Man O'War Read Online Free Page B

but instead of racing he’d try to run down all the other horses, his mouth open and teeth bared, ready to tear the others apart. He sure was brave; there was no doubt about that. He recognized no barrier, no master. He was a devil, a hellion, fighting bridle and saddle and his rider and trainer right up to the very end of his track career. He didn’t want anyone to tell him what to do. He just wanted to run
his
way, and when people tried to control him he exploded into ten thousand demons!
    His owners had quit with him when he was only four years old. He’d won a few races, most of them famous stakes, but itwas too exhausting to prepare him for further campaigns. So he had been put to stud and, miracle of miracles, he’d turned out to be a top sire!
    But Hastings
still
didn’t trust anybody. Everybody was his enemy, even now. So the boy stayed well away from the stall while the aged stallion remained in a far corner, fire in his eyes and with his lips drawn back. In the dim light his brown coat looked black, and the white, diamond-shaped star he had passed on to his son Fair Play stood out in the darkness.
    What would his gift be to Mahubah’s colt? the boy wondered. Would he give his grandson simply the white star or something far more important? Maybe some of that competitive fire that burned so strongly in his black heart … 
but some sense along with it
, enough to make the colt manageable? Boy, what a gift that would be! What a colt they would have, if that ever happened!
    After a few minutes the boy turned away and walked quickly to the foaling barn. He entered the barn almost on tiptoe and stole quietly down the corridor. When he came to Mahubah’s stall, he looked inside and knew for sure she was going to have her foal that night.
    She was restless, moving about in the dim light without noticing him at all. And that was very unusual for Mahubah. But anyone could have seen that she had other things on her mind. She rustled her straw bedding and pawed the clay beneath, her warm smell enveloping the stall.
    Watching her wasn’t like watching the stallions. Here there was peace and quiet … but there was even more than that, the boy decided. It was hard for him to explain how he felt. It was as if Mahubah seemed to know she was playing a part in something very big, and she got that feeling over to him. Or perhaps it was the knowledge that soon he would be witnessing somethingthat was as old as time—the giving birth to a new creature—that filled him with awe. Anyway, he knew that whatever it was, Mahubah aroused a special feeling in him and the stallions didn’t, impressive as they were.
    She was gentle, like her father, Rock Sand, and his father before him. Might not her gentleness and willingness to please help control the hot, surging blood of Hastings and Fair Play? Mr. Belmont thought so. But “nicks,” as they were called—the breeding of one illustrious line to another to produce a still finer line—were common breeding procedures in that part of the country. Everybody had something to say about them. Sometimes they worked. More often they didn’t. But nobody was going to quarrel with Mr. Belmont. His thinking behind the mating of Fair Play and Mahubah was pretty sound. Besides, it was his own money he was spending.
    All that wasn’t too important just now. What mattered was that Mahubah should have a sound, healthy foal and stay well herself. It didn’t matter what “nicks” figured in it. Except, of course, when one remembered that all this planning had started more than three hundred years ago, when horse owners first began trying to breed faster and hardier horses.
    No, the boy decided, it wasn’t going to be easy, this final waiting for Mahubah to have her foal and wondering if he might not be the fastest, the strongest, the bravest of them all. Maybe, after more than three hundred years, the perfect horse