Willy was the undisputed king—dictator, really—of Willowbrook’s stables. His word was law, had been law since the Hartwicks had hired him twenty-eight years ago, when he had been the wunderkind of the horse-training world. And it was only thanks to him that the farm had managed to retain its good reputation despite the loss of the Hartwick fortune. The Hartwick horses were not seen as often as they had been prior to the stock-market crash, but those few that competed performed impressively, and past champions were still in demand for breeding. But even Willy’s best efforts were not able to make the vast estate profitable. Willowbrook Farm, which had the capacity to house eighty horses, was down to only thirty horses since the reversal of the Hartwick fortune. Of that thirty, however, only five were currently racing. Seven were being trained for racing, and the rest were allowed the more leisurely routine of breeders.
All that was forgotten, though, as Willy studied the filly before him. He knew everything there was to know about horseflesh and what he saw now pleased him. The smile on his face was a rare sight to those who worked under him. His smiles were almost never bestowed on people, only horses, and then usually only when Willy was alone with the animals.
Now Willy straightened up and released the leg of the chestnut filly before him.
“Gau-jus! And the leg’s as good as new.” He nodded an acknowledgment to sixteen-year-old Jeremiah Washington, the exercise rider who had helped to work the filly through her temporary lameness. Although Willy’s reticence had never allowed him to express it, he recognized in Jeremiah a kindred spirit. A true horse lover. One who had a special feeling for the animals, a link of understanding with them that was not a learned skill but a natural gift.
Willy patted the horse on the flank and nodded again to Jeremiah, a signal that the filly should be put back in her stall. The rigid hierarchy of Willowbrook Farm was second nature to Jeremiah, so rather than return the filly to the stall himself, he handed her to a groom, who in turn checked to see that the stable boy had properly cleaned the spacious enclosure and had spread enough fresh straw on the floor. The routine was not designed to satisfy egos; rather, it had grown from need. Willy needed the exercise boy at his side as he checked the legs of each horse. Jeremiah, in turn, needed to see what Willy was seeing, so that he would not he surprised by weaknesses that might turn up during training. Furthermore, Willy and Jeremiah tailored the routines of each horse according to its strengths and weaknesses. Grooms attended the horses, each day picking their hooves clean, currying their manes and tails, brushing them, and ensuring that their tack was cleaned after each use. Stable boys fed the horses and kept the stable immaculate.
But it was Willy himself who checked to see how the horses were eating. Now he looked into the tub of the filly’s feed bin to check its contents. It was empty. Good. When a racehorse didn’t eat, it meant trouble. The first thing Willy did in such a circumstance was take its temperature. As a result, Willy’s morning routine, which began every day at five o’clock, consisted of examining each horse from head to toe, then checking each horse’s feed bin. Later, he would ask Jeremiah and the other exercise riders to jog the horses.
“You do it when they’re dead cold, first thing in the morning,” he had instructed Jeremiah upon his promotion from groom to exercise rider. “That way you can see if he’s nodding.”
Nodding occurred when a lame horse hit the bad foot at a jog. The head would bob up or down at that point, depending on whether the injury was in a rear or front leg. A sound horse’s head, in contrast, would remain straight throughout the exercise.
Despite cutbacks in staff and horses, the white-painted building, an L-shaped structure with eleven-by-fifteen-foot stalls on both the outside and inside, was spotless. Aisles that ran the length of the building were fifteen feet wide, meaning plenty of light and space in which to attend to the horses. Tack was kept in a meticulous state in a small rectangular building a few yards from the stable.
The employees, Willy included, lived in a small white dormitory a few hundred yards from the stables. But Willy never socialized with the men who worked for him. His quarters—consisting of a one-room living/dining/kitchen area, a bathroom, and a bedroom—bore no mark of his personality except for the bottle of Irish whiskey that was always present on the kitchen table. There was no hint of Willy’s past, why he had come to America, or who his parents were. If he had ever been married, he never spoke of it.
On this morning, there was particular tension in the air, for all the stable workers knew they would be meeting the new owners of Willowbrook. Willy had, of course, made no concessions to this occurrence, not deviating from his routine one iota. Jeremiah wondered how the older man felt about the change. He wondered if the new owner, a Yankee, would understand the way things were done in horse country. Would he know that the trainer was the law in the stables? Would he know that people usually worked for the same employer for their entire lives? Family loyalties between servant and master intertwined in a synergistic hodgepodge common in the South, but rare elsewhere.
“What’re you dreamin’ of, boy? Take the bandages off his legs.” Willy’s impatient voice interrupted Jeremiah’s reveries.
Startled, Jeremiah focused on the colt whose lead rope he was holding. Gently, he unwrapped the bandages on the colt’s legs. The colt had placed second in a race the week before, something the new owners would undoubtedly be happy to learn, and it was customary to bandage the legs for some time after a race.
“Looks like the swelling’s gone down,” Jeremiah noted.
Willy’s response was a grunt that could have meant anything, but which Jeremiah knew meant satisfaction.
After a moment of running his calloused hands over the horse’s flank and withers, Willy asked, “The burning?”
“Better. Almost gone. “’Cause it’s been so dry, I guess.” Racing on sand tracks usually burned the hair off the back of the horses’ fetlocks, then irritated the skin underneath. Infections could result in wet weather because the wound never really dried.
“Yeah. You’re a good old boy, ain’t you.” Willy patted the horse’s flank and nodded for him to be rebandaged and put back into the stall.
“A beauty.”
Willy and Jeremiah turned to see who had uttered the words. Standing several yards away in the doorway of the barn were the new owners of Willowbrook. Both were wearing riding clothes, jodhpurs and boots and plain white shirts. Neither wore a jacket. They were a dazzlingly handsome pair, Jeremiah thought. He had seen both of them before, of course. Mr. Alexander had spent considerable time in the stables prior to buying Willowbrook, and Miss Devon had been a frequent visitor of Mr. Hartwick.
Now Devon walked toward them and said, “Hello again, Mr. O’Neill, Jeremiah.”
The adolescent nodded back shyly. “Ma’am,” he said.
Willy stood up straighter, but just nodded in acknowledgment of the greeting.
“We’ve met before, Mr. O’Neill,” said John, walking toward the older man and extending his hand. Willy took it, shook it as briefly as possible, then dropped his own hand back to his side.
There was an awkward moment of silence as the members of the group studied one another.
“We’d like to take a look at the stables. Have you go over which horses are running,” said John. John had no intention of becoming involved in the stables on a day-to-day basis, but he wanted to restore the business to its former stature. With fewer horses running, the operation had been losing money. More horses would cost more money, but prize purses could offset the additional cost. In addition, winners always created more business for the breeding operation.
Willy looked from John to Devon and back again. “You can finish the rounds with me if you like. You can watch the exercise. Then we can go to the office,” said Willy in a grudging voice. He didn’t like interruptions during morning rounds. The Hartwicks had always been careful not to disturb him in the morning.
Devon sensed O’Neill’s annoyance at being interrupte
d and accepted it philosophically. She was eager to learn about the world of horseracing and believed that O’Neill could teach her a great deal, but she knew that he would resist doing so. Racing was a man’s world. There were few women breeders. Certainly no women trainers. Trainers of O’Neill’s stature were highly valued. She did not want to get off on the wrong foot and risk losing him to another farm. An angry departure of a good trainer could ruin the reputation of an owner in the racing world, making it impossible to recruit another equally qualified trainer.
It gratified Devon that John recognized her superior skill with horses and was thus willing to turn the racing operation over to her while he pursued his career in New York. Both agreed that her skill in breeding and training hunters, and her natural ability with horses, would make it easy for her to grasp the essentials of raising racehorses. Still, she knew that Willy O’Neill would not be eager for her presence on a daily basis. She would have to handle him with the utmost tact. For now, she resolved, she would keep silent.
Devon and John watched Willy examine every horse, unwrapping the bandages around their legs, checking their hay racks and feed buckets. The Alexanders were impressed by his thoroughness. Then it was time to watch the horses exercise.
The group went to the private racetrack that lay behind the barns in a flat area surrounded by gently rolling green hills. Of course, horses scheduled to run in the near future would be taken to the track at which the race would be held.
“This filly here is Ginger Snap. Okay, Jeremiah, take ’er slow,” Willy said. When the horse had worked enough for Willy to determine that she had no injuries, he instructed Jeremiah to pick up the pace.
The filly had a particularly large stride, so even when Jeremiah galloped her, it felt as though he was going slower.
Devon noticed the characteristic and mentioned it to Willy, who grunted an acknowledgment. He was aware that she had bred a couple of good hunters, and that she was highly thought of in the Fauquier County horse world. But as far as he was concerned, she was a dilettante. A pretty, spoiled dilettante.
Now the filly was galloping at high speed around the track.
“Gettin’ ready to prop,” Willy mumbled.
Devon knew the term. It meant the horse was getting ready to stop short in an attempt to shoot the rider forward off her back. Jeremiah obviously had observed the same thing because he snapped his crop briefly, causing the horse to keep moving.
“It was her ears, wasn’t it?” Devon asked Willy. The filly’s ears had moved in such a way as to indicate that the ploy was forthcoming. Devon had seen it many times in hunters.
Willy nodded in response to Devon, but refused to be impressed. Any experienced rider should be able to recognize such a signal, he told himself.
“Pull ’er back a bit!” Willy yelled as Jeremiah rode by. He didn’t like his horses to exercise too fast. He preferred to save it for the racetrack.
After a few more minutes, Willy signaled Jeremiah to bring the horse to a walk. A groom ran to the horse and rider and waited for Jeremiah to dismount, then proceeded to walk the horse for several minutes around an adjoining paddock. Later, the horse would be washed, as would its tack.
Jeremiah mounted another horse but kept it off the track while another exercise rider took his mount through its paces. Devon and John were impressed by the military precision of the stable’s organization. Willy O’Neill was obviously a very important asset.
“Willowbrook is lucky to have you,” Devon said quietly.
Willy did not reply, simply followed the galloping horse with his eyes. But he heard the comment and was gratified that the woman recognized the quality of the operation. A lot of people didn’t even know the difference.
“We’ll go to the office after this.” Willy directed this remark to John. “You’ll want to look at the books. We’ve been winnin’, but…” Willy completed his sentence with a shrug.
Later, as John sat at Willy’s scarred oak desk and carefully read the ledgers, he realized the cutbacks in personnel that Willy had had to contend with.
“No money. Can’t afford jockeys. Can’t afford hot walkers. Can’t afford enough exercise riders. Can’t afford to race,” Willy explained in his usual staccato fashion.
“I commend you for what you’ve been able to do,” John said, leaning back in the old captain’s chair and pushing the ledger away from him. Willy stood beside him, while Devon sat on the only other piece of furniture in the room, a green leather love seat with one cushion that had been torn, then carefully taped. As everywhere else under Willy’s jurisdiction, the office was spotless, but strictly utilitarian. “I hope you’ll want to stay on,” John continued.
“As long as I have a free hand, no reason not to,” Willy declared, looking John coolly in the eye.
“You’ll have that,” John assured him, careful not to look at Devon. He knew she wanted to learn about the racing operation, but he would have to persuade her to approach Willy gently and to defer to him on all matters.
Willy looked at Devon for a moment, but he said nothing. Then he turned back to John. “A free hand would mean that I’d hire back the boys we laid off.”
“Fine,” John agreed.
“We’d probably want to buy a few mares. Give the brood operation a pickup.”
“Just tell me how much you’ll need.”
“Won’t be cheap,” Willy answered. “Then there’s travel to auctions. We’ve had to cut back on that. In any event, I’ll have to be gone a bit. Keeneland’s this month.” The famous Kentucky sale took place each July. It was universally considered to offer the highest quality horseflesh on the market.
Devon was tempted to say that she could fill in for him at Willowbrook during his absence, if he would only teach her how, but she was afraid to alienate him at this crucial point in the negotiations.
“That’s no problem,” John said. “Go wherever you need to go. Hire whomever you need.”
“Well, then. If there’s nothing else, I’ll be gettin’ back to the barn,” Willy said, putting the green Brooklyn Dodgers cap back on his head.
Devon stood up and gave Willy her most winning smile. “Thank you for showing us around, Mr. O’Neill. It appears that your reputation is well earned. I know it’s been difficult for you since the cutbacks.” She was tempted to put out her hand to him, but was oddly apprehensive that he would not accept it.
“Ma’am,” he replied, touching his fingers to his cap. Then he turned and walked out, closing the door behind him.
For a moment, Devon and John stared at each other, saying nothing.
“Seems like a very able fellow,” John finally said, “though he’s a bit of a chatterbox.”
Devon burst out laughing and went to sit on John’s lap, giving him a warm kiss.
“I don’t think I’m going to have an easy time with him,” she said.
Within a week Devon had assembled a household staff. In addition, Alice was permanently ensconced as her lady’s maid, while John’s manservant, Wilkes, settled into his Willowbrook quarters, knowing he would be called upon to travel with his master between his homes.
Meanwhile, Willy O’Neill acted quickly to rehire the stable staff previously let go by the Hartwicks.
“It’s good to be back operating at full force again, isn’t it, Mr. O’Neill?” Jeremiah asked.
“Not there yet,” Willy responded gruffly as they walked together to the barn. Though it was still dark, the weather was already balmy, promising a scorching day of high temperatures and equally high humidity. Willy lifted his cap up, ran his hand over his bald scalp, then replaced the old green hat. “There’s still the auctions,” he added.
Jeremiah wished that Willy would ask him to go along on the trip to Kentucky. His secret ambition was to be a jockey, then later a trainer. But there were no black jockeys in the racing world, and it seemed an impossible dream. In the period from 1875—the first year of the Kentucky Derby—to 1911, black jockeys had dominated the sport, and th
ere had been several black trainers as well. But for some reason that was no longer the case.
In any event, as far as the auction was concerned, it was not usual for trainers to be accompanied by their exercise boys. Still, Jeremiah was certain that he could learn a great deal from Willy.
As though reading his thoughts, Willy said, “You’ll be needed to look after things here while I’m gone.”
Jeremiah nodded, proud at the trust implicit in Willy’s comment.
“Mr. O’Neill.” A cultured feminine voice came out of the darkness, startling the men. Willy spun on his heels to see Devon in riding clothes walking rapidly behind them, trying to catch up. He would have liked to continue walking, but knew that the young woman had done nothing to warrant such rudeness. Somehow, though, she irritated Willy. Threatened him, really. It was not that he feared her authority over him. He simply did not want his meticulous routine disrupted. And it was clear that Mrs. Alexander, who thought she knew quite a bit about horses, wished to be involved in the running of the stables. Oh, she had done nothing to infringe on Willy’s prerogatives; she carefully asked questions rather than issued orders. Always stood quietly observing the exercising rather than chattering on about inanities. In sum, she conducted herself as the perfect owner. But in the week since she had returned from her honeymoon, it seemed she was always there.
Jeremiah, in contrast, liked the young Mrs. Alexander. She was beautiful in a way that melted his sixteen-year-old heart. And she was kind. She treated him with respect and often asked him questions about his work. She seemed to appreciate his skill with horses, a skill that she also possessed.
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