by John McEvoy
January 11, 2003
The coming together of The Significant Seven and the penny-colored chestnut colt they would name The Badger Express occurred on a cold, dark, winter night at the Keeneland Sales Pavilion outside of Lexington, KY. The area had been battered by a serious ice storm the previous day, and the wind from the northwest scooted across the piled ice and snow with a vengeance. Nearby roads had been cleared after long delays. Several sections of the area were still without power. It was obvious that the crowd on hand for this auction of “Horses of All Ages” was much smaller than usual.
Of The Significant Seven, only Arnie Rison was on hand. He’d flown down from Chicago with trainer Ralph Tenuta, the man they had chosen to work with the horses they intended to purchase. Tenuta was a swarthy, pleasant-looking man in his early fifties with a long and impressive training record. He had emerged from the group’s list of “contenders,” as Joe Zabrauskis termed them, bolstered by his good nature, willingness to communicate with owners without being begged, and reputation for honesty. The tall, lanky Rison and the short, stocky Tenuta made an odd couple as they hurried through the weather from Rison’s rental car and into the sales building.
Rison’s long strides carried him ahead of Tenuta, who hurried to keep up. “Damn, Ralph,” Rison said, “this is some brutal weather to go buying horses in.”
“You want good weather,” came Tenuta’s answer, “go to the summer sale here. But be prepared to pay big summer prices.” Rison slapped him on the back as they neared the pavilion door. “Heard that.”
It had been the week before Christmas that The Significant Seven hammered out their horse ownership plan. Their primary objective was finding a successful trainer they could trust, one who would want to work with a bunch of new owners. As he was being interviewed by Rison, Tenuta had recounted the story of a previous owner who had employed him, a very rich and controlling Chicago heiress who would bring hand-drawn maps to the paddock indicating what path her steed should follow during that day’s race.
“I can’t get along with people like that,” Tenuta told Rison. “If I’m going to be your trainer, I’m going to be your trainer. I’m not saying I’ll make all the decisions. Hell, you’re paying the bills. But I don’t want to be interfered with or second-guessed when I make a decision about the best thing for the horse or how the jock should ride him.”
Rison reported this conversation at The Seven’s dinner meeting in Ruffalo’s, a Kenosha restaurant that had garnered great reviews for its “top-class Italian cuisine.” It wasn’t just the food recommendation that drew them; it was the convenience. Judge Toomey could drive there from Madison in less than three hours, Carson from near Milwaukee, the Chicago area partners coming just sixty miles north into Wisconsin. Over platters of antipasto, Rison said, “I think Tenuta is our guy. I’ve had him checked out six ways from Sunday. He gets A-pluses all the way down the line.
“Also,” Rison continued, “and this is the best part: Tenuta will not charge us a day rate per horse, which is now $65 or $70 per horse per day at big tracks like Heartland Downs. Tenuta says that if we let him get involved in selecting horses to buy, he’ll settle for fifteen percent of the horses’ earnings. If they flop, he doesn’t get a nickel. Tenuta seems very confident that he can make money both for himself and for us. I find it hard to argue with a deal like that.”
Chris Carson said, “Tenuta must have a hell of a lot of confidence in himself. But I’ll tell you, I looked up his training record for the past ten years. The majority of his clients have made money each year during that span. That’s a powerful endorsement of this guy.”
“Let’s hope we wind up with the majority,” Steve Charous said, lifting his cocktail glass. “Hear, hear,” said the others. Their decision was unanimous. Ralph Tenuta would be signed up as the first trainer ever employed by the old friends from Madison.
***
Tenuta was hailed by several people as he led Rison to the rear of the large Keeneland Sales Pavilion, back to the area where horses were walked in what Tenuta termed the show ring. “There’s a couple of thousand horses in this week-long sale. It takes a huge staff of workers to manage all these animals, and their sellers and buyers, for that matter. They do a great job here. Watch, Arnie, when one horse leaves to go into the sales ring section of the building, another one is brought in from a barn outside to replace it. They keep ten or so horses in this ring at the same time all night, moving them in and out. Their handlers are real pros. Some of the young horses get damn skittish. They’ve never been in a place like this before.”
Rison and Tenuta watched dozens of animals enter and leave their part of the building. Tenuta had said that afternoon during the plane ride that he would “like to take a real close look at four, maybe five, of the two-year-olds in the sale tonight. I know their pedigrees. I think a couple of them might fall into our price range.” That range, it had been established, was a total of $150,000 to be spent, maximum, for whatever the syndicate acquired.
Two hours, several cups of coffee, one Irish for Rison, and the men had looked at the first of Tenuta’s two catalog picks. Only one was appealing to the little trainer, who was assessing these animals with the practiced eye of a jeweler using a loupe to examine uncut stones.
At 9:30, they moved into the main body of the pavilion and sat in stadium seats to observe the bidding for an hour or so. Rison gulped several times, when what he thought were nondescript looking horses were hammered down for $200,000 and $300,000. Tenuta said, “Arnie, let’s go back to where they come in. I want to see Hip Number 1,106.” Rison followed along, took his place at the railing, and looked at Number 1,106.
They returned to their seats inside the pavilion. Ten minutes later, Number 1,106 entered the sales ring, very well mannered, and struck a picture pose without his handler even having to urge him. Before Tenuta could raise his hand, buyers in front of them went back and forth in a flurry of bidding that saw the colt sell for $160,000 in ninety seconds. “Nice looking colt,” Tenuta shrugged, “but too rich for us.”
At 10:45 they returned to their spot on the railing at the walking ring. They’d spent so much time there that the sales personnel were starting to kid them. One hollered out, “Hey, Ralph, when are you going to open the check book?”
“When the time is right, Beasley,” Tenuta shouted back. “When the time is right.”
Rison said, “Ralph, I’m getting tired. What other horse do you want to look at tonight?”
“She’s coming right up, Arnie. It’s that leggy bay filly, Hip Number 1,203, just walking there on the other side.” Tenuta leaned forward. “Man, she looks good, Arnie. She looks good.”
Rison didn’t answer. Apparently he had not heard Tenuta. His eyes were riveted on the chestnut colt that walked along behind the filly, Hip Number 1,204. The youngster had his head turned and seemed to be staring directly at the spot were Rison and Tenuta stood.
The colt’s groom attempted to pull his head forward when they passed the two men, but couldn’t. Hip Number 1,204’s eyes were riveted on Rison, who gripped Tenuta’s arm. “That horse there is trying to say something to me, Ralph.” Rison spoke without taking his eyes off the colt. “He’s looking at me like he knows me.” Rison took a deep breath. “Ralph, the way he looks at me reminds me of the way my old man looked at me when he was wheeled away into his final surgery. Jesus!”
Tenuta looked away, pretending not to have heard this. Then he felt big Arnie Rison’s iron grip on his arm, pulling him away from the railing. “Ralph,” Rison said, “hurry, man. We’ve to get in inside and buy this horse. Let’s go.”
As they walked, Tenuta flipped hurriedly through the catalog pages. “Not a bad pedigree on this one,” he admitted. “First foal of his dam, who won a few small races. He’s from his sire’s first crop. His sire was well bred, but only raced at two. Must have got hurt. Actually, his ped’s pretty damn good. And he’s a nice moving little guy.”
They took
their seats. Rison grabbed Tenuta’s arm again. “Ralph,” he urged, “buy this horse. Buy this horse.
Rison made the opening bid of $6,000. Silence. Then one of the bid spotters in the back of the pavilion shouted “I’ve got ten.” A series of small escalations followed, just between Rison and the sole party who was competing against him.
“Arnie, how high do you want to go on this horse,” the worried Tenuta whispered thirty seconds later. “We’re already past the half-way mark on your budget, all on this one horse.”
Rison, jaw tight, concentrating on the chestnut colt, replied, “We’ll go to the whole $150,000 if we have to. And beyond. If we do, I’ll make it good to the other six. I have to buy this horse.”
To Tenuta’s relief, bidding on Hip Number 1,204 ended at $95,000. “Sold,” hollered the auctioneer as Rison sat back in his seat, exhaling. He shook his head. “I don’t know what happened there, Ralph. Something I can’t explain. I just knew we had to have that colt. That he was the horse for us.”
When Rison came out of the sales office, having signed the purchase slip and written a check for $95,000, he was approached by a young dark-haired man wearing worn work clothes and a harried expression. Believing him to be a stable worker, Rison started to step around him when the man said, “Mr. Reason?”
“It’s Rison.”
“Oh, sorry, sir. Ah, I’m Chip Wadsworth. I’m glad to meet you.” He extended his hand. Rison took it, looking quizzically at Wadsworth, saying, “What can I do for you, son?”
Wadsworth took off his University of Kentucky Wildcats ball cap and smoothed his tousled brown hair. “That colt you bought, Mr. Rison? I bred, raised, and consigned him. I was kind of sorry to see him sell. I had a reserve price of $85,000 on him. But when he went past that, and you got him, I was happy, because we need the money badly. Still, I was sorry to see him go.
“I wanted to tell you,” Wadsworth continued, “that I believe this colt is real special. I’ve been working on Kentucky horse farms since I was a kid. I’m thirty-two now, with a growing family to feed. I know horses. What the good ones look like, how they act. How the ones that look good won’t ever turn out to be nothing because they don’t have heart for it.
“I just hated to sell this colt, Mr. Rison. But I sure wish you the best with him. I’ll be watching for him and rooting for him, I guarantee you. And, you watch, he’ll surprise a lot of people. So long.”
Wadsworth started walking off, then stopped. “Sorry, Mr. Rison, I forgot to ask. Who’s going to train your horse?”
“This is the first horse me and my friends and I have owned,” Rison said. “Ralph Tenuta will train for us. Ralph is here at the sale with me.”
Wadsworth grinned and said, “Well, that’s good news. Mr. Tenuta has a great reputation. Where are you shipping my colt— sorry, your colt— from here?”
“To Hill ’n’ Dale Farm up in Illinois. Ralph will pick him up there in the spring and put him into training at Heartland Downs.”
Rison watched Wadsworth hurry down the long corridor toward a small dark-haired woman with two toddlers in tow. He and the woman embraced. Wadsworth picked up the heaviest and oldest of the children, and the family walked out into the January night.
Tenuta reappeared carrying two large, steaming containers. “I asked them to make us Irish coffees,” he said. “No problem, especially at these prices. Who was that young guy you were talking to?”
“Chip Wadsworth. He bred our colt. He said he wanted to wish us well, tell me what a nice horse we bought.” He sipped his coffee. “Seemed real sincere.”
Tenuta said, “I’ve heard of that young man. His father was a well known farm manager here for years. The son’s got an excellent reputation for recognizing talent and breeding sound horses. Here’s to young Mr. Wadsworth,” Tenuta said, raising his drink.
An hour after buying Hip Number 1,264, Rison signaled that he would pay $33,000 for a nearly black filly, Hip Number 1,376, who despite her handler’s efforts was skittering around the sales ring like, as Tenuta put it, “a pig on ice. But I like her spunk,” he added.
Rison rose from his seat and stretched. He was tired but jubilant. “We got the horse we need in that colt, and a filly, too, Ralph,” he said. “Good night’s work as far as I’m concerned. Let’s go downtown. You drive. I’ll call Judge Toomey from our car, he can e-mail the other guys as to what we did here tonight. Then I’ll buy you a good steak dinner at Malone’s.”
As Tenuta and The Significant Seven would discover in the year ahead, the black filly “couldn’t run a lick.” Hip Number l,204, however, was another story.
Chapter Six
April 21, 2009
It took Doyle nearly ninety minutes to drive out of Chicago and up the Kennedy and the Edens and turn west on to Willow Road and, finally, arrive at the stable gate at Heartland Downs, the showplace facility renowned as one of the world’s most beautiful and well operated racetracks. However, he found the stable gate guard to be a less impressive model of efficiency.
“Sir, do you have a pass to come in here?” asked the chubby, serious-looking young man. He wore a khaki uniform, dark sunglasses, a Smoky and the Bandit hat, and an expression of extreme suspicion. His badge identified him as Alvin Boemer Jr.
“No,” Doyle said. “I don’t have a badge. Yet. I’m here to see trainer Ralph Tenuta. I’m going to start working for him. But I can’t start working for him until I’m licensed by the Illinois Racing Board. And I can’t get Tenuta to take me to the licensing office until I meet him at his barn.”
The young man shook his head. “You should have a letter or something. So I could authorize your entrance. Without a badge, I can’t let you in.”
Doyle lowered his forehead onto his steering wheel. “I suppose, Alvin,” he said, “you’ve never heard of Catch 22?”
“Catch what?”
“Never mind. Let’s try another tack. I’m trying to go to work here, Alvin. I mean, Alvin, Jr. Take a look at me. Do I look like I’m about to set fire to the stable area? Please, just call Ralph Tenuta. He’ll tell you about me.”
Alvin Boehmer, Jr., slowly retreated to his security booth. Doyle tapped his fingers on the steering wheel as the young man laboriously worked his way through what appeared to be a book of stable area phone numbers. Alvin licked his right thumb before applying it to every page he examined. Finally, he picked up the phone.
Ten minutes later, Doyle pulled his Accord into a parking place at the far end of Barn C. He was careful to sidestep a pile of horse flop at the entrance to the long, dark, dusty, musty barn. He asked one of the female Mexican hot walkers who was passing by on the end of a shank where he could find Ralph Tenuta. She smiled and, pointing behind her, said, “Down there, Señor. Va a numero viente-seis.”
Carefully staying out of the way of the procession of sweating, recently exercised thoroughbreds that were being cooled out by their hot walkers or grooms, Doyle made his way to the stall numbered twenty-six. He could hear a racket erupting from it even before he’d gotten there. There was the sound of hooves crashing against the wooden stall walls. Loud exclamations in both English and Spanish. Even louder vocal horse noises. It was a rumpus of magnitude.
Doyle peered into the gloom of the stall. Two men were attempting to manage a large, very active and uncooperative bay horse, trying to put protective bandages on his hind legs. The horse was wearing a metal contraption that covered his mouth and nose. He didn’t appear to want any part of the mens’ plans for him. He pulled back against the shank, the whites of his eyes almost popping out of his head. Every thirty seconds or so, he unleashed a vicious hind leg kick. The little man working to bandage those back legs, dodged artfully each time, as if he and the animal were working on a shared, dangerous choreography. After kicking, the horse reared up, front hooves climbing toward the ceiling, as the taller man pulled down on him. It was an awesome concentration of energy in a confined space, making Doyle wince as he watched and
listened.
When, finally, there was momentary lull, Doyle said, “I’m looking for Ralph Tenuta.”
“You’re looking at what’s left of him,” a voice came back from the rear of the stall, followed by the appearance of a short, compact man wearing a tan windbreaker, jeans, worn boots, and a ball cap that read “Keeneland Sales.” His dark complexioned face had exertion-caused small patches of crimson below each cheek bone. He opened the stall door and stepped outside before turning back and saying, “Jose, just let that sumbitch go unbrushed if you have to. He don’t deserve to get brushed, and you don’t deserve to get stomped by that mean bastard.”
“Sí, Señor Ralph,” the groom replied. “No worry now. I handle mi grande caballo.”
Tenuta said, “Good luck, amigo.”
Doyle introduced himself. “I knew you were coming,” Tenuta said. “I had a call from my brother-in-law, Bud. I sure as hell hope you can be some help back here, trying to catch this damned sponger.”
“That’s the idea.”
Tenuta said, “Let’s go into my office.” As they walked down the shed row, Doyle said, “What horse was that back there? A helluva handful, whoever he was.”
“What do you know about horses, Jack?”
“Enough to stay out of their way. Especially that one back there.” He didn’t mention his backstretch adventure a few years back on behalf of Moe Kellman.
Tenuta opened his office door. He motioned Doyle to take the only chair that fronted a battered desk almost covered in old track programs, condition books, horse business magazines, copies of Racing Daily. Tenuta had to shoo an old black-and-white cat off his own spring-blown chair before he could sit down. “Move, Tuxedo,” he ordered. The cat gave him a baleful look and took her feline time. Tenuta’s chair creaked like a Halloween fright house door when he plunked his chunky form into it.
Leaning forward in his noisy chair, Tenuta looked at Doyle. “Aren’t you the fella that worked at Monee Park when Rambling Rosie was running there?”