Emerald

The four-year-old stallion Emerald, a big silver-grey racehorse of American build, woke up in his stall about midnight as usual. To the right and left of him, and across the passage, the other horses were chewing hay to a rhythm, lustily crunching it and snorting occasionally as the dust tickled their nostrils. The groom on duty was snoring on a heap of straw in a corner.