SPLAIN IT! Horse Car

Champ McGraw raced horses. It’s what his Pappy had done, and his Pappy’s Pappy before him. McGraw Stables was known throughout Kentucky as a stable. A stable with horses. On his deathbed, Champ’s father had told him, as he passed into the Eternal Grazing Pasture, that Champ’s young filly Runs With Scissors would birth the greatest race horse in history.

Champ set out to find Runs With Scissors the greatest sire of all time. He quickly found his young filly the strongest, fastest, sleekest, cutest father for Runs With Scissors colt. The sire’s name was Dirk Nowitzki, and speed was an afterthought to his stunning elegance. His beauty was only exceeded by the stars in the sky and the girls of Louisville.

Dirk Nowitzki wasted no time, he mounted the sleek hindquarters of Runs With Scissors, and she was immediately with foal. Seven days later, the most majestic creature emerged from her womb. Dirk was like, “Wha?! No way dat be my baby!”, and Runs With Scissors was all, “Dat shore eez! Don’t be frontin’!” After a heated discussion, the shamed filly admitted the foal was the seed of Beelzebub, a local plow horse with no job and a crippling oat addiction.

Still, Bastard Seed, as he came to be called was the most brilliant horse Champ had ever seen. Running with an otherworldly grace, Seed was often felt by the stable hands as he trotted past, since he was too quick to be glimpsed.

Bastard Seed quickly became the heavy favorite for the 2009 Kentucky Derby, though the 2008 Derby was still weeks away. His odds stood at 1-5, so strongly favored that bettors lost money if he won. Despite all this, hundreds flocked to bet on this magnificent animal. Still, no one could have predicted the coming tragic turn of events.

Bastard Seed had fillies falling all over him, but his heart belonged to just one-Eight Belles, the queen of splendor. Together they were a stunning sight. They pranced, they cantered, they even cavorted, and their hearts were happy. Disaster struck quickly, though, and Eight Belles’ death in 2008 was a devastating blow to the young Bastard.

He found no joy in anything, and his life turned upside down. Grays weren’t so gray. Purples seemed more bluish-reddish. Perhaps most telling for Bastard Seed’s state of mind, though, was his unending desire to run. No more prancing, no more cantering. Only speed mattered to the young horse, and plenty of it. With his life in shambles, Seed began racing cars for money, and selling his body for carrots. His pain knew no end.

Finally, hopped up on fermented apple juice and self-loathing, Bastard Seed took his own life in a heartbreaking climax of grief. Crossing lanes in his final race against a Volvo, Seed whinnied Eight Belles’ name in the final moments before he cavorted through the windshield of a Ford Focus.

Together they will always be. In our hearts, and possibly in our glue.

Category: Featured, Splain It