by Joan Wolf
The bugler blew the call to the post and the grooms led the horses into the walking ring. John gave Miles a leg up and the horses paraded once around the ring. My eyes went to Solomon's Riddle.
He was a magnificent-looking animal, a huge red horse with powerful muscles. He looked like he could run all day and all night. I swallowed and looked back at Buster. He was shaking his head up and down. He wanted to run. “Good boy,” I whispered. “Good boy.”
“Come on,” Liam said. “Let's get to our seats.”
We got back to our seats just as the horses were coming out of the tunnel onto the track. The minute the first horse, Honor Bright, put his foot on the track, the sun broke through the clouds and shone brightly on his bay coat. The crowd roared.
One by one the rest of the field appeared on the track and were taken up by their lead ponies. Then, as they began to walk down the field, a Broadway actress sang “New York, New York.”
Buster was behaving very well, and when he began to canter he went quietly along with his lead pony. As the horses galloped up the field past the final turn to warm up, a maintenance worker drove the starting gate onto the course right in front of the grandstand.
Belmont racecourse was a full mile and a half around and the horses would make one full circle of the oval to complete the race.
At the top of the turn, the horses turned and began to come back down toward the starting gate where the starter and his assistants awaited them. The noise of the crowd was deafening.
Take it Easy with Shane Sellers aboard wearing red and green silks went in first on the rail. The rear door closed behind him. Next to load was Point Taken, with Gary Stevens aboard.
The noise of the crowd was painful. I shouted to Liam, “How can the starters even hear each other?”
He shrugged.
Risky Business went into the gate next. Then came Solomon's Riddle. The big red colt tried to back up when the assistant starters came for him, but when they grabbed him he came forward and let himself be loaded. Buster was in the post position next to Solomon's Riddle and we could see the bright royal blue and white silks of Miles Santos as our boy went quietly into his slot and had the door closed on him
Finally all the horses were in the gate. I could feel my heart thumping inside my chest in the brief seconds while we waited for the starter to send them off. Then the bell rang and the gate sprang open and the horses lunged forward together.
The crowd, impossibly, became even louder.
The field stayed close together as they passed the clubhouse stands for the first time, then as they went around the clubhouse turn the horses began to differentiate themselves. Runforyourmoney with Jose Velazquez aboard took the lead, followed closely by Take It Easy. A little bit back off the pace were Honor Bright and Point Taken. Then, running easily, side by side across the track were Buster, Solomon's Riddle and Star Beta.
“He's in good position,” John shouted to Liam. “As long as Miles doesn't fire him too soon.”
Down the backstretch they ran, at the far side of the oval, away from the noise of the crowd. I lifted my binoculars and looked at Buster. He was running under a hold from Miles, but Solomon's Riddle was under a hold too. Both jockeys were waiting to make their move.
At the mile mark Runforyourmoney faded from first place and Take It Easy took over. Honor Bright and Point Taken moved closer to the front. A few more strides and Honor Bright had the lead; Take It Easy began to fade.
The horses hit the final turn and Buster began to make his move. So did Solomon's Riddle and Star Beta. Buster and Solomon's Riddle, who had been running side by side, moved as one as they accelerated on the outside of the track. Star Beta made his move on the inside.
“Here he comes!” Liam said.
No one who saw that Belmont Stakes will ever forget it. Buster and Solomon's Riddle came off the turn and galloped straight into the wall of sound of the crowd. They caught and passed Runforyourmoney and Take It Easy. They had now run the distance of the Kentucky Derby but had a full quarter-mile to go.
The two horses, running like mirror images, passed Point Taken and Honor Bright and were now out in front of the track, with nothing in front of them but the finish line. Side by side they ran, head to head, shoulder to shoulder, eye to eye.
“Jesus!” Liam screamed. “It's like Affirmed and Aly-dar all over again!”
Then, as the finish line approached, one nose poked out in front of the other, then a half a head. Then they were across the finish line and sweeping along in front of us, and the crowd went absolutely manic.
When I watched a rerun on TV later that night all the announcer could do was scream hysterically, “We have a Triple Crown winner! We have a Triple Crown winner!”
Liam and I were hugging each other and pounding each other on the back and jumping up and down.
“He did it! He did it! He did it!”
Then John and Liam were hugging and Lorraine and I were doing a kind of a jig.
Security men appeared in the box to escort us down to the winner's circle.
Liam and I held hands as we made our way through the crowds. The first thing Liam did when we got into the winner's box was go up to Buster and kiss him.
I patted his sweaty neck.
Liam shook Miles’ hand. “Good job.”
The reporters had surrounded John and were bombarding him with questions.
A TV camera appeared in front of us. “How does it feel to have a Triple Crown winner, Mr. Wellington?” a reporter asked, holding a microphone to Liam's face.
Liam shook his head. “I'm still in a state of shock, I think.”
“You bred Someday Soon, didn't you?”
“I was there when he was born,” Liam replied.
“Wow. This must be really exciting then.”
“It surely is.”
They were calling Liam over for the trophy presentation. Cameras flashed. TV cameras rolled. Buster posed with his blanket of flowers. The crowd was somewhat quiet.
Then the president of Visa got up to present the check for the five-million-dollar Visa Triple Crown match prize.
Liam looked dazed as he accepted the money. We had talked about it, but actually to have it in his hand seemed unbelievable. The whole thing seemed unbelievable.
Buster had won the Triple Crown.
John said, “Let's get him back to the stable.”
Henry began to lead Buster out of the winner's circle, preceded by a phalanx of security men. He skittered a little as he went, scattering the press who had been behind him.
We crossed back through the tunnel to the paddock area and from there to the stakes barn, where the police barricade was still in place. There Henry gave Buster a bath and turned him over to one of the hot walkers to walk him until he was cooled off. Then John and Lorraine and Liam and I trundled off to the press conference that had been arranged by the track.
When the press had finally finished asking their questions, we all went back to Buster's stall, took beers from a cooler and sat down on bales of hay to toast each other.
“That was the most unbelievable race,” John said.
“It was like a replay of Affirmed and Alydar,” Liam said.
“Buster just had the bigger heart,” I said.
John took a swallow of his beer and nodded slowly. “I think so. They were eye to eye and Buster just wouldn't give up.”
“He reached deep,” Liam said.
“Yes,” John said. “He did.”
“It's still hard to believe, though,” Liam said. “My little Buster has won the Triple Crown.”
“It's going to be crazy around here,” John said. “What do you want to do with him? He needs a break from racing for a while.”
“We'll ship him home to Virginia for a month or so. He can relax out at pasture for a while.”
“Good. We'll aim to have him ready for the Saratoga session.”
We talked for half an hour while Buster ate his hay and occasionally popped his head o
ver his stall door to see what we were doing. Liam gave him a Mrs. Pasture's cookie.
We made a date to have dinner with John and Lorraine and then got in the car to go back to our hotel. We didn't say much on the ride home; it seemed that everything had been said already. When Liam let us into our hotel room, we just stood there for a moment, facing each other. Then Liam whooped and grabbed for me. I started to laugh. He waltzed me around the room, bumping into furniture on our way.
“We won, we won, we won,” he chanted as we swirled around.
“Buster is the best horse in the whole world,” I said.
“He is.” He stopped waltzing and regarded me solemnly. “He was smaller and lighter than that other horse, but he wouldn't give up. He just wouldn't be beaten.”
“He has the heart of a lion.”
“I'm so proud of him.”
“You should be.”
He smoothed his hand over the jacket of my pink suit and smiled. “You may have to wear this suit for the rest of his racing career.”
“I don't think this suit has anything to do with Buster's winning.”
He looked alarmed. “Does that mean you won't wear it any more?”
I laughed. “I'll wear it if you want, but I truly think Buster can take care of business without my pink suit.”
“It's best not to change anything,” Liam said.
I shook my head. “I can't believe how superstitious you are.”
“I don't believe in messing with a winning combination.”
I slid my arms out of the jacket. “Well, I have no intention of wearing this suit out to dinner. Do you want to take a shower first or can I?”
“I have something else that I'd like to do first.”
I looked at my watch. “We don't have time.”
“Yes we do.” He took the jacket from me and laid it on a chair. “Winning the Triple Crown has made me horny as hell. How about we call John and say we'll be an hour late?”
I looked up into his narrowed blue eyes. I felt that look all the way down in my stomach. “You don't think he'll mind?” I asked weakly.
“I'm sure he won't. I'll call him now.” He went over to the phone on the desk next to the bed. I looked at his back, at his broad shoulders and narrow waist and hips. I listened to the deep murmur of his voice as he spoke to John.
You are like putty in his hands, I told myself.
He turned away from the telephone and started back toward me. “We have an hour,” he said, still with that narrow-eyed intent look.
I inhaled a little unevenly. “Okay.”
He began to unbutton my blouse. “Let's start by getting the rest of the lucky suit off.”
I let him finish unbuttoning and pull the blouse out of my skirt. When he took it off I had only my bra on. “Let me unbutton your shirt,” I said.
We helped each other get undressed and then we made our way to the king-sized bed. Liam had been telling the truth when he had said he was horny; he was fully erect right from the start. He tried to hold back and wait for me, and I tried to meet him as quickly as I could. When at last he was buried deep within me, we both knew the rushing ecstasy of orgasm and afterward we hung on to each other with the mixture of triumph and gratitude we knew from our other encounters.
He kissed my temple and said, “I don't want to go out to dinner. I want to stay right here.”
“I know,” I murmured. “But we can't stand John up. He just trained Buster to a Triple Crown for you.”
He sighed. “You're right.”
We cuddled even closer.
“I need a shower,” I said.
“Me too.”
“I'll go first.”
“Okay.”
Neither of us moved.
Liam's stomach growled.
“That's it,” I said. “You're hungry. I'm getting up.” I pulled away from him and swung my legs over the side of the bed.
“I guess it is getting late,” he said.
I shook my head and headed toward the bathroom.
CHAPTER 32
We stopped by to see my mother on the way back to the farm from the airport. She was having dinner and, after the hugs and kisses and exclamations, we joined her for a cup of tea.
“Midville is going crazy,” she told us. “There are signs and flags all over town.”
“It's great for the whole Virginia horse business to have a Triple Crown winner,” Liam said.
Mom said, “The bar at the Jockey Club has invented a new drink—the Someday Soon.”
Liam laughed.
I said, “I suppose that's a compliment.”
“I'm sure it's meant to be,” Mom said.
She wanted to know all about the Belmont and we told her everything that had happened.
“Some of the papers had picked the Irish horse,” I said. “It was a little scary—they were making him out to be so great.”
“He turned out to be pretty great actually,” Liam said. “He only lost by a nose.”
Mom said, “I thought I would have a heart attack, watching those two horses come down the stretch like that. Then, when Buster stuck his nose out in front! It was just wonderful!”
“Liam kissed him,” I said.
“He deserved to be kissed,” Mom said.
I sipped my tea. “He's coming home tomorrow. Liam's vanning him down from Belmont. He deserves a few weeks off before he has to start training for the Saratoga season.”
Mom said, “I'm surprised your parents weren't there, Liam.”
Liam and I avoided looking at each other.
“I think they were visiting friends,” Liam said.
“But to miss the Triple Crown!”
“I'm sure they caught it on television.”
Mom frowned.
I said, “I'm going to have to go back to work tomorrow. I got a call yesterday on my cell phone from Doug congratulating me on Buster's win and begging me to come back. The extra vet is gone and they're still interviewing for my job. They're swamped.”
Liam scowled. “You didn't tell me that.”
“I'm telling you now.”
“You don't have to go tomorrow!”
“Yes, I do. They need me, Liam. And until they hire someone to replace me, it's my job—my responsibility. I have to go.”
“Damn,” he said.
“That's the way it is.”
“I suppose so,” he said grumpily.
Mom said carefully, “Are you going to continue to practice after you leave this job, Anne?”
“Of course I will, Mom. I didn't go through all that training not to use it.”
Mom looked relieved.
We talked for another half an hour or so and then left to drive back to the farm.
We said goodbye to each other that night as if we were never going to see each other again. We had become so close in the last few weeks, so used to having each other around, that this coming separation was really painful. When I drove away from the farm the following morning, I had tears in my eyes.
Once I plunged back into my practice, however, I hardly had time to breathe, let alone dwell on missing Liam. The first day I was back we had two colic surgeries. Then we had a horse with an infection that went into the blood and turned septic. The clinic was filled to capacity and on top of that we had all the usual calls for lameness and injuries and runny noses and the like. Plus I was scheduled for two pre-purchase exams. It was crazy.
I talked to Liam every night when I finally got home, or I called him from the clinic when I got a break.
“It sounds to me as if they need two vets to replace you,” he said when I explained to him what was happening.
“I think you're right,” I said. “The practice is really growing.”
It was on the second night I talked to him that he gave me the news. “The police were out to talk to Mary this morning. They brought Mom's medal and wanted to know if she recognized it.”
“Oh no. What did she say?”
“What could
she say? She said it looked like Mom's.”
“Oh, Liam.”
He sounded grim. “I suppose it was inevitable that something like this would happen. They must have started asking themselves who I could have been trying to protect.”
“I shouldn't have mentioned Mary as backing me up in identifying your medal. It put her name in the police's mind.”
“You couldn't know that would happen.”
“It never crossed my mind.”
He sighed. “I know.”
“Have you heard anything from your parents, Liam?”
“They called me to congratulate me about the Triple Crown. Mom sounded really happy. Dad was … reserved.”
Screw him, I thought.
“How is Buster?” I asked.
“He's settling in just great. You'd think he never left.”
“Do you have a lot of people who want to see him?”
He laughed. “Just about everybody from within a twenty-five-mile radius has come calling. If they have cameras, he poses. Otherwise he just keeps on eating.”
I laughed. “He's wonderful.”
We talked for some more and then we hung up without saying anything more about Mary's identification of Mrs. Wellington's medal. But I lay awake for a while that night, wondering what was going to happen next.
The police asked Liam if the medal he had identified as his actually belonged to his mother. Liam said he didn't know. They asked him if his mother had had a medal and he said yes but that he didn't know if the one the police had was his mother's or not.
“It was the best I could do,” he said to me over the phone. He sounded wretched. “They asked me if Mom's medal had been gold and I had to say that it was.”
“It's all right, darling,” I said to him. I wished with all my heart that I was there with him, that I was not so far away. “You did the best you could for her under the circumstances. There was Mary's evidence, and they'll talk to other people who will remember that your mother had a gold medal.”
“I suppose.”
“Have the police talked to your mother yet?”
“I don't think so. I called Dad and told him what was happening here and he got the lawyers involved right away. I don't think the police have been able to talk to Mom yet.”