"Yosuke, sorry for the trouble."
Koichi spoke from atop Golden Masterpiece in front of the gate.
He needed someone to help him get into the gate.
For a human, the starting gate was the equivalent of a starting line.
"No problem. I'll time you, too."
Hitachi Yosuke led the horse toward the starting gate.
The other jockeys trained in groups of two or three, but Koichi was on his own.
Perhaps everyone felt that training with this newcomer wouldn't do them any good.
"All set."
With his sunglasses and helmet on, Koichi gave him a hand signal.
Asho was fairly cooperative about entering the gate this time.
In past races, plenty of racehorses had struggled to enter the gates.
Once Golden Masterpiece was inside, Hitachi Yosuke ducked out through the front and hurried over to the controls.
"Koichi, get ready."
Neigh-
Koichi gave Golden Masterpiece's neck a gentle pat.
The break from the gate was crucial.
At the start, they couldn't afford to be slower off the mark than the others, but if a gap opened up right away, they would be under even more pressure later.
Three.
Two.
One!
The instant the gate opened, Golden Masterpiece shot out.
A good break!
Watching from the side, Hitachi Yosuke immediately started the stopwatch.
Although he wasn't a jockey, he had worked at a ranch for so long that he had watched plenty of horse races.
But Asho seemed to be going a little fast.
As Asho's groom, he was naturally one of the people who knew him best.
This was a little different from his previous running style.
After the start, Koichi never slowed down.
He wanted to see what kind of result he would get by running the 1,600 meters with a different running style.
With Asho's stamina, even 3,000 meters wouldn't be a problem.
It was all the same to Golden Masterpiece. His job was simply to finish the distance.
Accelerate.
Accelerate again!
The chestnut racehorse flew over the turf.
After rounding the course's single sweeping bend, Koichi sent Golden Masterpiece into an all-out sprint.
Today's main objective was to test a variety of approaches.
With his previous running style, he certainly wouldn't have accelerated here. After all, there was still a long stretch left beyond this turn.
By his estimate, accelerating here would exhaust Asho's finishing kick before the finish line.
In that case, even if they caught the front-runners, the horses behind would catch them in turn.
Snort-!
Snort-!
Sure enough, with around three hundred meters left, Golden Masterpiece's speed dropped noticeably.
Still, compared with other closers, the length of that burst was already something to be proud of.
"Thanks for the hard work, Asho. Let's wait here for Yosuke."
After reaching the finish line, Koichi turned and waved to Hitachi Yosuke in the distance.
By his estimate, their time should have been about the same as Red Davis's that morning.
Of course, that was with Asho as the only horse on the track.
In an actual race, they wouldn't have such an easy time securing a good position on the inside or finding room to accelerate.
If other horses boxed them in, accelerating at full power would be difficult.
"Phew-it's not perfectly accurate, but you two clocked one minute and thirty-six seconds."
Hitachi Yosuke jogged over and raised his right hand.
In his view, that was already a very good time.
"One minute and thirty-six seconds?"
Koichi nodded.
He felt that his Asho could run even faster!
As a future Triple Crown winner and Hall of Fame racehorse, Asho surely had more to offer than this.
Neigh-
"All right, we're off the clock. Let's head back and rest."
Hearing Asho's disgruntled neigh, Koichi guided him toward the exit with the reins.
He hadn't expected Asho to be so eager to clock out.
Clip-clop, clip-clop-
Home we go.
Golden Masterpiece couldn't help quickening his pace.
Running 1,600 meters was still pretty easy for him.
"Koichi, Asho, wait for me!"
Watching Golden Masterpiece trot away ahead of him, Hitachi Yosuke let out a wail.
How could you leave your groom behind!
Three days later, at the entrance to Kyoto Racecourse.
"Well, if it isn't Koichi Sasaki, the rookie jockey everyone's been talking about lately!"
"I didn't ask you here so you could tease me. I'm your future boss, you know."
Dressed in casual clothes, Koichi Sasaki smiled.
The two of them hadn't seen each other for a while.
Quite a lot had changed.
"No glasses?"
"Yeah, I switched to contacts a little while ago."
Megumi Mitsumori looked up at Koichi and blinked.
She was dressed casually today, too, in a white down jacket and white jeans, with a black scarf wrapped around her neck.
"Day off today?"
"Would I be able to come out and meet you if it wasn't? This is a crucial time for preparing for the race."
Koichi rolled his eyes.
Without her glasses, he felt that Megumi Mitsumori looked much prettier.
Before, she had always seemed a little bookish.
"Come on, let's have a look around."
Megumi Mitsumori pointed at a café to one side.
Lately, the Kyoto racing papers had been writing all sorts of nonsense about this friend of hers.
A connections hire.
The ranch heiress's boy toy.
And compared with other jockeys, Sasaki really was much taller, with a larger frame to boot.
That had kept him from getting his weight down.
He had complained to her about it before. Back then, he had no longer wanted to be a jockey.
"Two coffees. My treat today."
After they sat down in the café, Megumi Mitsumori immediately called a waitress over.
"Your boyfriend's really handsome, miss."
The waitress spoke quietly.
Quite a few couples came here to watch the races.
"..."
Megumi Mitsumori gave a soft hum and glanced at her.
"Have you read all those articles about me?"
Once the waitress had left, Koichi asked.
Originally, he had only wanted to keep a low profile and get a decent result in this race. He hadn't expected the racing-paper reporters to stir up a fuss before it even began.
Of course, all that publicity was negative.
"I couldn't avoid hearing about it. You're a newcomer going straight into such an important Grade 3 race. Nobody would believe there wasn't something going on behind the scenes."
Megumi Mitsumori sounded a little helpless.
Although she didn't know exactly what had happened lately.
Still, if Clear River Ranch was letting Koichi enter this race, it meant they were ready to take a major gamble.
"Maybe I'm just a smokescreen. I'm not the only jockey from our ranch competing this time."
Koichi narrowed his eyes.
Jockeys and racehorse trainers did move in the same circles.
Quite a few jockeys considered switching to training once they could no longer ride.
"Your coffees."
After setting down the coffees, the college-student waitress hurried away.
"Mm."
(End of chapter)
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