The Black Stallion's Blood Bay Colt
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THE BLACK STALLION SERIES BY WALTER FARLEY
THE BLACK STALLION
THE BLACK STALLION RETURNS
SON OF THE BLACK STALLION
THE ISLAND STALLION
THE BLACK STALLION AND SATAN
THE BLACK STALLION’S BLOOD BAY COLT
THE ISLAND STALLION’S FURY
THE BLACK STALLION’S FILLY
THE BLACK STALLION REVOLTS
THE BLACK STALLION’S SULKY COLT
THE ISLAND STALLION RACES
THE BLACK STALLION’S COURAGE
THE BLACK STALLION MYSTERY
THE HORSE-TAMER
THE BLACK STALLION AND FLAME
MAN O’ WAR
THE BLACK STALLION CHALLENGED!
THE BLACK STALLION’S GHOST
THE BLACK STALLION AND THE GIRL
THE BLACK STALLION LEGEND
THE YOUNG BLACK STALLION (with Steven Farley)
Published by Yearling, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books
a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published by Random House, Inc., in 1950 under the title The Blood Bay Colt.
Text copyright © 1950 by Walter Farley
Text copyright renewed 1978 by Walter Farley
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eISBN: 978-0-307-80496-9
v3.1
For
Frank Lutz, Dave Ford, and George Milhimes,
who remembered the way it was
CONTENTS
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
1. The Queen
2. The Foal to Come
3. Troubled Days
4. Wipe the Foal Dry!
5. Hard Hands
6. Setback!
7. Light Hands
8. The Fair
9. Racing Wheels
10. The Weanling
11. First Bridle
12. Tom Messenger, Trainer
13. Dizzy Speed Ahead!
14. Hard Fists
15. Let the Speed Come!
16. Bonfire’s First Race
17. Racing the Fair Circuit
18. Reading Fair and Princess Guy
19. Luck of the Draw
20. The Two-Year-Old Championship
21. Back at Coronet
About the Author
THE QUEEN
1
Although the early June morning was unusually cool and the sky overcast, the boy’s body perspired freely beneath his thin sweater. 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. And now he stood beneath a tall elm tree, his eyes upon the drab gray sheds before him. 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. 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. And this was very unusual for Tom Messenger.
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.
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