Chapter 113. Hokuto Vega BCD Part 1
The bell rang, and Shuta An let the reins he'd tightened go slack, then pushed hard, sending Hokuto Vega tearing out of the gate with tremendous force.
Dirt sprayed up in dark clumps behind her hooves, and the roar of twelve horses breaking at once rolled through the stands like a wave. Within a few strides, she'd opened a clean length on Re Toss in gate 7 and Supah Gem in gate 8, giving her the room to cut across into the inner lane.
Another few pushes, and Vega responded without hesitation, her powerful shoulders rolling beneath him as she slid smoothly into second place.
First belonged, for now, to Paseana, the Argentine entrant breaking from gate 3, her dark coat already flecked with kicked-up dirt. Right behind Shuta sat Supah Gem, surging forward the instant she'd been overtaken, hooves drumming a hard, urgent rhythm against the packed track.
Solis, though, had picked a different plan than Shuta An's.
As the field crossed the finish line for the first time — the grandstand a blur of color and noise on their right — he let Supah Gem keep pushing wide, overtaking Hokuto Vega decisively before sweeping past Paseana as well in the same motion. By the time they entered the bend, Supah Gem had claimed the front outright, her jockey's silks snapping in the wind of her own speed.
Fighting that hard for the lead this early — can she actually hold it when it counts?
Shuta An wasn't sold on Solis' read of the race. The wind carried grit against his face, and he narrowed his eyes against it, keeping his focus locked on the shifting field ahead.
And Paseana's not chasing either, which means McCarron's thinking along the same lines I am.
McCarron — Shuta An still remembered him from Obey Your Master's saddle, years back.
Let's see how this pace shakes out.
He settled Vega into third and let her cruise, the mare's breathing steady and even beneath him, her stride unhurried despite the pack thundering around her. He watched the field unfold ahead, the track surface a churned brown ribbon stretching toward the first bend.
Something nagged at the back of his mind — a name he felt he should've been tracking — but no matter how he turned it over, he couldn't place it.
Never mind. If I can't remember it, it's not important right now. Focus on Vega.
—
Mike E. Smith, meanwhile, had gone completely numb.
The instant the gate sprang open, SkyBeauty's break had been dismal.
Not a missed start exactly, not a slow one either — but the entries in gates 2, 3, and 4 had all broken sharper, boxing her path shut immediately, a wall of hindquarters and churning legs closing in front of her before she'd even found her stride.
Smith had no choice but to settle for a compromised spot, mid-pack, far from where he'd planned to be, the dust of a dozen horses stinging his eyes.
He watched Shuta An and Hokuto Vega surge past from within the crowded field, powerless to respond, trapped where he sat, boxed in on all sides by horses with no intention of yielding ground. All he could do was watch his biggest rival claim, effortlessly, the exact starting position he'd counted on for himself before the race.
I am so sick of this. What is wrong with her today? She never had trouble like this running up front before!
Smith fumed silently, his grip tightening on the reins.
I need to have a serious talk with Allen Jerkens — something's off with her condition, and it's not nothing.
He'd considered forcing his way clear of the pack outright, but SkyBeauty showed no interest in accelerating no matter how hard he pushed, her ears flicking back with something that almost looked like reluctance.
Short of the whip — and even then, some instinct told him it wouldn't be enough to break her free — there wasn't much else to try.
So he stayed locked in sixth, waiting, watching for any opening that might come, the pounding of hooves around him blending into one continuous roar.
—
The opening four hundred meters clocked Supah Gem at 22.31 seconds.
"Is that pace considered normal?"
Nakano Takayoshi turned to Mott beside him, raising his voice slightly over the noise of the crowd pressing in around the box.
"A touch fast, honestly, but the track's playing that way today — I'd call it normal for these conditions."
Mott's accent came through clean, no strange regional edge to it, which made the translator's job easy enough for Nakano Takayoshi to follow without trouble, even with the announcer's voice crackling over the loudspeakers behind them.
"Given all that, Shuta-kun's positioning looks like the strongest read out there." Nakano Takayoshi turned to Mori Shigeru.
"Good." Mori Shigeru's eyes never left the big screen, the reflected glow of the scoreboard flickering faintly across his glasses. "Now we just trust him."
Having read the pace himself, Smith finally let his shoulders ease slightly, the tension in his jaw loosening just a fraction.
Front of the pack won't be slow — there should be a window to break clear on the backstretch.
His eyes fixed on the nape of Sky Beauty's neck, damp now with effort, her mane whipping against his gloved hands.
This is the moment that matters most. You can't afford to react slow again.
—
Turning into the backstretch, the track opening up wide and flat beneath a hard afternoon sun, Shuta An and Hokuto Vega held steady in third, and nothing behind them showed any real intent to close the gap.
Catching Paseana's stride starting to falter — a subtle hitch in her rhythm, barely visible beneath the churn of dirt — Shuta An eased Vega two steps wider.
"Eight hundred meters — forty-six-point-two-six."
Mori Shigeru called the split himself, squinting at the digital numbers glowing against the scoreboard's dark backdrop.
"A full second slower than the opening four hundred."
"The field's basically settled into its spread now, so it's natural for the leader to ease back a little and conserve."
Nakano Takayoshi kept his eyes on the track, following the tight cluster of silks weaving through the turn.
"Though Shuta-kun drifting wide like that — that's probably because he knows Vega can handle a faster pace. Looks like he's putting pressure on the leaders early."
André Fabre, who didn't follow Japanese, murmured to his assistant instead, his voice low beneath the swell of the crowd's rising excitement.
"Shuta really is something else, isn't he? Hollywood Wildcat's pushing to force the pace from behind, and instead of waiting to react, he's already drifting out ahead of her move. Hokuto Vega stays on the front foot against her the whole way."
"Barring surprises, Supah Gem fades once she hits the final bend. After that, this comes down to Shuta and Eddie."
André Fabre delivered his read with quiet confidence, arms crossed as he watched the field thunder past the far turn.
Sure enough, as the field reached the end of the backstretch, both Shuta An and Eddie — riding Hollywood Wildcat — committed to the same sharp move from the outside, chasing Supah Gem's shadow up the right side, dirt kicking up in stinging arcs behind them.
Solis broke out the whip in a furious final push, the crack of leather barely audible over the roar of hooves, but it wasn't enough to stop either of them from sweeping past him, one after the other.
Damn it!
Soulières could feel the win slipping out of reach. Both Hokuto Vega and Hollywood Wildcat, surging to the front here like that, had all the hallmarks of horses built to win at this level, not just survive it.
Once past Solis, Shuta immediately angled Vega into the inner lane, hugging the rail to save every inch of ground, the white fence a blur just beside his knee. Eddie made no such move — he simply brought the whip down on Hollywood Wildcat instead, the sharp sound cutting through the pounding rhythm of the race.
I'm taking the front right here and leaving you in the dust. Asian boy.
Eddie didn't so much as glance over, the sneer staying private, tucked behind his eyes, his focus locked dead ahead on the stretch of track still separating him from the lead.
Hollywood Wildcat had run undefeated at Santa Anita all year, crowned this season's Hollywood Oaks champion, her coat gleaming dark with sweat under the California sun — and that record was exactly why her jockey felt no hesitation going straight at Hokuto Vega, head-on.