Turning For Home (Alex and Alexander Book 4)

by Natalie Keller Reinert

  Shed-rowing one set, trotting around and around the shed-row while the grooms try desperately to get the stalls cleaned without being run over, is not the worst thing in the world. It’s the second, third, and fourth sets that get progressively harder, as hot horses still need to be walked somewhere. I sent the hot walkers out to walk their horses in a big loop in the grass in front of the barn, but it was muddy and water-logged out there as well, clouds of mosquitoes rising up from ground that had been steadily growing damper and soggier all through the wet winter.

  The younger horses behaved exactly as one would expect when their routine was slightly changed: they cavorted and carried on like young criminals. Two babies got loose and went flying around the training barn paddocks, their lead-shanks flapping between their churning legs but miraculously never tripping them up.

  I rode two babies and sat out the next two sets, watching the horses trot from the central aisle. I wheeled out my desk chair and plopped into it, instead of sitting atop Parker, but even the comfort of padded leather wasn’t enough to ease my exhaustion from the mayhem of the days past. Besides, you had to sit so rigidly and pay such close attention to the horses, it was impossible to relax for a moment.

  I watched the horses’ gaits as they went flashing by every few seconds, keeping close watch for any trace of unevenness that might herald an unsoundness. I watched their head carriage and the way they mouthed the bits, looking for the precocious ones who had already learned how to put their heads down and brace against their riders’ hands. I watched their waggling ears and their rolling eyes, waiting for the ones who concentrated on their work instead of looking for trouble at every turn. I looked for racehorses in the skins of youngsters, the slow blooming of potential in the clever ones, the confusion and distraction that characterized the silly ones. I looked for who would learn their craft first, and who would benefit from a long pasture break, the summer sun on their backs, before they got down to the serious business of racing.

  In between sets, my eyelids grew heavy, and I refilled my coffee cup.

  Alexander sat next to me from time to time, but this morning he spent a lot of time looking restless, roving around. He went out and watched the hots walking in their irregular circles. He stood in the middle of the shed-row and watched the horses trot away from them, studying their pistoning haunches and streaming tails. He was prowling around like a barn cat looking for mice.

  I didn’t ask. Alexander in his moods was more than I felt like I could handle today. Three good foals, a colt and two fillies, healthy and alive and sucking at their mother’s milk within a few hours—that had been my focus for the past few days. Now I just wanted to get through the morning and get back to my bed, and that was exactly what I did.

  I came down to the kitchen after two o’clock, my head fuzzy and my throat scratchy. All the cold air and damp from the storm, that was all it was. I wasn’t going to get sick. Not now, with two more mares getting round and heavy and ready to pop. Not now, with Tiger trotting and cantering so nicely, even lowering his head from time to time. Not now, with the fuss over Market Affair finally slipping out of the mainstream, the letters beginning to lessen, my shot at returning to the track beginning to glimmer on the horizon. I would live on orange juice and echinacea, but I wouldn’t stop to get sick.

  Alexander was at the kitchen table, reading a racing magazine from England. A notebook and the Gulfstream condition book were nearby; he was taking a work break. He looked up and smiled. “Good nap?”

  “Not bad,” I croaked. “Now I need coffee.”

  “There’s a hot pot.” He went back to his magazine, thumbing through the pages, looking at pictures of hurdlers.

  I poured coffee into a stately white mug emblazoned with the Gulfstream Park logo and pulled a chair alongside his so that I could look too. “It doesn’t look like a horse jumping a fence at all.” The horses in the photo he was gazing at were soaring over a brush fence, but without the rounded bascule so prized in the show ring. Their spines curved so little they were almost flat, a straight diagonal line from poll to tail, and their forearms were incredibly far ahead of their shoulders, their knees already unfolding at the apex of their jump, as if they were preparing to land while they were still in mid-air. All in all, if you cut out the jumps and Photoshopped in some blue skies and fluffy clouds, and a few wings sprouting from their shoulders, you’d have a photo of a herd of Pegasus, soaring through the skies.

  “The jump is just an extension of an already tremendous stride,” Alexander said thoughtfully. “Take an eighteen-foot stride and add five feet of altitude.”

  “I’ve never felt anything like that.” Steeplechasing was unknown to me; it was uncommon in Florida. If I’d grown up in Virginia or Maryland I might have had a shot at it—there seemed to be quite a few lady jockeys in American jumps racing. In eventing I had galloped down to fences, but never actually taken them at anything like racing speed. We balanced up our horses before the fences, instead of just hurtling them at it. I tried to imagine what it felt like to point a breezing horse at a jump, but even my imaginary courage failed me.

  “Nor have I.” Alexander shook his head regretfully. “Too big and heavy to ride over fences like this at racing speed. Although I schooled a few, when I was a lad.” He turned the page, and I saw a familiar face: a high forehead, piercing blue eyes beneath pale brows and a tow-head of perennially mussed hair. The man smiled with Alexander’s jovial smile, and he held the lead-shank of a strapping bright-eyed racehorse in Alexander’s big hand. “My cousin William,” Alexander said tonelessly, and flipped the page again.

  His family had bred National Hunt horses, I knew, although he’d come to America to flat-race when they’d downsized the farm and business. He had a brother back in England, still running a few horses, and another in Australia, managing a massive stud farm. Alexander had been successful, but he hadn’t yet obtained anything like the stature his father had had as a racehorse trainer, nor the impressive stallion roster his brother had amassed down under. All those thoughtful looks he’d been giving the stallion barn… And now here he was buying English racing magazines and getting upset over a win photo with some cousin of his he’d never mentioned before…

  At last, I realized what this was all about.

  He wanted stallions up there to prove something to his family.

  I couldn’t have proved anything to my family in a million years—all my success had proven to them was that I was exactly as insane as they’d always thought I was. But for Alexander, breeding great horses was in his heritage. It was in his blood. It was the Family Business. I didn’t particularly want to do it—I was happy with our quieter farm, our easier days (this past week from hell notwithstanding). But could I stand in his way if he needed to do this for himself?

  I let my eyes travel over Alexander’s profile as he frowned over the magazine, the strong nose and the jutting chin, and between the two, the down-curving lines of his thin lips, and I knew I couldn’t stand in his way. If he had something to prove, let him prove it.

  I had something to prove too.

  “I’m going to go and ride Tiger,” I said, sliding my chair back over to its own spot and sipping at the coffee. It burned my lips and my tongue and my throat and my stomach, but I couldn’t wait, and took another sip immediately. It seared its way down, but the caffeine began fluttering its moth-wings through my nerves immediately. Perfect.

  “I’m impressed,” Alexander said absently. “I half-expected you to stay inside the rest of the day.”

  “It’s cold enough to, so don’t tempt me.” I glanced outside. The broodmares were bunched near the water trough in the center of their big pasture, their tails turned towards the north to keep off the gusting wind. Hard brown leaves from the live oaks went soaring through the air, rattling against the window like hail. “But I’ve done so well for the past few weeks. He’s been ridden every day but Mondays.”

  “Is he a show horse yet?” Alexander turned a page, then
another, flipping past ads for supplements and lorries we couldn’t buy in this country.

  “He’s half-not a racehorse. He goes forward with leg pressure now, instead of a kick. He reaches for the bit when I give him rein, instead of digging down and galloping against it.” I considered Tiger’s progress for a minute, trying to mentally ride Tiger the Racehorse and Tiger of Today, and compare the two. “He thinks now. I give him a command he doesn’t know, and he puzzles it out and gives me a response. If it’s the right response, he gets praise and I stop asking him for a few minutes. If it’s the wrong response, I bring him back and ask again. And he gets that now.”

  “A thinking horse, that’s all a man can ask for.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.” I thought of all the racehorses I’d been on that could have done with a little bit more thinking and little bit less headlong galloping. “It’s a very nice change.”

  “You don’t have to ride the babies.” He turned the page. “You could just ride Parker.”

  I could, and I preferred to, but I was afraid of losing my edge. I didn’t want to be a trainer who only trained from the rail. I wanted to be able to train from the saddle. That was the only way I’d had my wins in Saratoga, I knew. But Alexander didn’t agree with that philosophy; after all, he hadn’t galloped a horse in decades, and he still won races. So I didn’t say all that, only: “I just ride the good babies, anyway. Parker appreciates the break.”

  Alexander went on slowly turning the pages of his racing magazine. Absent and grouchy, I thought. Better if I just head on out. He could sort this out on his own time. I gave him a kiss on the forehead and left, bundled up against the chilly March wind.

  The truth was, I could have used any excuse in the book to avoid going to ride Tiger. It had gotten downright hostile at Roundtree. Even arriving late, and riding him well after Jean had finished with her horses, had not proven to be good enough. Jean crept around corners and startled me and Tiger both. She picked at the way I treated him and the way I trained him.

  “The cross-ties aren’t good enough for you?” she’d sneer when she saw the way I tied him up in his stall. “Or he just can’t be trusted out in the aisle?” I’d tried to explain that we didn’t use cross-ties at the racetrack and since I wasn’t selling Tiger, I saw no reason to change a routine that we were both comfortable with. But she just shook her head and walked away, her pony-tail swinging.

  Just a few days ago, we’d received a particularly ice visit from the Snow Queen. I was out in the arena, lugging some jump poles through the clay and setting them up in little patterns. I figured Tiger could trot over them as a preliminary for jumping. Plus, he’d just plain find it entertaining.

  Jean had marched out, crossed her arms across her chest, and watched me in silence. When I had finished and was brushing my palms on my jeans, she pounced. “Don’t you think he’s too green to go over trot poles?” Her voice was solicitous, as if she wanted to help, but in reality she wanted to poke holes in my training program.

  “That’s why they’re not set up as cavalleti,” I explained. “Just a pole here and a pole there, for him to think about while he’s trotting. To make him aware of where he’s putting his feet.”

  Jean had shaken her head scornfully. “That’s not how trot poles work. They are for regulating a horse’s stride, teaching him to make precise steps. You’re wasting your time just throwing them on the ground here and there.”

  I’d gotten angry then. “No, Jean, you’re wasting your time following me around and criticizing every move I make. Don’t you have work to do?”

  Jean had puffed up like a wet hen then, her pale skin reddening in a furious blush, but I just walked past her, up the hill and into the barn, and left her to stew. I slipped into Tiger’s stall and hid there, telling myself he just needed an extra-thorough grooming session, but the truth was, I didn’t want to go back out there and deal with her again. I’d been pathetically relieved when she’d gone into the office and closed the door while I tacked up Tiger. Even if she was calling Elsie and telling her to kick me out of the barn post-haste, I didn’t want to deal with her another moment. I hadn’t come here for hassles. I’d just come here to ride.

  I’d been lucky that day. While I was riding she’d gotten into her little German car and driven away, and I hadn’t seen her since.

  Now, I was getting a twisting feeling in my gut as the truck went banging up the rutted driveway to the barn. She might be there now, waiting with an eviction notice, or just armed with more cutting remarks, more reminders that I was a racehorse trainer at a show barn, riding a racehorse amongst show horses, and that neither he nor I were good enough to be there. I held my breath as the end of the drive approached, the trees leaning in close to hide the barn from me until the last possible second.

  The relief I felt at the empty parking lot nearly made me dizzy. No one here…

  “Oh thank God,” I whispered. That was how much I was dreading the visits here. I got dizzy. We had to leave here after the show. I wasn’t sure what was next, but we couldn’t stay here.

  The barn wasn’t quite deserted as it looked from the outside. I was tying Tiger up to the stall bars, my grooming kit and tack parked just outside the stall door, when Tanya peeked into the stall. She grinned. “Hiya.”

  “Hey Tanya.” I smiled back. The working student was one of the few people here who didn’t mind Tiger. I thought that was telling, considering that she was one of the few people here who actually had to handle Tiger. She was the one who would lead him out to the paddock at night for turn-out, and bring him in again in the morning. If he wasn’t bothering her, he wasn’t bothering anyone. “Tiger a good boy for you during all this weather?”

  “He was a little silly in the wind this morning. Nippy when you take his rug off, but that’s nothing new, half these imported wonders try to take my head off when I pull their rugs off. And he gets really persnickety about wet feet, doesn’t he? Didn’t want to go through the puddle in front of his gate in all that rain yesterday.”

  “Yeah, he’s a princess.” I gave the dark horse a loving pat on the neck, and he turned his head as far as the lead-rope would allow and gave my jacket sleeve a little nibble. “Never liked to run on a wet track. He’d always try to dump me in a puddle if he could.”

  “That’s what I like about him,” Tanya said thoughtfully. “He’s so smart. Some of these dumb-bloods, they’d dump you if they saw a leaf go by their faces, but they wouldn’t think to drop you in a puddle just because it would be funny to see you go splash.”

  “Careful with the dumb-bloods talk,” I warned, only half-joking. “Looks like every horse in this barn is a warmblood.”

  “That’s Jean’s doing. Elsie loved Thoroughbreds, but when she stopped showing, Jean got her to stop buying them. Jean’s scared of them.”

  Somehow that was not at all surprising. “Well, you can’t bully a Thoroughbred.”

  Tanya smiled broadly. “And Jean’s the class bully. You got that right.” She reached through the bars and tickled Tiger on his nose. He obliged her by wiggling his upper lip through the bars, showing off his long yellow teeth. My old man. Those teeth never failed to surprise me after spending a morning in the training barn, seeing all the tiny little teeth in the babies’ mouths as they opened up for the bit. “Don’t let her get you down,” Tanya went on. “You’re doing a great job with this horse, and he behaves just fine in the barn. She’s just got something against you. I don’t know what it is, maybe she feels threatened or something.”

  “That’s what Kelly said.” I picked up a hard black curry comb and got busy rubbing Tiger down. The horse leaned into the brush, loving the rough treatment. “I still can’t figure out why though. We’ve got completely different goals, we’re in different sports.”

  Tanya shrugged. “I guess she just doesn’t want anybody around who rides better than her.” She gave Tiger a farewell poke in the nose. “I gotta throw down hay. Have a nice ride!”

  Tanya went
off down the aisle and I was alone with Tiger again. I moved the curry comb down to his belly and he stretched out his neck and nose in contentment, biting at the wall and the bars as if he was grooming another horse, standing nose to tail under an oak tree in some breezy pasture. “I’m not competition for anyone,” I told him. “Unless they’re at the Thoroughbred Makeover. Then, they better watch out, am I right?”

  Tiger just went on biting the wall, oblivious to anything but the belly-rub he was getting. And that, I figured, was a pretty decent life strategy. I could take a few leaves out of Tiger’s book, and maybe relax a little bit.

  After we won.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  “So, what classes are you going to enter this horse in?”

  The question took me by surprise, and I looked across the feed room at Kerri. She was slinging feed into feed buckets, her expression absorbed as she carefully aimed the scoop and let grain fly, but she managed to glance up at me between tosses. “Tiger,” she continued, when all I gave her was a confused look. “Which classes are you entering him in at the show?”

  I went on pulling down jars of supplements and medications that went into each broodmare’s evening meal. I was helping out with feeding, letting Martina had gone home early again to deal with some school project. Having children must be seriously difficult. I really couldn’t imagine it. “I haven’t even thought about it,” I admitted. “I guess I should look into it, right?”

  “Seriously?” Kerri expertly let a scoop of sweet feed fly into a bucket from a foot away. Every single oat went into the bucket. Kerri was a feed-slinging wonder. “Don’t you have to declare classes by the end of March?”

  The Thoroughbred Makeover had its own peculiar prize list. Instead of entering classes when you sent in your entry fee, you were allowed to wait until one month before the show to figure out what classes you wanted to enter. That was because the horses were supposed to be so green at the beginning of the year that a trainer wouldn’t really know what the horse would be best suited for until mid-spring, after they’d gotten a few months of training under their belt. “Do you think they offer Bronco Suitability?”