Brother to Badbugs is a famed racehorse. His brother, Badbugs, is unremembered by history.
He was raised in the hills above the Orchard Coast, and raced across the Cauldron, in Daybreak, Dudwin, Mustard Green, any place with a field and fancy hats.
He tied the old stallion Mudhop during his first show at Nettlefields, and ever since the odds had been with him. On the muddy track of the Hally Spurl, one damp April day, he and his jockey Gellida beat their long-time rival Gifthorse, the mare with the dazzling teeth.
This started a winning streak that lasted six years and ended only when Gellida, after winning the Hally Spurl for the twelfth time, constructed a podium for Brother to Badbugs so tall above the crowds she might hold the hooves of the horse-gods themselves. She climbed up the podium, tried to mount him, caught on her stirrup, and fell from her high horse and died.
When he became too old to race, Brother to Badbugs spent years touring on a circus boat, Pinwheel. He was the star of every show. He liked to let children stick their heads between his teeth and lick their little ears. They would jump back, squealing with joy, straight from the horse’s mouth.
At the age of 26, as a greying old stallion, Brother to Badbugs was asked to perform in Anabelle. On the way, Pinwheel capsized somewhere off the coast of a remote isle. All the humans perished, but the animals swam to shore and thrived, founding a one horse, two-lion, seventeen monkey town. This was, scholars note, proof of the old saying: you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it sink.