When it was Epiphaneia's turn, Koichi sat on the grass and rested for a while.
After these past two days, he felt that coming to Hakodate for races was pretty nice.
When he came for races before, he never had this much time to spend with the horses. Most of their time together was spent training at the Training Center, or visiting them after work.
"Hey, stop chewing my hair."
Epiphaneia was standing behind Koichi, nibbling at his hair with his lips.
It was rather fun.
Sitting on the ground, Koichi patted Epiphaneia's face.
He had finally settled down to enjoy the view, only for Epiphaneia to interrupt him.
When he wasn't allowed to chew Koichi's hair, Epiphaneia went straight for his clothes instead.
He found interacting with Koichi like this quite entertaining.
In the end, his nuzzling pushed Koichi flat onto the ground.
"Come on. Let's just head back."
Koichi quickly put Epiphaneia's bridle on and led him back.
If he didn't take him back now, who knew what Epiphaneia would do next?
"All right, all right."
On the way back, Epiphaneia kept rubbing his face against Koichi.
He had been quite happy these past two days. Before, their time together mostly meant training, but now he could enjoy a holiday and play with Koichi at the same time.
Koichi had tried to find a horse Epiphaneia could get along with before, but every attempt had ended in failure.
Even if they couldn't be turned out together, they could at least greet each other across a fence, like One-Way Passage and Gold Ship.
Epiphaneia was a horse who disliked being lonely, yet he was also fiercely competitive and provocative toward other horses.
He and Gold Ship were the perfect proof of that.
Neither would back down.
Whenever they