Across That Unfamiliar Sea

Gweithser Wind, who had been expected to lead the St Leger Stakes, failed to react the instant the gates opened.

Instead, a horse on the inside broke with the precision of a start rehearsed a thousand times.

A bay figure burst decisively from the gates, as if chasing the shadow beneath her hooves.

"Gweithser Wind has broken a little slowly on the outside and failed to take the lead. Quiet Star, ridden by the jockey in the pink cap, has made her intentions clear at once, running alongside the Japanese runner Mejiro Traveler in the early stages. The pace looks good. Lover's Lock Bridge is third, while A Midsummer Night's Dream, ridden by Ryan Moore, sits fourth close to the rail. Mejiro Traveler looks unhurried on the inside."

This is bad—

Ikee pulled his gaze from the empty starting stalls, his lips pressed tight as if he were murmuring the words to himself.

Even the owner, who had gone into the race full of confidence, found himself torn. Half of him wondered, Can she keep up that pace to the finish? The other half thought, If it's her, she should be fine. With both feelings in equal measure, he looked toward the bay figure at the front of the field.

In a test of stamina, a front-runner usually had to bear the heaviest burden: wind resistance, pressure from horses behind, and the energy lost to changes in her own rhythm.

And—

This was Doncaster, with a thousand-meter home straight rare anywhere in the world: a wall that could stop any front-runner cold.

Yet the jockey in the saddle seemed to feel something entirely different from the tension by the rail.

On the big screen, Yutaka Take was wholly focused, deftly controlling the bay figure leading the field.

Watching Traveler run,