Rahiebb

My name is Rahiebb and I’m racing at Ascot this week. It’s not my first time there, I remember that like it was yesterday, but it was actually a whole year ago. Last year I came third in the Queen’s Vase and I won £28,514.00 – a prize they drew from me with violence.  

At the start of the race, I could see the other horses in front of me and around me. It was my first year in competitive races and I was learning the rules – the main one being that if you can see other horses in front of you, you are going to get beaten. Before too long the sharp pain started erupting down my side, he was beating me with the whip so I would go faster. I went as fast as I could, but the beatings kept coming. They’re only supposed to hit me six times in a race, but as I approached the finish a seventh came down on my skin, which was already stinging and aching from the previous ones. I pushed myself ahead and came 3rd. 

Since then, they say I’ve done well. I even won a race this year with a big cash reward – not that that means anything to me. They call me “a magnificent specimen”. They hope my “best days are still ahead”, and so do I. I certainly hope the days behind me – days of being dragged away from my mother so young, sent straight into training, being beaten when I wasn’t going fast enough, and having to run so fast that my legs ached and my breath burned in my throat – I hope those days don’t turn out to be my ‘best’. For me, a good day would be one where nobody climbs onto me, nobody forces me into a starting stall that I can’t escape, and nobody beats me to win a cash prize for themself. A good day would be spent in freedom with the sun on my back and the wind in my mane. A good day would be a day when I am no longer a ‘racehorse’, but just a horse.  

My name is Rahiebb. I am someone.