The Black Stallion's Blood Bay Colt by Walter Farley

With great effort George rose to a standing position. He nodded to him but said nothing, and turned back to Symbol. 'We ain't so young any more,' Jimmy Creech grumbled then he saw the boy standing in the doorway. Makes a man wish he were dead, that's what it does.' Slowly the boy slid the door open, and he heard George Snedecker say, 'Pains in my legs again this morning, Jimmy. George Snedecker stooped to the other side of the horse, his hands feeling about Symbol's hoofs. The tip of Jimmy's prominent nose held the only color in his pale face. As always, Jimmy's muffler was wrapped snugly about his scrawny neck, and his cap was pulled far down over his ears. Jimmy Creech stood before the horse's big black head.

Looking through the window, he saw the two old men working over Symbol. It was many moments before he moved to the closed door of the shed, his steps noticeably shorter and slower. He walked down the road until he came to the last shed in the row, and there he hesitated, his long, thin face grave with concern, his arms hanging loosely beside his big-boned but gaunt frame. And this was very unusual for Tom Messenger.

He heard neither the rhythmic beat of hoofs over hard-packed clay nor the clucking of the drivers to their colts as they sat in their two-wheeled training carts. Grim-faced, he walked toward them, his gaze never leaving the sheds-not even for the horses, who trotted about the half-mile track to his left. And now he stood beneath a tall elm tree, his eyes upon the drab gray sheds before him. For this morning, as on every Saturday morning, he had walked the five miles from his home to the training track just outside the town limits of Coronet, Pennsylvania. Although the early June morning was unusually cool and the sky overcast, the boy's body perspired freely beneath his thin sweater.

The Black Stallion's Blood Bay Colt by Walter Farley