by Stacy Gregg
Anyway, Tony should have known better because everyone knew you had to watch Ginge like a hawk when you were tacking him up. All I needed to do today to put him on the walker was put his halter on and lead him across the yard. The walker was this big circular machine – the horses went inside the cage and you turned the engine on and the walker kind of scooched them along from behind, so they had to keep going in circles, a bit like a playground roundabout, turning them round and round. It gave them exercise on days when there was no jockey to ride them.
I was about to slip the halter on when I had a much better idea.
“Fernando?”
I stuck my head around the corner of the loose box. “I’m gonna jog Ginge, OK?”
Fernando stopped digging at the straw. “You what? Since when are you riding track, Lola?”
“It’s OK,” I told him. “Dad said I could do workouts – not on Sonic and Snickers, but just with the horses that aren’t the big shots, like Ginge and Cally.”
I liked this lie. It sounded believable that Dad would let me ride the horses that were pretty much already failing as three-year-olds. The other day I’d heard him say that Tiger, our moggie cat, had more chance of winning the Preakness than Ginger did.
Fernando shrugged. “Easier to put him in the walker, but if you want to ride, kid, and your dad’s OK with it, you go right ahead.”
Ginge had his ears back the whole time as I tacked him up, looking real moody about it, as if he’d been having a nice quiet time before I interrupted his day. But once we were actually out from the stalls and on the track, he obviously felt differently. His ears pricked forward and with each stride he gave a quick, enthusiastic snort like he was humming a tune to himself.
I made him walk at first, until he got used to the sights and sounds. There was a ride-on mower trimming the infield, and he spooked a little as it went past so I had to reassure him. Ginge usually raced in blinkers because he was prone to spooking and being distracted. I let him have a good hard look at that ride-on and then I clucked him up to a trot.
Racehorses are like athletes. They have a workout programme devised just for them. One day they’ll be jogging, just trotting along to loosen up their muscles. The next day they’ll be breezing – going almost flat out at a gallop, but still not quite at racing speed. I’d told Fernando I was gonna jog, but by the time I reached the back straight, I decided it wouldn’t do any harm to try Ginge at a gallop.
I rocked up high in the saddle and put my legs on, asking him to go faster, and the trot became a canter. Ginge was snorting and huffing beneath me, and when I urged him on some more he reluctantly picked up the pace into a slow, loping gallop. That was Ginge all right. He’d never won a race and it drove Dad mad because he knew Ginge had speed in him. He was just stubborn about showing it.
“Come on, Ginge,” I coaxed him. “Let me see what you’ve got.”
Nothing. I was hustling him along, kicking and pumping my arms, but Ginge refused to go any faster.
We rode almost three furlongs like that and then, as we swept around the far side of the track, I heard this almighty crack. The ride-on mower had backfired. It sounded just like a gunshot and it put a shock through Ginge like a lightning bolt. He spooked violently and I felt him suddenly skitter out sideways from underneath me. For a sickening moment I thought I was gonna fall, but somehow I managed to stay with him and get my balance back. He was so strong against my hands, stretching out flat at a gallop. I don’t know what made me do it, but instead of trying to pull him back, I let him run. “Go on, then! Go!”
Ginge’s hooves pounded out like thunder against the soft loam, as I perched up there on his back, urging him to go faster and then a little more again until we were flying.
The wind was so strong in my face it stung my eyes. I had tears streaming down my cheeks, and even though they weren’t real ones, it felt so good to cry. I was racing the wind and everything that had happened that day got left behind in my wake and I was myself again and I was free.
Back around by the exit to the stables I pulled Ginge up at last and brought him back to a jog. He was blowing so hard that I had to do another whole lap of the track at a walk to cool him down, and then I leapt down and led him back to the stables.
“That didn’t look like no jog to me.” Fernando glared at me as I brought Ginge through to his stall. “This horse has to race on the weekend, you better not be messing with his training.”
I shook my head. “Sorry, Fernando, I tried to pull him up, but he took off on me and I couldn’t hold him.”
Fernando looked at me with an air of resignation. “You think I’m a fool, Lola? I know what you were doin’ out there.”
He took Ginger’s reins and I thought he was in a bad mood with me until he cast a look back over his shoulder and smiled. “You ride track real good. You look just like Ray out there.”
Just like my dad.
That was all I ever wanted to be.
My brother Johnny glared at the spaghetti on his plate. “C’mon. Are you kidding me?”
“What’s your problem now?” Dad asked.
Johnny poked at it with his fork. “Is that all I get? Where’s the rest of it?”
“It’s enough.” My dad ignored his complaint and carried on dishing up meatballs to the rest of us. “You know the deal. You want to ride track, you gotta watch your diet.”
“I do!” Johnny insisted.
“Sure,” my dad grunted. “So that must be why I saw you at Dunkin’ Donuts on the way home after workouts this morning.”
Vincent gave a hoot of delight. “Busted!”
“Yeah, laugh it up, brother!” Johnny jabbed his fork at him.
I kept cutting into my meatball.
“You’re very quiet this evening, Lola,” Dad said.
“I’m hungry, that’s all,” I said.
I was hoping he wouldn’t ask me about school because if he asked me straight up then I would have to confess that I had been suspended. That note from Mr Azzaretti was still there, glowing out at me like neon from my school bag in the corner of the room.
My dad cast a glance at Nonna, as if she might have an insight as to why I was so silent, but she gave a shrug as if to say she had no idea and so Dad let it drop.
“Loretta.” He cleared his throat. “You remember that Ace of Diamonds filly that Frankie was training last season?”
Nonna nodded. “You mean the bay with the white socks on the hind legs?”
“That’s her,” my dad said. “Well, you always said you thought she had star quality. Frankie thought so too. He sent her off to Lance Barton’s stables in Kentucky and the word is she’s been breaking three-year-old records on the training track there in every single workout.”
“Is she ready to race?” Nonna asked.
My dad nodded. “This Thursday at Churchill Downs is her maiden. Frankie’s told me on the down-low that she’s a sure bet to win it. And the odds, Loretta.” My dad’s voice dropped to a low whisper. “She’s paying out at seventy-three to one.”
Nonna Loretta’s face fell.
“Absolutely not, Raymond!”
“Listen –” my dad began, but he was cut dead by Nonna.
“No, Ray, you listen to me! How many rules do we have in this family?”
There was silence around the table. None of us dared to speak when Nonna was in full flight like this.
“Two rules, Ray!” Nonna sure had a powerful voice for a little old lady. “Two rules that the Campiones live by. We don’t bet on horses and we don’t tell lies.”
I felt myself curl up a little, trying to make myself smaller as she said this.
“But, Loretta!” My dad bounced back. “This horse, she’s a machine. She’s gonna win by ten lengths and nobody will ever see it coming! And seventy-three to one! Maybe even more. The bookies will –”
“The bookies will take your money because that’s what bookies do,” Nonna Loretta said stonily.
My dad took a deep brea
th. “I’m telling you …”
“No, Ray,” Nonna said. “I’m telling you. The racing business is how we make our money, but betting on races is different. That’s a sure-fire way of losing the lot. We’ve made it this far without betting on horses, haven’t we?”
My dad sighed. “All right, all right. I thought, just this once …”
Nonna’s scowl deepened.
“OK,” Dad said. “I get it. No betting, period. OK?”
“Aww, c’mon,” Donna groaned. “Can’t he place just a little bet, Nonna? There are these new high heels that are on sale right now at Macy’s that I would love …”
Donna saw the look on Nonna Loretta’s face and shut her mouth real quick.
I didn’t say a word. I was just glad that the whole argument had taken the attention away from me and while they’d all been talking, I’d been busy cleaning my plate.
“May I be excused, please?” I asked.
“You’ve finished already?” Nonna raised an eyebrow.
“Sure, Lola,” Dad said. “Have you got homework tonight?”
“No,” I said truthfully. “No, I don’t.”
As I left the table I heard Nonna Loretta ask my dad, “So that filly Frankie tipped you off on. What’s her racing name?”
“Aces High,” my dad replied.
It was a good name, I thought. I don’t know much about playing poker but I’m pretty sure that aces high usually wins.
The next morning I said goodbye to Nonna and started walking to school. I took the usual cut-through at Sutter Street, clambering through the fence into the park. And that was where I stopped. I sat there on the swing set, rocking back and forth and thinking about what to do.
I had never told a lie like this before. The problem was, I had left it too long now to come clean and had made it worse. I got down off the swings and sat inside the playground’s plastic crawly tunnel for a bit, worried that I would get seen by someone if I stayed out in the open for too long. Then I realised I was acting ridiculous. I couldn’t turn up here every day and hide in a plastic tube. I had to tell the truth. I had to go and talk to Dad.
It was almost ten o’clock by the time I reached the track. Dad would have finished working the last of the horses by now. He would be back in his office doing the paperwork.
Dad called it an office, but really it was just a loose box like the ones the horses used, except with a desk and a filing cabinet in it, instead of straw on the floor.
I was walking past the stalls when I heard the sound of hoof beats behind me.
“Hey, Lola!”
It was Johnny and Vincent. They had just finished a workout; both their horses were sweating and blowing.
“I’ve got to see Dad,” I said, ignoring them and walking towards the office.
“I wouldn’t go in if I were you,” Vincent said.
I kept walking.
“Mr Azzaretti is in there.”
I turned around. “Are you serious?”
“What’s going on, Lola?” Johnny asked. “It must be pretty bad if old man Azzaretti is making house calls.”
Johnny and Vincent were always in trouble at school, but never once had they been in enough trouble for Mr Azzaretti to turn up at our place. That achievement was mine alone.
“Maybe you should go home, Lola?” Johnny looked worried. “We’ll tell Dad you were —”
As he said this, the door to the office opened and Dad walked out, with Mr Azzaretti beside him.
Mr Azzaretti looked relieved to see me. “Well, at least we don’t have to file a missing persons report,” he said.
Dad, on the other hand, looked furious. “Do you know the trouble you’ve put Mr Azzaretti to? He came all this way down to see me, taking time out of his day because he wanted to know how you were doing and why I hadn’t contacted the school about your suspension. So I say ‘What suspension? My Lola’s at school right now’ –”
“Dad,” I broke in. “I’m sorry. I know I should have said something sooner, but I was coming to tell you now.”
“Anyway,” Mr Azzaretti said. “I don’t see any reason to involve the school further now that you’ve turned up. It’s family business as far as I’m concerned.” He turned to my dad. “I’ll leave this with you, Ray.”
My dad shook his hand. “Thanks, Arlo, you know how much I appreciate you coming by.”
“She’s a good kid, Ray,” Mr Azzaretti said, as if I wasn’t standing right there. “The brightest in her year. I hate to see her mess it up, that’s all.”
He gave me a very stern look as he said this, and then he turned and walked away. No one said anything and the only sound was Mr Azzaretti’s shoes in the corridor until he was gone.
“Get in the car, Lola,” my dad said. “We’re going home.”
I was prepared for Dad to tear strips off me. What I wasn’t able to handle was the silent treatment. All the way home he said nothing. It wasn’t until we were getting out of the car that he spoke to me.
“Why did you do it, Lola?”
“Because he was bullying me,” I said, tears welling up in my eyes. I hated crying. I never cried. “He was teasing me and he wouldn’t stop, no matter what, and then he started going on about my shoes and they were the ones that Nonna bought me and I just couldn’t stand it any more and I hit him.”
“You should have told me about it,” my dad said. “You know how lucky we are that his parents aren’t pressing charges?”
“I’m sorry.” I was sobbing now. I thought he was gonna be furious, but he just put his arm around me and gave me a hug.
“My girl can throw some punch, huh?” He ruffled my hair. “That Mayo kid won’t mess with you again, I bet.”
When Johnny and Vincent found out, they both thought it was hilarious. At dinner, they started calling me “slugger”. Like “Hey, slugger, can you pass the salt?” “Hey, slugger, want some mashed potato?”
“Enough! This is not a laughing matter,” Dad warned them.
“Why aren’t you punishing her?” Donna said, glaring at me. “She’s always getting away with stuff.”
“I got suspended!” I shot back at her.
Nonna gave me a pat on the hand. “Lola was only defending herself,” she said. “You take on a Campione and that’s what you get. That boy is lucky I don’t go around to his house and break his nose for him again!”
I was suspended for the rest of term, which was another three weeks and then it was Summer Vacation – almost three months without school! Dad had tried to talk Mr Azzaretti into letting me back sooner, and he would have allowed it, but he said the school board made the rules and there was no way around it. I would have to stay home and be sent homework assignments and class work so that I didn’t slip behind.
“If I do my school work in the afternoons can I come to the track with you in the mornings?” I asked Dad. “I can help Fernando and I could even work some of the horses.”
Dad shook his head. “You’re not riding track, Lola, that’s final.”
I was going to tell him that I’d breezed Ginger the other day, but I wasn’t sure whether this would convince him to let me ride, or get me into more trouble. As it turned out, I didn’t need to argue because Nonna stepped up to take my side.
“You should let her ride, Ray,” she said gently. “Lola is a good rider, she’s ready for it. Besides, what else is she going to do? Sit around the house all day?”
“She can stay home and hit the books, that’s what she can do,” my dad replied. “You don’t become a doctor by racing horses around a track.”
“I don’t want to be a doctor,” I mumbled.
My dad looked hard at me. “Lola, you know what Mr Azzaretti told me? He said you’re the brightest kid in his whole school and if you maintain your grade point average like it is now, you would have the choice of any college you want. You could be a doctor or a lawyer or an astronaut, or the President of the United States, but the one thing you’re not going to be is a jockey. Do you un
derstand me?”
“I didn’t realise being bright would get me punishment,” I said.
“That’s a lot of backchat for a girl who just got suspended,” my dad replied. And I knew I had pushed him too far.
There was no point in getting up early the next day, but I was out of bed by six anyway, and I had all my study done by midday. There was nothing else to do except watch TV. Our TV room had a big overstuffed sofa and I was curled up on it watching a reality show on repeat when Nonna came in.
“Where’s the remote?” She began hunting under the magazines on the coffee table. She looked anxious, which was unlike her.
“Here, Nonna.” I had it under my cushion.
She took it from me and switched the TV to the racing channel.
“Race six at Churchill Downs,” the commentator was saying. “The three-year-old maiden stakes. And the horses are heading into the start gates now …”
“There she is.” Nonna nodded at the screen. “Number four in the yellow and green silks. What do you think, Lola?”
I looked at the horse with the number four on her saddle blanket. She was a big bay with two white hind socks.
“That’s Aces High?” I asked. “The horse that you wouldn’t let Dad bet on?”
“That’s her,” Nonna confirmed.
I looked hard at the TV screen.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s hard to tell without seeing her in real life.”
“That’s right,” Nonna said. “You’ve got to be able to look them in the eye, Loretta.”
She had called me by my full name – Loretta – which she never usually did. I had been named after her, but most of the time everyone in the house called me Lola to avoid confusion. I figured it was because Nonna was so busy focusing on the horses, she wasn’t thinking straight.
“I’ve seen this filly up close when she was stabled here at Aqueduct and she is very special,” Nonna told me, staring at the TV. “When she steps out onto the track you cannot take your eyes off her. She’s got perfect conformation. The best I’ve ever seen. And powerful too for such a young horse …”