{"id":1848,"date":"2013-05-19T13:20:49","date_gmt":"2013-05-19T19:20:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/?p=1848"},"modified":"2013-05-19T13:21:17","modified_gmt":"2013-05-19T19:21:17","slug":"turning-into-the-home-stretch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/?p=1848","title":{"rendered":"Turning Into the Home Stretch"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s been a very trying race for Crown of Renewal<\/em>‘s jockey, as we were blocked,\u00a0 forced back, had mud kicked onto us, tried to find holes…had those holes abruptly filled by another horse’s big broad butt,\u00a0\u00a0 were bumped hard, found other holes, some of which led nowhere at all except to more bumping and fending off other jockeys’ whips.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In fact, all the other horses in the race were trouble:\u00a0 Fickle Fate,\u00a0 Interruption,\u00a0 New Assignment,\u00a0 HellVirus,\u00a0 Bad Timing,\u00a0 Pain in the Neck,\u00a0 Complication, Accident, Family Crisis.\u00a0 All ridden by jockeys with the intent of ruining Crown<\/em>‘s race.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Finally, toward the end of the backstretch,\u00a0 the jockey found running room and was able to steady Crown<\/em> into a good stride, but like any horse after such a messy first 3\/4 of a mile,\u00a0 Crown<\/em> wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to bother.\u00a0 Maybe just settle down here and run with the pack, huh?<\/p>\n

But jockeys are supposed to keep the horse on the bit and ready to give that final burst.\u00a0\u00a0 Crown<\/em> was shown the whip, and even given a smart smack once when he came off the bit and said (in horse language, with a slight hump of the back) “Make me!”\u00a0\u00a0 Being the solidly bred distance runner he is, Crown<\/em> then stretched out and made for the lead.\u00a0\u00a0 Crown<\/em>‘s jockey had finagled him into a position in which, if the horse would only dig for the last bit of speed all the way to the finish,\u00a0 victory was possible.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Once Crown<\/em> could see daylight ahead, he lengthened stride and overtook one horse after another.\u00a0\u00a0 Accident and Family Crisis tried a last desperate maneuver, but Crown<\/em> slipped between them a moment before they collided, and now…if he can keep his feet and that pace…it looks like he’ll be first over the finish line.<\/p>\n

Excuse me while I keep him going and also a wary eye out for Fickle Fate, who’s been known to leave the track, run across the infield, and leap the fence to knock a leader flat.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s been a very trying race for Crown of Renewal‘s jockey, as we were blocked,\u00a0 forced back, had mud kicked onto us, tried to find holes…had those holes abruptly filled by another horse’s big broad butt,\u00a0\u00a0 were bumped hard, found other holes, some of which led nowhere at all except to more bumping and fending […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,5],"tags":[20,107],"class_list":["post-1848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crown-of-renewal","category-the-writing-life","tag-progress-report","tag-the-writing-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1848"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1848"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1850,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1848\/revisions\/1850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}