Book Four of the Winning Odds Series: Soon to be a Movie

by MaryAnn Myers

  His little man nodded.

  “There was a time you know when it was just you,” Randy said. “I carried you everywhere.”

  D.R. looked up at him. “I was a baby then.”

  “Really?” Randy said. “It doesn’t seem that long ago.”

  “I miss Mommy,” Maeve said.

  “I know,” Randy said. “Me too.”

  D.R. slipped his hand in Randy’s. “I’m big now. I weigh a lot, Daddy.”

  “Oh, not that much,” Randy leaned down and scooped up his son. “See? What’d I tell you?”

  D.R. laughed. “I’m so high. Don’t drop me.”

  Randy hugged him tight. “I got you, son. Don’t worry, I got you.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Junior waved to the stable-gate guard Jason in passing and whistled along as he made his way to the Miller barn. As he unlocked the feed room door, the horses in their shedrow stuck their heads out and started nickering for breakfast. All of them except Overdue Max that is. Junior waited a few seconds to see if he’d appear and walked down to check on him. He was standing in the back of his stall and seemed fine, plenty of piles of manure all around him.

  “Hey, Max! You’re supposed to be happy to see me in the morning. Come on.”

  The horse walked slowly to the front of his stall. “Now that’s more like it.” Junior patted the horse on his shoulder and headed to the feed room for the grain cart. As he started throwing in the horses’ oats, he chalked up Max’s lack of enthusiasm to the fact that some trainers don’t feed breakfast first thing in the morning. They wait until after training. Even so, Junior recalled, Max had seemed eager yesterday.

  It’s a groom or trainer’s habit to glance into the horse’s feed tub before tossing in their morning oats to make sure they cleaned up their grain from the night before. Max hadn’t.

  Distant thunder rumbled.

  Junior fed the rest of the horses and came back and pulled Max’s feed tub. “What’s the matter, buddy? You didn’t like your mash?”

  Most horses loved them. Ben was old school and cooked the horses’ oats for dinner every night. The horses usually always dove right into their feed tubs and didn’t lift their heads until it was all gone. Junior sniffed the mash. It was sour. Then again, it’s always going to be sour by morning.

  Junior dumped the rest into a muck basket and rinsed the feed tub, then hung it back in Max’s stall and tossed in a scoop of oats. He was relieved when the horse walked over and started eating.

  Tom came around the end of the shedrow. “What’s going on?”

  “Max didn’t eat up?”

  “How much did he leave?”

  “Quite a bit. At least half.”

  “Hmph.” Tom glanced in the muck basket and looked in at Max, glanced at the horse’s manure piles, glanced in his water bucket. “Hmph,” he repeated.

  “Do you think he’s sick?”

  Tom shrugged. “He doesn’t look sick.”

  “If you were me, would you be worried?”

  Tom looked at him and laughed. “If I were you, I wouldn’t even get out of bed in the morning.”

  Junior shook his head and sighed. “I’m asking you a serious question, Tom.”

  Tom hesitated. “All right. I’d be concerned. Worried, no. Not unless he shows other signs of something to worry about.”

  “Like what?”

  “Oh my God. Listen to you!”

  “Tom! My career as a trainer is on the line. My future. My livelihood. My family’s livelihood.”

  “That’s an awful lot of pressure to put on one horse. Just keep an eye on him. See how he behaves. See if he cleans up tonight.”

  “But, I won’t know that till tomorrow.”

  Ben walked into the barn and came down the shedrow. “What’s going on?”

  As Junior told him the story, he looked in at Max, still eating his oats. The horse had drunk a decent amount of water overnight. His stall had a normal-looking amount of manure, a big wet spot in the middle. “What do you plan to do with him today?”

  “I don’t know, now. I don’t know what to do.”

  Ben nodded and walked toward the tack room. Tom followed.

  “Maybe I’ll take his temperature.”

  Ben kept walking. “Good idea.”

  Max’s temperature was normal. “Now what?”

  Tom checked the training chart. “Tack Gizmo. We have two to pony.”

  Junior looked at him as if he was from a different planet.

  “We’ll get Missy first,” Tom said.

  Thunder rumbled louder in the distance.

  Ben looked over his glasses at the horizon. Even in the relative darkness you could see the clouds rolling in, you could feel them. “Dick Goddard says it’s going to hit around eight. Let’s get in gear.”

  ~ * ~

  Dusty took care of the three horses in the Re-Hab barn and hobbled up to Julio’s to check in on Tiz Gee Wiz. The horse seemed to be in better spirits today, probably the medication. Franklin was brushing him. “He loves a bath, but with the cast….”

  Dusty nodded. The young man’s heart was breaking. There was nothing he could do to make the horse better. Nothing to do but brush him and care for him and love him for as long as he could.

  Julio came down the shedrow on his pony.

  “Did you get that information from your owner?” Dusty asked.

  “No. He say to sign him over. He say he lost the information on the man who say he would lay him up.”

  “The lying piece of shit,” Franklin said. “There was no man.”

  Julio shrugged “Either way.”

  “Get this,” Franklin said. “He wanted to know if Tiz’s shoes could be re-used. Yeah, like we’re going to bend that leg or force him to stand on it to get all his shoes off. God, I hate that asshole.”

  Dusty had to agree with his assessment of the man. “Well, he’ll have nothing to do with this horse anymore.” He looked up at Julio. “Are you down as his legal agent?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right. I’ll bring the papers down right after training hours.”

  The storm was fast approaching as Dusty made his way over to the Secretary’s office. As Nottingham Downs Liaison Official, he didn’t have an office per se. He had a file cabinet in the corner of the Stewards’ office. Linda watched as he hobbled in and pulled up a chair to his “work station” as he liked to call it.

  “You need to go see a doctor,” she said.

  “For gout? Why? It’ll go away. It always does.”

  “Are you taking anything?”

  “No. I don’t like medicine. How was your date?”

  Linda shrugged. Though it was just the two of them in the office at the moment, the walls always seemed to have ears. “Okay I guess.”

  “Just okay? That’s it?”

  “Well.” She glanced around first. “I didn’t seem to know what to talk about. He doesn’t know the ass end from the front of a horse.”

  “You can always talk about the weather.”

  “Yeah, and that lasted about a minute.”

  “You could talk about where you were born.”

  “We did. Another minute occupied.”

  Dusty chuckled.

  “And then the agonizing silence.”

  Dusty laughed. “You’re never at a loss for words,” he said, as he took off his boot and sock to look at his toe. “Oh boy.”

  “What? Gangrene?”

  “No. Just swollen and red.”

  Linda walked over to look. “Holy shit! You really do need to go see a doctor.”

  Dusty stared at his big toe.

  “I was kidding about the gangrene. But seriously, that’s pretty bad. Are you sure you didn’t hurt it somehow?”

  Dusty nodded. “Why do men have such ugly feet when they get old?”

  “Maybe because they’re old?”

  Wendy came down the hall from her office with a weather bulletin. “Close the track,” she said. “There’s
lightning on the west side. It’ll be here in less than ten minutes.”

  Linda made the announcement on the barn-area intercom and then phoned the gate crew foreman and ambulance attendants. She watched the monitor filming the track from outside the track kitchen and clicked the intercom on again. “Don’t even think about it, Walter! Nobody wants to come out there and pick up your fried ass off the racetrack if you get struck by lightning.”

  Walter, a veteran exercise rider, looked up at the camera and said something.

  “I can read your lips from here,” Linda said jokingly. “Up yours too.”

  Walter waved, obviously laughing, and turned his horse back toward the barn area. Wendy meanwhile, was offering her assessment of Dusty’s ailing foot. “That’s gross! Have you tried soaking it in Epsom salts?”

  “For gout? No.” Dusty put his sock and boot back on. “It’ll be all right. I’ve had this many times before.”

  Leon and his film crew entered the office in a flurry of debris blowing in the gusting wind. “That was awesome footage!” he said, dusting himself off. “I can’t believe how that horse literally looked like it wanted to fly!”

  Linda sighed. That can’t be good. She phoned the outrider, Amy. “Everything okay?”

  “Yes. Biggy almost got dumped coming off the track but he hung in there. By the grace of God the horse zigged and then zagged just in time. They were both airborne for a second! Score! Ass back in the saddle!”

  “Everybody off the track?”

  “Yep.”

  Wendy looked up from her I-pad. “It’s almost on top of us.”

  “Get to the barn quick,” Linda told Amy.

  “I’m almost there!”

  As Linda glanced at the monitor, gate closed, Leon scanned the flying-horse footage. “Perfect,” he said, looking up. “Precisely what I wanted. Now what’s this I hear about structural damage in the grandstand?”

  Wendy just stared at him for a second, then put up her hand and walked past him towards the hallway.

  “So where is it?” he asked, gesturing for the crew to follow.

  “Why? It’s not pertinent to the documentary.”

  “Oh, but it is. It’s part of the story. We can’t have the building crumbling down around us and not report it.”

  “Report it?”As soon as they were all in the office, Wendy closed the door. “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s a documentary. “

  “Yes. About Ben. Not the building.”

  “Ben is the building. He’s the foundation. He’s the racetrack. He’s all of it.”

  Wendy just looked at him.

  “Listen,” he said, hesitating. “I’m only trying to do the best job that I can. I’ve got to go with what I see. I can’t have my hands tied. It doesn’t work that way with me.”

  Wendy sighed. “Seriously, we don’t need to be getting in the way of the repairs.”

  “We won’t. Besides, it’s not like the documentary is going to come out tomorrow. The repairs will be done long before then.”

  Wendy paused, weighing her options. There weren’t any. “All right. Follow me.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Richard took his designated seat at the hearing, helped himself to one of the bottled waters on the table, adjusted his microphone, and scanned his notes. To his right, sat a horse trainer from California; on his left, a Thoroughbred breeder from Kentucky. The agenda was about the necessity for change in the Thoroughbred racing industry.

  Scheduled to speak first was a woman representing an animal rights organization. She spoke of cruelty in the day-to-day life of the racehorse, rampant use of illegal drugs, horse slaughter and deceit. Reduced to tears several times, her plea was passionate - her ten minutes at the microphone all coming down to what she termed a bottom line. “This animal abuse must stop. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Not next year. It must stop now. It must stop today.”

  When she sat back wiping her eyes, Richard noticed her name tag. Janet. Janet Dupree. He avoided looking at her eyes. It was obvious from the sniffling sounds that she was still crying. How do I know you? How do I know you? Why don’t I know you?

  “Mr. Spears. As with Ms. Dupree, you have ten minutes.”

  “Thank you.” Richard wasted no time. “I speak on behalf of Nottingham Downs as their General Manager. I want to share the changes we’ve made over the past three and a half years to address the issues raised by Ms. Dupree. We’re fortunate to have Ben Miller as the owner of our racetrack. He is a professional horseman in every sense of the word. One of the first policies we enacted when Mr. Miller purchased our then bankrupt racetrack was to hire a full-time Liaison Official to police the backside. Yes, “police.” The issues facing the Thoroughbred Industry don’t borderline on crime. In many instances, they are a crime.”

  Ms. Dupree looked at him.

  “Fans are losing faith in what this industry deems professional. Professional what? How can it turn its back in apparent oblivion when many of the leading trainers in this country are repeatedly caught and fined for using illegal medications or the overuse of legal medications? Since when is it acceptable to treat every horse in a barn with a potentially dangerous pharmaceutical whether the horse needs it or not? ‘Getting the edge’ is a common term. Races are won and lost by a fraction of an inch. But that edge in the form of potentially dangerous medication at the expense of the horse is unacceptable.”

  Richard took a sip of water. “The thinking behind giving all the horses as much medication as one can, or if you will, as much as one can get away with, has to end. That’s not the way to level the playing field. No performance-enhancing drugs across the board is the correct way. The level playing field is the integrity of the horse, the integrity of the horsemen. In Ben Miller’s words, he would no sooner give a horse medication not needed than give a child poison. We have a zero tolerance for drug violations at Nottingham Downs. One strike you’re out. Not two, not three, not a slap on the wrist. One and there’s the door. Rigid? Yes. Fair? Absolutely. First year under this new policy we had thirty-two violations. Second year, fourteen. This year none. Zero.

  “Has it affected “the handle?” Most definitely. The fans have come back. At Nottingham Downs the sport is alive and well. We implemented a soft-whip policy without one issue. All the jockeys were onboard and the fans applauded our initiative immensely. We established a ReHab and ReHoming policy where we promise no Thoroughbred will ever be forgotten. We’ve raised the bar and pride ourselves on the example we have set for every other racetrack in this country. We feel strongly that if a zero tolerance policy were enacted across the board there would be no further abuse of medications, approved, illegal or otherwise.” Richard looked around the room. “We’re living proof of it at Nottingham Downs. Thank you.”

  When he sat back, relinquishing the floor, one of the Congressional representatives asked a question. “This liaison official. Precisely what does this person do?”

  Richard leaned forward with no hesitation. “First and foremost it’s their job to be an advocate for the horses. To monitor their well-being. Our Liaison Official patrols the barn area several times each day. He takes notice of the horses’ care, their physical condition. Have they raced too often? Not enough? What’s the reason? He’s the go-to person for any issue on the backside, horses or horseman alike. He works day-to-day in conjunction with the Stewards. For instance, horses dropping down in claiming prices at the end of their careers or with the trainer’s hope of trying to get that horse claimed - that doesn’t happen. It wouldn’t happen anywhere, not with a Liaison Official on board. He or she would question that entry and veterinary clearance would have to take place. And if I might add…?”

  The Congressman nodded.

  “If a claimed horse does not finish a race for any reason, that claim is null and void. It’s all about integrity. It’s about keeping this business honest. It’s about the horse.” He paused and looked around the room again to add, “As Ben Miller says, ‘With
out the horse we have nothing.’ That type of thinking needs to prevail.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Ben stepped out of the tack room and had to shield his eyes to look up at the sky. How is it, he wondered, that it’s always so bright right after a storm? He drew in a deep breath, a “cleansing breath” as Meg used to say, and glanced down the shedrow. Junior was in the stall with Max. He smiled and walked down to talk to him. “What’s going on?”

  Junior shrugged. He’d just finished doing up all four of the horse’s legs.

  “Do you think he’s sore?”

  “No. I just don’t know what else to do.”

  Ben nodded.

  The storm had relieved Junior of the decision whether or not to track the horse, but the fact that Max didn’t clean up his breakfast in addition to not eating up last night weighed heavy on his mind.

  “Did you talk to Randy?”

  “Yeah, he stopped by.”

  “What’d he say?”

  Junior shrugged. “He said he didn’t see anything to be too concerned about. But then he added, ‘at the moment.’ And I said what the hell does that mean? What kind of vetting is that?”

  Ben chuckled.

  “What if I’ve made a mistake, Ben?”

  “Well, I doubt it would be your first one. Or your last one either for that matter.”

  Junior continued brushing his horse

  “Hey, come on. That was meant to cheer you up.”

  “I know. And I know I’m probably overreacting but I have so much to prove to so many people.”

  Ben shook his head. “The only person you really have to prove anything to is yourself. You can’t make everything right. That’s out of your control. You just have to do your best and hope it’s good enough.”

  “I don’t want to let Lucy down. I don’t want to let you and Tom down. I don’t want to let this horse down. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Just keep asking yourself the questions. You’ll get answers.”

  Junior sighed. “Maybe he’s just one of those horses that takes a while to get used to new surroundings. Maybe he just hasn’t settled in yet.”