Queen Valery of England wanted gold. She wanted it more than her reign, largesse of land, designer-fitted jumpsuits, so much in fact, that her own body was diligently trained to that of an athlete. The Queen needed the gold medal in dressage at the next Olympic games, and every birthright or title held by her was less critical than gold. So, if all the Queen’s horses could not keep it together emotionally and represent her on the world stage, her last bastion would be… the lab.
Ten years ago, a foal named Sampson Xtravaganza was born in the Queen’s stables. Just another cute, spindle-shanked Warmblood colt with such velvety bay fur, the Queen could back-comb love hearts in it; this foal was what the laboratory labelled as an Odkin. A combination of two different species formulated inside one ovum. The reasoning for genome splicing was initially to create empathetic humans that felt a blood tie kinship with other sentient beings. Sampson had just a smatter, a titch of human DNA through his genomes. DNA from a scholar who was a man of acuity, a savant of the arts.
Over the next ten years, Sampson grew into his noble mind; whatever he was taught, he studied diligently. The problem was… No rider could stay atop him. He was a heaving sea of movement beneath them, decimating the vertebrae of rider after rider. If scissor fingers were used on his jaw, like a terrier ragging a rat — or prosaic, clodpoll leg aids when Sampson was quite aware of his own flexion, well, he would just buck that rider off. The Queen needed another plan.
Epony Flagtail, sixteen-years-old, stood six feet tall with a coarse mane of yellow hair, fleecy as a sheepling’s wool. Epony was flat on the chest and wide on the hip. She resembled a dandelion when the wind teased her frizzy curls two feet high. She was America's first genetically altered foetus, an Odkin girl sprinkled with wild mustang genes. Experiments with stud-bred horses concluded that domesticated phenotypes were too watered down, all the physical prowess of wildness lost. Centuries of inbreeding to keep breeding lines pure, would not work for human babies, so they went with the wild horse.
As hoped, Epony grew into a brilliant rider; but as a person, she seemed daft, foal-clacking at her parents when they chastised her. Absent-mindedly wandering from her classroom, to take a nap on the grass. By sixteen, Epony had become America's Dressage champion, and the Queen wanted her. So, to her parents' relief and blessing, Epony Flagtail found herself shivering through a Dorset winter — which seemed most of the year to her. She could indeed sit Sampson, and Sampson quickly apprehended her endearing horsey peculiarities. Best of all, Sampson accepted her quiet hands and malleable seat as gallant embellishments to his prowess.
Epony followed while Sampson led the dance. After a year of residing in the Queen’s stables, its staff accepted that alterations in the womb had rendered her more natural than cultured. She sang wrens and robins down from their hedges, often coming back from hacking with birds ranked on Sampson’s crest, tittering and tugging at her fine yellow hair to bind their nests with.
The dining hall was set,  waiters in bow ties concluding the complexity of cutlery and crystal. A glass viewing window, the length and height of the royal indoor arena gallery,  framed this momentous occasion. A Grand Prix freestyle featuring Epony and Sampson, ripe for ranking by the Fédération Equestre Internationale, would be presented to the English Olympic officials.
Queen Valery arrived in her trademark stretch satin jumpsuit with black leather high-heeled riding boots. Her undulant locks, chopped off below the ears, were in the usual state of  dishevelment, as though a wild tryst had been had on the way to the royal engagement. Her chin-length fringe of shining sable curls arched over a cerulean gaze. Those royal blue eyes could shatter the self-worth of subordinates or lure them into her lascivious royal regard.
Epony had been cold all day, England was bloody freezing, and she was part mustang, used to long summers riding, waist high, in seedy grasses and herbaceous forbs. It was bedtime for them both, but there they stood in Sampson’s stable, watching Master Saddler Ernest Furlong unveil his custom-made saddle. Ernest Furlong’s back was bent like a banana from years of leaning over leather. Whatever eyes his baby-self had peeped out of were imprisoned forevermore under an origami hide of eyelids, squinting at stitching for hours at a time into decades. Every saddle was his child, a new addition to his family. Epony and Sampson looked into each other's almond-brown eyes as Ernest buckled the girth. Though designed by some laboratory wight, they were creatures, nonetheless.
As the roasts and baked delicacies were placed in front of Queen Valencia, the royal curtains, crested with her horse and lion motif, were drawn, and the Olympic squad entered the arena. The royal quadrille was performed in all its silver medal-winning glory. As the audience forked bone-shy meat and knifed potatoes au Gratin, Epony was hauled up onto Sampson's broad bay back and settled her long legs into the dressage drape, bearing down through her heels, with an elegance she was engineered for.
— Lord, thought Epony, the bloody pommel slants all the way back! I’m cleaved in half!
Ernest was always astonished at how beautifully Epony's strange body shaped itself atop a horse. Her riding coat in royal purple was meticulously tailored to the modesty of her boyish chest, six gold buttons dotted the narrow waist, the coat tails flared like swan wings down either side of Sampson's loins. She was designed to ride dressage alright, thought the saddler.
Inside the arena, meringues arrived with coffee as the royal Bellman tapped a crystal chalice for attention:
— Esteemed guests, the Bellman proclaimed, Queen Valery presents the first Odkin pairing officially riding for England at the next Olympics… Epony Flagtail, and Hanoverian Warmblood gelding Sampson Xtravaganza.
Epony’s feet had gone numb in the leather riding boots while she waited through the Bellman’s introduction.
— I'm not gonna pee for a week, she thought as the massive curtains parted and a spotlight fixed on the beauteous pair.
They waltzed through the collection, extensions, Passage, Piaf, Pirouettes, single and double Flying Changes, and Half Passes right and left, the audience transfixed by Sampson's dexterity. His human genome had contributed to a horse that was a masterclass of uncanny accuracy. Sampson's dappled bay hindquarters rose and fell so succinctly that he appeared to float above the arena. His frame umbrellaed into a Piaf, hooves landing precisely into his previous prints.
More intriguing were Epony's long hands, white from lack of sun, dancing their mesmerising romance of reins from Sampson’s mouth to her fingers in a requited caress.
As Sampson stretched out into the Extended Canter across the diagonal, a Grand Prix move renowned for its visual frisson, Epony thrust her wide hips and cleaved crutch to match the surge of Sampson’s back.
A warm sensation like trickling bath water filled Epony’s toes. Toes that had frozen inside leather boots in minus zero temperatures for months. Feet numbed to bloodless slabs made dismounting a delicate affair of sliding off slowly and landing gingerly. The glorious warmth kept rising, creeping up her legs. Legs that straddled up to ten horses in a row on busy days. Her body heat was brimming ever higher through blood and muscles. A radiance that crept ever upward within her until, with exquisite grace, it consummated in Epony's seat with such Olympian fervour that she gasped, her dandelion hair prickled into a blowball of pleasure, and the arena flew away like the time.
Disgusted by her distraction, Sampson stopped on his haunches, compressed into a crouch, and, rearing, leaped skywards. He tucked his front legs beneath him, hooves to belly, and kicked out both hind legs dead straight into an impressive Capriole, the most challenging move of the 'airs above the ground.' Epony returned to her body midair and yawped in glee… She was finally warm! From her toes to her nose, every extremity filled with luscious hot blood. A moment of silence before the audience burst into a forte of applause. It was indubitably the most extraordinary dressage display ever attempted!
The Queen dropped her head into her arms on the table, her body jiggling with laughter; she knew exactly what had happened. Now she knew the way to gold. She would send the silly girl home to her Mothers, to dread faery braids into mustang’s manes, and the Queen herself would ride Sampson at the Olympics. All it involved was being flexible and strong enough to stay on without interfering with the maestro beneath; let him lead and gold would belong to England and herself.
—   Haute école is not a Grand Prix discipline, bemoaned the head official; they will disqualify us!
—   Oh, Mr Furlong, tittered the Queen, it’s back to the books for you Master Saddler. Study up on the female anatomy and do something about that saddle seat.
The Olympics were going to be delicious indeed.