He couldn't hem their impish daughters in because he was too busy answering the call of the wild --
Something trumpeted to the spirit in him, maybe that coyote spirit that is yipping inside him to be let out but it cannot break free of his horse-skin. It begins as an itch that starts in his bones until it rolls up through vein and muscle and compels him to action, spurs him forward in ways that no spurs set to his sides ever has - he runs, runs until he hits the land and there are other orses running around him in their racing fantasies. Only for this, does he skid to a stop and eye them longingly, as if he too, wants to run.
Then he is!
Or thinks he is, but he thinks he is running as a coyote because hey, isn't this a fantasy race anyway?
He's the first coyote to be entered into the Breeders' Cup.
Heresy! They cry, throwing programs down onto the field and ripping up the tickets for their bets. The race has become a joke, a mockery of the thing it was always meant to be - only greyhounds race, and certainly not with thoroughbreds. Why in the hell is there a grinning coyote being lead out onto the track?!
He looks handsome though in his tawny fur that has been all nicely brushed down, except for that damned bushy tail! They placed a tiny saddle on him and the saddlecloth is a brilliant sky-blue, and for his jockey - a two-year-old child because face it, a midget was still too heavy to sit on his back but he figured a toddler would do just as well. Of course they gave the damned child (Kristin's son most likely!) a crop and he keeps smacking Woodrow all over with it, not just on the flanks, but in the face too. He's a toddler, he doesn't know any better!
Everyone has come back to the stands, realizing this is a jest on the racetrack's part.
Some fun before the true festivities get underway.
For sport, he's loaded into a starting gate and then the bell rings and the door pops open!
And lo and behold, great Coyote above, there is a lovely rabbit smell and a rabbit-thing zooming down the track railing! Praise be to Coyote, his dinner is on the run!
Woodrow forgets about the toddler-jockey on his back;
He forgets about all the other horses he's been paraded past.
He forgets everything but the delicious crunch of bones in his mouth as he gets to the marrow and sucks it out. Mmm.... tasty rabbit! He's running after it like a bat straight out of hell, his paws scrabbling at the firm dirt and throwing up clods of it behind him. He's stretched out like a bird in flight - sounds pretty doesn't it? It's not, he's a lean mean coyote racing machine as he sprints down the track in pursuit of that scrumptious bunny butt just zipping along the railing...
Hey wait - there's a rock! It trips up his paw and he goes tumbling end over end over end...
Oh no! He's not a coyote any more but a horse! Silly stallion, somehow he ran the entire race dreaming he was a coyote. He ran it though!