My Sweet November

Doing some multitasking here. This serves as both Goose's sixth year (which has been written for several months) and an entry for the #HARPG-URAssociation's Horse Wash. Behold my frenzied scramble to scrape together enough funds for the December stakes race I have my greedy little eye on buying in to .

Goose, dirty bird that he is, enjoys the pampering that comes after a good wallow on the racetrack. It's a bit nippy in mid November for a full bath so he will just have to settle for having his legs hosed off and a quick rub with the sponge.

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Stellar And Strange's Six Year Old Year
6yro Starts: 13 8/2/0
Total Starts: 39 23/6/1
Season Earnings $ 62,500
Total Earnings To Date: $ 168,570
Distance: Sprint
Racing Style: Versatile, prefers to run mid or back of the pack during longer races, seems to like running through the clods of dirt and mud.
Wins:
Buddy Webb Memorial Handicap
Stockton Stakes
Cowboy Hall of Fame Handicap
Pleasanton Handicap (G2)
Coast to Coast Stakes (G1)
Silver and Gold Invitational Handicap (G1)
Green Country Handicap
O.A.R. Stakes

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Goose had an easy trip straight through his six year old career if you didn't count the time he misplaced his jockey in a three horse pile-up shortly after the break. He had managed a solid third place finish after that, but the rules were the rules and it was added as a little black mark on an otherwise spotless resume.

As Fall gave over to an early Winter it became almost too easy. Every horse tossed at him was run into the dirt. He had a textbook equation for victory that always began with getting good and dirty as he hung in the air behind the front runners. After his eyes were nearly caked shut with stray flecks of earth, and no sooner, a flip of the heels, an almost playful glance from the corner of the eye and the parti colored giant would blow right through any gap they dared leave before him. He wasn't taking it seriously anymore.

His cavalier behavior was bound to get him into trouble eventually; when training alone it was one thing, but put that clownish attitude in a swimming mass of half ton animals and it was sure to land him in trouble that he just wasn't smart enough to figure his way out of. As is he had value as a sire, but only if they had a horse left to offer at stud. They let him run his last race and breathed in relief when he popped out of the pack like a champagne cork when, by all rights, he should have been shut off from any sort of run by the horses that had closed in ahead.

He stood in the winners circle with a simpleminded assurance as if to say he would be back and then was led off for the last time.