One girl named Becky rode a big brown horse in the race events. She always won the blue ribbons.

　　Needless to say, she didn’t feel threatened when I competed against her at the next show. She didn’t need to. I came in next to last.

　　The stinging memory of Becky’s smirks made me determined to beat her. For the whole next month I woke up early every day and rode Cowboy five miles to the arena (赛马场). We practiced running and jumping for hours in the hot sun and then I would walk Cowboy home totally exhausted. All of our hard work didn’t make me feel confident by the time the show came. I sat at the gate and sweated it out while I watched Becky and her horse charge through the course and finish in first place.

　　My turn finally came. I put on my hat, rubbed Cowboy’s neck and entered the arena. At the signal, we dashed toward the first fence, jumped it without trouble and raced on to the next one. Cowboy then flew over the second, third and fourth fences like a bird and I turned him toward the finish line. As we crossed the line the crowd was shocked into silence. Cowboy and I had beaten Becky and her fancy horse by two seconds!

　　I gained much more than a blue ribbon that day. At thirteen, I realized that no matter what the odds, I’d always come out a winner if I wanted something badly enough to work for it.

　　8. The underlined expression "shown the gate" (paragraph 3) most probably means ______.

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