With mounting excitement, Vronsky watches as the English groom leads Frou-Frou in. Lean and beautiful, she moves as if on springs. Nearby a groom tends a strong, exquisite stallion, the lop-eared Gladiator who is Frou-Frou's chief competitor. Vronsky approaches the starting gate, following his rival Mahotin, Gladiator's rider. They are among seventeen officers competing in the nine hurdle race which runs a three mile elliptical course.
The white-legged Gladiator takes the lead. Frou-Frou. without any urging, increases her speed and draws up to the other horse on the outside, just as Vronsky would have asked her to. His affection for this responsive mount increases. Leading Mahotin's stallion, Vronsky knows he will win, for Frou-Frou's last reserve of strength is more than a match for the final jump. Increasing her speed, the mare clears the ditch. But at that instant, Vronsky makes a dreadful, unforgivable blunder: he drops back — too soon — in the saddle. The white-legged stallion flashes by, while Vronsky, with one foot on the ground, feels the mare sink beneath him. Not realizing his clumsy movement has broken her back, he tugs at the reins. Fluttering, she is unable to rise. In a sudden passion, he wrenches the lines, then savagely kicks her belly. A doctor and some officers run up, quickly deciding to shoot the mare. Vronsky leaves the race course; for the first time in his life he knows the bitterest kind of misfortune — misfortune beyond remedy, caused by his own fault.
