Post by { squishy } on Jul 20, 2012 0:23:56 GMT -5
ROSEMARY JANE O'ROURKE
Name;; Rosemary Jane O'Rourke
Nicknames;; Rose, Rosie, Janie (her middle name. She doesn't like it, though), O'Rourke (her last name)
Species;; Human
Age;; 21
Birthdate;; 2/14/1990
Orientation;; straight
Occupation;; Champion jockey
Description;; Rosie is short for her age, just standing 4'11. Then again, to be a jockey, she has to be short. For what she lacks in height, she makes up for in grit and determination. She refuses to give up on anyone or anything. For one, she's the only female jockey to have won the Kentucky Derby, having done that in 2010 aboard Ruffian, who went on to win the Triple Crown. Rosie has long, dark luxurious wavy hair that reaches just below her shoulder blades. She has too many scars to count, but the ones that stand out are the ones on her torso, where her chest cavity was crushed beneath a two-year-old filly named Mariah's Storm. That's another story for another day, however. For tattoos, she has a signature, her father's signature, on the side of her hand, on the outside of it. It symbolizes the love and compassion she had for him. She has another one, a small heart on the inside of her wrist, a symbol of love for the father-figure in her life, Bobby Frankel.
History;; Rosie was born on Valentine's Day back in 1990, to Barbara and Michael O'Rourke, in Kentucky. She has a twin sister, who still lives in Ireland. When Rosie and her sister were two, they were moved back to Ireland, where her father was stationed in the Royal Army and where he trained champion thoroughbreds. Rosie grew up around the track and when she turned 16, she obtained her jockey's license. While other girls her age were searching for boyfriends and socializing and going to school, Rosie was too busy focusing on her career, which had taken off soon after she started riding. When she turned seventeen, she moved to the United States again when both her parents died in the same month. She went to live with her aunt and uncle in Southern California. While there, she met the one guy who would change her life forever: Robert Frankel. Frankel was a friendly guy, one who gave Rosie the best chances to find the winner's circle. While riding for Frankel, she was involved in a freak training accident, where her filly, Mariah's Storm, clipped heels with a horse in front of her that was going slower than she was and fell to the ground, falling on top of her rider. The filly had been able to stand on her feet, only to be collided with again. Rosie's chest had been crushed and it had taken 28 hours to piece it all together by the surgeons at the local hospital. When she awoke from surgery, Rosie refused the therapy, at least for the first few days. It took about three months for her to fully recover and when she did, she was terrified to be anywhere near other horses on the track, be it in a race or a work-out.
That is, until she was introduced to a tall, black, speedy filly named Ruffian. Now, Ruffian was sired by Dynaformer, who was in turn sired by Roberto. The filly was out of La Ville Rouge, sired by Carson City. That pedigree made the filly a full sister to the ill-fated 2006 Kentucky Derby winner, Barbaro. From the get-go, Ruffian and Rosie molded to fit each other. They fed off of one another and felt what the other was feeling. It was, by either luck or sheer grace, that the filly was allowed to compete against the boys for the first time in the 2010 Kentucky Derby, against a somewhat stellar cast. In the race was eventual three-year-old champion male, Lookin at Lucky, that year's Florida Derby winner, Ice Box and the speedy 2010 Santa Anita Derby winner, Sidney's Candy, who was ridden by Rosie's future boyfriend, Joe Talamo.
The race went like expected, the filly tracking Sidney's Candy and Conveyance through the first half-mile. The black horse ranged alongside of the chestnut colt and stared him in the eye. The colt gave way soon after that, faltering to finish seventeenth. After disposing of one speed-maker, she pounced on the gray colt in front of her, disposing of him much like the other colt. When she got to the front, Ruffian's ears shot straight up and she slowed down, looking for a rival. Rosie set her down into a furious stretch drive, scrubbing on the filly as she felt a new presence just to her inside. Looking back at the finish when she finally got the filly pulled up, she saw it was Super Saver, ridden by Calvin Borel. With a smirk on her face, Rosie approached the winner's circle, led by the ceremonial lead pony. The crowd was roaring, finally pleased to see one of the best female riders win the Kentucky Derby. The crowd and connections of the filly, who owned and trained Sidney's Candy as well, were unaware of what would happen five weeks later.
In the Preakness two weeks after the Derby, Rosie was sadly replaced by her boyfriend and she watched from the owner's box as her filly led from gate-to-wire, winning by just over a head. It was her closest finish to date. Lookin at Lucky, the champion two-year-old the previous year, nearly upset the filly in a blanket finish that included three other colts: Jackson Bend, a small, Florida-bred colt; First Dude, trained by Dale Romans and Yawanna Twist, a colt that no one really knew much about. Ruffian was exhausted when she got back to the winner's circle and Rosie saw it. But she kept quiet and watched silently as her filly was shipped to her home track of Belmont Park the same night she won the Preakness Stakes.
The day after she got to Belmont, the hard training began. Every day, she breezed a full mile and galloped out a half-mile, always coming back to the barn full of energy and rambunctious. Rosie began to hate herself for not being able to ride the filly in the biggest and longest race of her life. Every night, she slept in the filly's stall, never caring about how she looked when she woke up or how bad she smelled. It was always about the filly. Every day, the filly had the same work-out regime, every day the same result: the filly came back happy and sound. But on the morning of the race, she breezed just a half-mile, jogging a full mile and a half around Belmont's full circumference. When race time came, Rosie was once again in the owner's box and she was wringing her gloves in her hand, stomach churning and threatening to serve bile up to the crowd standing around her. On the track, Ruffian was bouncy, on the muscle and looking great. The filly was on edge, breaking away from her pony and bolting past the competitors, riling them up and forcing the riders to expand more energy than necessary to calm their own mounts down. Once loaded into the number five stall, the filly waited as the other eleven runners loaded. Once off, Ruffian was headed for a half-mile before taking off again, increasing her lead with each large stride. Galloping strongly into the homestretch, the filly was in front by over thirty lengths. The teletimer, as the black filly crossed under the wire, screamed 2:22 and 3/5. It was a new stakes and track record. As the filly returned to the winner's circle, all the fans were jumping up and down, screaming and crying as they had just witnessed greatness.
After that, Rosie had finally been able to recover her mount back now that her wrist was fully healed. The filly had only two races mapped out before the Breeders' Cup: the Izod Haskell and the Travers Stakes. The filly won both, but the Travers had given her trouble, with two colts rushing up alongside her at the finish, her nose being down just in time at the finish line. It was truly her closest win with Rosie aboard.
The next and final race of her three-year-old season was the Breeders' Cup Ladies' Classic at Churchill. The filly had already won a few times over the track and seemed to take a liking to it. In a race similar to the Travers, Rosie sent Ruffian into a heavy drive from the gate, wanting to see just how far her limits went. It wasn't long before the filly started to show signs of fatigue and exhaustion as they swept into the homestretch. Rosie begged and scrubbed the filly for every ounce of speed and guts that she had. Ruffian won by just over a length, exhausted when she returned to the winner's circle.
Name;; Ruffian
Nicknames;; N/A
Species;; Horse (Thoroughbred)
Age;; 4 years
Birthdate;; 04/17/2008
Orientation;; straight
Occupation;; champion thoroughbred racehorse
Description;; Ruffian is tall for a filly, standing 16.2 hands high. She's a deep black filly, with a small white star on the middle of her forehead and a white coronet band around her left hind leg. It's said to be her speed mark. As for scars, Ruffian, sadly, isn't perfect. In fact, she has scars covering both of her front legs, though they're honestly not her fault. As a horse, the filly can't have tattoos, so she obviously doesn't have any. But seeing as she's a Thoroughbred and a champion one at that, Ruffian's attitude varies from day to day. Or rather, hour to hour. If she was not kept active, the filly would pace back and forth in her stall and would even crib the wood along her stall. She's an intelligent sort, one that wasn't to be taken lightly.
History;; The great reporter William Nack once said: "She was built like a watch...a study in balance...a big, tall, full-bodied filly...with a head and neck so refined, like a drawing by DaVinci." Almost everyone around him that day had to agree, for they were about to see history be made. The jet black Thoroughbred filly appeared out of the Belmont Park tunnel, to the roar of the Belmont Stakes crowd. In the grandstand, there was not an open seat in the house, everything being sold out. Everyone was on their feet, cheering and screaming out the filly's name, praying that she would make history that day. And she didn't disappoint, running her rivals off their feet and galloping into the history books, winning the Belmont Stakes by more than thirty lengths and grabbing Secretariat's time record, running it into the ground. The final time for the race was 2:22 1/5. An amazing time, even for a filly running all out in a mile-and-a-half race. When she returned to the winner's circle for her victory picture, there was not a dry eye in the stands, everyone jumping and hollering and screaming, hugging each other as they had just witnessed greatness. After she won the Belmont, and the Triple Crown, she was given a month off, being sent to WinStar Farm in Versailles, Kentucky, to learn how to be a horse again.
While at WinStar, Ruffian gained over a hundred pounds, returning to the races a fresh filly. After arriving in good order, Ruffian settled down in trainer John Smith's barn in California. Once there, she was training superbly, until she got a hoof bruise. For a couple weeks after that, she was backed off the training, allowing her hoof to heal well. However, just weeks before the race, her training was cranked back up, trying to get the filly in racing shape. On the eve of the race, they sent Ruffian in a bullet seven furlong work, blistering the top off the racetrack as it seemed she burned a hole through time and space. The final time as she jogged back to the group by the entrance to the track was 1:10 and 2/5 seconds with a gallop-out for a mile being 1:25 1/5 seconds. The filly was cranked up to her highest.
The morning of the race at Monmouth Park for the 43rd Izod Haskell Invitational, Ruffian was excited and on edge. It was clearly evident in the paddock that the connections had done something to key the filly up. Normally, she was listless, as if she didn't care what she was about to do. Not this day. As her rider, Rosie O'Rourke was boosted in the saddle, the filly reared up skyward, dumping her rider and neighing loudly as she came back to the earth, dancing around her handler and rider, seeming to taunt the pathetic humans that could barely control her. Finally, they had gotten her settled down enough for Rosie to climb back into the saddle. With the handler clinging onto the lead rope for dear life, the trio made their way to the track, everyone studying the filly intently, knowing that she was the horse to beat, and other knowing she couldn't get beat. Shaking her head no at the outrider, Rosie wanted to get the filly settled down the best she could. Already, there was lather rubbing on Ruffian's neck, where the reins rested. Urging her mount into a canter, she headed for the backstretch, away from the other horses, cooing softly to the filly, hoping that she would calm down on the hot day. Ruffian snorted, throwing her head around as she made her way back towards the gate, picking up a canter as she spotted her main rival, Lookin' at Lucky, who had almost defeated her in the Preakness Stakes barely three months before. The black filly slowed to a walk as she neared the gates, the white number 2 saddle cloth shimmering against the pitch black color of her pelt. Refusing to go into the gate, the crew was forced to put the blindfold on the filly, while Rosie hopped off, watching intently and fearfully as the filly went into the stall number two.
Stepping onto the back of the starting gate, Rosie settled into the filly's saddle, putting her feet into the stirrups as the pair waited for the rest of the field to be loaded in. To the filly's inside was the Preakness runner-up and eventual three-year-old champion male, Lookin' at Lucky. To her outside, was Ice Box, runner-up in the Florida Derby and third-place finisher in the Kentucky Derby; Afleet Again, winner of the Withers Stakes in April; First Dude, third-place finisher in the Preakness; Our Dark Knight, a horse with only an allowance win to his credit; Super Saver, runner-up to Ruffian in the Kentucky Derby and Trappe Shot, also with just an allowance win to his name. It was to be an exciting race. After the rest of the field was moved into line, the black filly thrashed about in the gates, throwing her head into the air, half-rearing as she waited for the gates to snap open. As soon as she landed, they were set free, the filly falling to her knees. Once she stood up, she was the last horse in a field of eight. Normally, she'd be right up on the pace, but today, she was so on key that she hadn't paid attention and had gotten a bad start.
Up in front, it was First Dude, Our Dark Knight, followed by Super Saver and then Lookin' at Lucky and Trappe Shot. Trappe Shot was followed by Afleet Again, Ice Box and then Ruffian. The black filly hated the feeling of dirt in her face and she charged up along the outside, going more than five wide on the clubhouse turn to challenge Our Dark Knight and First Dude for the lead. The filly led through 1/4 in 23 2/5 seconds, the half going in 47 4/5 seconds. The pace was a sensible one, not really draining anything out of the filly so far. Three-quarters went in 1:12 and 2/5, with the mile going in 1:37 and 1/5, the final time being 1:49 and 4/5. So, the race was a slow pace, but it seemed to do the trick for the filly, who galloped out easily, nostrils flaring.
Now, her next race, the Travers, was even more intriguing than the last one. She was sent to the front by Rosie, this time breaking with the field. But instead of rating, she was flying in the first half, making the opening quarter mile go in just under 23 seconds. The half-mile went in 45 and change, a blistering pace being set. However, the filly started lagging in the second half of the race, her fifteen length lead shrinking down to just four. As they swept into the homestretch, two horses roared up from the outside to challenge her: Fly Down and Afleet Express. But Ruffian wasn't the kind of horse to just give in the towel when she was confronted. Instead, she surged ahead, seeming to re-break and put her neck in front at the wire, sending the crowd around her into ecstatic cheers. She returned to the winner's circle an exhausted horse. Most thought she would never return to be the same horse, but her connections knew she would. They placed her on the shelf for the rest of the year, up until the Breeders' Cup Ladies Classic.
In a race similar to the Travers, she was forced into blistering fractions, before she pulled away in the stretch to win going away. After the emphatic win, she was once again placed on the shelf, being pulled out again in the middle of December. In a seven furlong work-out, she broke down, the filly with legs like iron. In the work-out, as the pair of Rosie and Ruffian barreled down the Belmont Park backstretch, Ruffian took a bad step, snapping the sesamoids in her right foreleg, throwing Rosie up onto her neck. Slowly but surely, her rider got her to slow to a stop, blood dripping onto the harrowed dirt of the famed racetrack. Cringing as the filly reared up in pain, Rosie knew she was probably not going to make it through the night. But, through the efforts of her trainer and jockey, Ruffian was loaded onto a horse trailer and taken across the street to the Rachel Alexandra Equine Hospital. She was in surgery all night, having to be revived twice. Once out of surgery, the nurses there didn't listen and instead, put the champion on the tiled floor for her to wake up. For Ruffian, her last memory was out there on the track and so when she started awakening, she started thrashing, knocking over everything in the room, despite being held down by everyone that was available. In the end, Ruffian ended up having her cast slide off, undoing all the progress that the surgeon accomplished and fractured her left elbow.
Put on heavy pain medication after the vets determined the filly wasn't strong enough to go back under the knife, so she was kept in ICU for a week before she could finally be put back under the knife. This time, the surgery was successful, Ruffian being put into the warm pool water. As she woke up, the filly thrashed about, water splashing everyone around her. They raised her up out of the water once she calmed down and the filly limped back to her stall in the ICU.
It took several months, and a lot of surgeries and money, but the filly was finally ready to be sold again, Lane's End putting everything together for her to be sold. But almost no one raised a hand when the bidding started at fifty thousand. The filly was in danger of being taken away from Rosie and be sold to a breeding farm in Japan, since that was what the highest bid was. Rosie knew that, sometimes after not really succeeding in the gene pool, some horses were "disposed of" and it literally made her sick. She couldn't stand around any longer to watch her filly get sold off to some Japan buyer.
Exiting the sales pavilion, Rosie found herself a bench to listen to other sales, trying to distract herself from Ruffian's impending doom. She hoped someone would miraculously just come out of nowhere and buy the filly. Ruffian's vets said that she wasn't to continue racing, even when that leg got stronger. Well, you heard what happened to Seabiscuit, and then Mariah's Storm, right? Well, they made it back to the track when everyone else gave up on them, and this could be one of those comebacks that everyone's begging to see.
As the filly stood in the sales ring, with the Keeneland pavilion lights shimmering down on her dark pelt, the white bandage around her right foreleg sticking out like a sore thumb. Indeed, the leg was throbbing again and it was all the filly could do to not lay down. Whinnying loudly as she saw the one true person that loved her leave, Ruffian freaked out, bucking and rearing up, showing how spirited she really was. Whinnying loudly again, she pinned her ears, kicking her hindlegs into the auctioneers stand, making the people in the first row scatter to the open seats in the very back. Stumbling down to her knees from the weight being pressed on her foreleg, she snorted loudly, scrambling back up, glaring at the Japanese buyer, ears pinning.
Turns out, a trainer that had pitted his horse twice against the champion filly wanted to buy the horse for fifty-five thousand for his owner, the Avondale Stables. Jacob Taylor really wasn't looking to buy a "broken-down" horse and was fearing that he would lose his job. However, Rosie had installed faith in him for the filly and true to his word, he had gotten Rosie more mounts and had gotten a safe home for Ruffian, whether she got back to the track or not.
Roleplay Sample;; Screw this. xD
Your Alias;; Squishyfishy, Squishy, Squish, Cookie, Cooks, anything else.
Your Age;; 17
Your Years Experience;; 7 years.
