• Age: 9 to 15
• Grade: 4 to 10
• Reading age: 10 to 16

When Reid Widmark's jockey mother takes a fall, their barn and the horses they train become Reid's responsibility. He's fine with it: he was practically born on a horse, and he's always been his mother's right-hand man. He'll hold the fort until she returns, and then he'll be back on track toward his own future as a jockey. Or so he thinks.

Bit by bit, his life starts changing. People he thought were friends start taking over. His leg up on Carmina, the best horse in his mother's barn and his chance at the big stakes, is taken away. And when his mother comes back, she drops a bombshell: she's getting out of the jockey business and wants Reid to get out too. Reid's steaming mad and ready to take off when his new friend Ella steps in. She helps him see reason —then spots a big chance that may give Reid everything he's dreamed of. Can he prove to everyone—his mother, their friends and this unknown horse and her owners—that Reid Widmark's got what it takes to get in first under the wire?

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• Commended, CCBC Best Books