts to gain that edge.

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

Very clever! And makes total sense that Straker would be a bad 'un even before Silver Blaze.

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

Want to know what a horse's life was like in those days, read BLACK BEAUTY. Kind grooms were few and far between when money was on the line.

[castiron.livejournal.com]

Yes! Silver Blaze has his revenge! Well done.

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

His first taste of human blood only sweetened the victory.

[grrlpup]

Excellent. Now I hope the Colonel, humbled by the events of the story, will promote a kind stable-boy to trainer, and they'll all live happily ever after. :D

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

Right, I need a volunteer who'll tend the man-killing horse. ...Anyone?

[grrlpup]

Indeed! Maybe Silver Blaze will be the rare country horse that wears rubber horseshoes. :D

[laurose8.livejournal.com]

What a really good idea. Well written, too, of course. Thanks for sharing this.

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of all the stable's horses silently waiting, like Caesar's Senators, for just the right moment...

[sanguinity]

Get 'em, Silver Blaze. Do it for yourself, and do it for the stable!

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

Nothing is more dangerous than an angry horse with a grudge.