Winning Odds Trilogy

by MaryAnn Myers

  “All Together, said to be one of the finest hopefuls in racing’s distaff history, will challenge the boys tomorrow in the Harvard Stake. This filly, undefeated, who recently broke the long-held track record for the mile, has black-letter worked from the day she arrived at the racetrack. Bred and raised by Vandervoort Farms, in her stake debut, All Together will school the boys and no doubt show them the way home. She is favored to win.”

  He folded the racing form, laid it aside, and got up and poured another cup of coffee. Brownie was scheduled to shoe Son of Royalty and was due any minute. In the meantime, Tom was basically just killing time, and in a good mood. Randy stopped by later, talked to him and Brownie a second, and took off, saying he was supposed to meet Dawn at some swim club.

  “Does she have to feed?”

  Tom nodded. He’d offered to feed for her, since he was going to be here anyway. But she insisted it was her turn, and that she wanted to stay busy for fear she’d start hiccupping or something. He wondered that afternoon as he pulled feed tubs, how she was going to make it until tomorrow.

  As much as Ben would have liked, staying to watch the race or even postponing his visit until later in the afternoon was out of the question, his doctor had said, no ifs, ands, or buts.

  “Need I remind you that you suffer from hypertension?”

  Dawn walked with him and Gloria to the car, promised to call him just as soon as the phones came back on, and headed back to the barn. They were in the ninth race, and would be able to phone him right after the tenth had run.

  “Do you want to play some cards?” Fred asked, when she and Tom kept walking back and forth, practically running into each other trying to find things to do.

  “Cards?” Dawn frowned. “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Rummy.”

  “Deal,” Tom said.

  Randy showed up as they were playing their third hand, said he had to go out for two farm calls, but would be back in plenty of time for the race, and left. Barn Kitty meandered into the tack room. She’d already visited them once today, when they were eating Kentucky Fried Chicken, and had them laughing when she scarfed up the leftover coleslaw. This time she was dangling a dead mouse.

  Dawn chased her out. “Go!”

  “Rummy!”

  Tom shook his head. “I think you cheat,” he told Fred.

  “Sore loser.”

  Tom sat where he could keep a watchful eye on the shedrow, and chewed on a toothpick as he dealt the next hand.

  “I wish I could take a nap,” Dawn said.

  “Go ahead.” Tom nodded toward the cot.

  “I can’t, I’m not even tired. I just said I wish I could. That way time would go faster.”

  “What time is it anyway?” Tom nudged Barn Kitty with his boot when she relentlessly started back in, told her to, “Git!” and named kings and aces wild.

  “It’s five after three,” Fred said, glancing at his watch.

  Dawn had two pair right off the bat, and for the first time in her life, “Honest, my whole life,” she ended up winning a game. They quit playing then, ran the stalls, and pulled the feed tubs. After that, Dawn raked the shedrow again, just for something to do, being careful to stay away from the vicinity of the filly’s stall. And Tom tacked Red.

  Finally, the ten-minute call for the ninth race came.

  Tom brushed off the filly and did her back legs up in Vet Wrap while Dawn held her. They put her bridle on, and rinsed her mouth out. Waited. Waited. And waited.

  “They’ve run!” Fred yelled from the road.

  “All right, let’s go!” Tom said. Dawn went down to get Red, Tom got on and tightened his girth, Fred led the filly out, handed her over, and off they went.

  Onlookers clamored three-deep against the paddock railing to get a close-up of the dappled-gray wonder, in all her glory, tossing her head, cow-kicking, dancing, and now something new, rearing.

  “Keep her moving.” Tom gritted his teeth.

  “There now... There now...” Fred kept saying.

  “Hold her! Hold her!” was the valet’s constant plea, as ardent as Tom’s. “Hold her!” And all the while, Dawn watched with her stomach in knots from the number-six paddock stall, the filly’s post position.

  A fan with a camera waited until the filly was practically right under the railing to snap a picture, and she shied when the flash went off, dragging Fred back twenty yards, and scattering people everywhere. Tom was sweating, “Like a stuck pig,” by the time they finished saddling her, and walked out to where the ponies were assembled, mopping his brow with his shirt sleeve. “Jesus!”

  Fred waited until the last minute to lead the filly into the stall, turned her around quick, Dawn gave Johnny a leg up, and Fred led her right back out, jogging, dancing, sidestepping, and tossing her head.

  “Don’t do that!” Fred yelled to the person about to take another snapshot. “Don’t!” He held up his hand, blocking the lens, and guided the filly out onto the racetrack and to Tom.

  The race was a mile and a sixteenth, the track listed as fast. Dawn climbed up on the fence support at two minutes to post. She looked and saw that Randy’s truck was by the kitchen as Fred climbed up next to her.

  “She’s even money,” he said.

  Dawn nodded. What was there to say?

  The horses were loaded one by one.

  “No boss! No boss!”

  “Not yet boss!”

  The seven horse was the last to go in. They all stood. The latch was sprung.

  “And they’re off!”

  All Together broke on top, ears pinned, and went head to head with Crimson Treasury down the stretch and through the first turn. They ran the first quarter in a blistering .22 flat, a length and a half in front of the rest of the field, went shoulder to shoulder starting down the backside, the half in 45 and 1/5. And then All Together started drawing away.

  Dawn held her breath, waiting until they came into view from behind the tote board. “Come on, All Together. Come on.”

  The announcer called her name again and again, in front by a length, then two, two and a half. Fred started banging on the fence. “Come on, filly. Come on.”

  “At the three eighths pole, it’s All Together by four lengths! Crimson Treasury is running second. And third... Oh no! Ladies and gentlemen, All Together has gone down.”

  “What?!” Dawn gasped, straining to see. Fred strained to see. A split second later, further down the rail, Randy strained to see. All in disbelief.

  “Oh my God!” Dawn jumped off the fence and started running in the filly’s direction, with Fred right behind her. She dodged horsemen, race fans, benches, chairs, ran the length of the grandstand to just before the parking lot, climbed the chain link fence, and dropped onto the track on the other side.

  “Dawn, wait!” Fred yelled.

  She never even heard him.

  The announcer called Crimson Treasury as the unofficial winner of the race as the rest of the field trickled under the wire in front of a stunned crowd.

  “Shit!” Randy’s decision to take the back way to the quarter pole, thinking it would be quickest, turned out to be a huge mistake. “Shit!” Two-thirds of the way there, he found it blocked by a hay truck. He threw his truck into reverse, backed up past three barns, slid to a stop, and weaved his way up through the north end.

  Dawn gripped her side as she ran down the surface of the track, tripped and rolled, and rose only to see All Together struggling to her feet and going right back down again.

  “Oh God, no!”

  Johnny stood next to her, his one hand on the rein, the other on her shoulder. He was hobbling on one foot, trying to touch the other, to grab it, while still holding onto the filly. Tom got to her from the other end, flew off Red to take hold of the filly’s rein, and gripped Johnny’s shoulder to steady him.

  “What happened? What happened?” he asked Johnny frantically. “What happened?” And swore under his breath when the filly tried to stand, and couldn’t. “Oh
Jesus...fuck!”

  All Together rocked her body back and forth, struggled again to get up, and laid back down, her sides heaving and lathered from all the exertion.

  When Dawn reached them, Tom wasn’t letting the filly even attempt to stand anymore and kept her down by pressing his weight on her neck.

  “Tom...?”

  He shook his head, glanced past her to the meat wagon, already on its way, the track veterinarian riding up front. Dawn darted her eyes over her shoulder, shook her head no. No! We have to get her up! We have to get her up! Don’t let her be laying there when they come. Oh God, Tom... She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Fred was kneeling next to Tom. The filly’s chest was quivering, her side heaving, her legs twitching. Oh, God...

  “Let’s see what we got here,” the track vet said. He bent down to look at the filly’s right front leg, touched her, and she started freaking out, picking up her head, kicking, throwing her weight about and knocking Tom aside. And then with a great moan from deep inside her chest, she sat with her front legs sprawled in front of her, dug her chin into the dirt, and pulled herself to her feet.

  “Son of a bitch!” Tom said, at the sight of her right ankle, dangling from the joint to the ground. “Son of a bitch!”

  Dawn gasped and covered her mouth with her hands as she stared at the filly’s injured leg. “Let’s get her off the track,” she heard a voice say. “Pull the trailer around. We’ll probably have to put her down.”

  “No!” Dawn stood paralyzed, her head registering the voices and sounds, but sounding miles away. No... If she stood in front of the trailer, refused to move, maybe she could stop this from happening.

  Randy slammed his truck into park, hurried out and jumped over the fence.

  “Dawn...” Tom looked at her. The ramp was dropped and the filly was urged toward it, only to go down on her knees. Randy got to them, pushed Dawn out of the way, took a quick look at the filly’s leg, and gripping it tightly, kept it bent at the knee underneath her as she was urged back up.

  They unsaddled her then and coaxed her into the trailer with Randy still holding her knee bent to spare her the pain of putting weight on her ankle and to prevent any further injury. The ramp was raised and the trailer turned slowly, heading for the quarter pole. Randy rode inside with her, still grasping her leg and fighting her to keep it bent, and pushing with all his own weight to help keep her standing.

  Johnny was being put into an ambulance, clutching his saddle as the filly was hauled away. “She tripped,” he was telling Tom. “In the turn. It was something shiny.”

  Dawn could hear them talking behind her as she followed the trailer, and turned. The ambulance looked like an amusement ride to her. And Johnny, a child, who grew smaller and smaller in the distance.

  Once the trailer was off the track and the gates closed, the track veterinarian climbed onto the wheel well, both he and Randy angling to get a better look at the filly’s leg.

  “What do you think, Randy, sesamoid?”

  Randy nodded, the strain of holding her leg bulging all the veins in his neck and arm. He motioned for Tom to come take his place. Tom climbed up and over slowly so as not to spook the filly, talked to her, and Randy climbed out, went to his truck, and came back with a sedative, which he quickly administered.

  “You want to switch?” he asked Tom.

  Tom shook his head. “No, I got her. Let’s go.”

  Randy nodded to the man driving the tractor. “Barn fourteen,” he told him, and turned to Dawn. “We’re going to ride over with her. Drive my truck and meet us there.” Dawn stared past him at the filly’s quivering hindquarters. “Dawn, do you hear me?” he urged, taking hold of her arm, pointing her to his truck. “Drive my truck to the barn, we need to X-ray her.”

  “Is...is she going to be all right?”

  “I don’t know. Just go to the barn, okay?”

  The tractor and trailer jerked forward. Randy had just climbed back in and was able to balance the filly on the off side. As they made the long trip around the back of the racetrack and out the far gap, Fred followed behind them on Red.

  Dawn had the X-ray equipment in the shedrow when the trailer pulled up. Raffin drove in right behind them. When the ramp was dropped, he took one look and shook his head. Randy edged around to relieve Tom, and had him and Raffin link their arms behind her in the event she tried to unload too fast, which would no doubt cause him to lose his grip.

  “All right,” he said, making sure they were all in place. The driver took hold of her reins, stayed up front, and slowly, one lumbering step back and stopping, then another, and another, they got her unloaded. “Keep her going,” Randy said, as they coaxed and braced her weight until she was in her stall. Randy gave the task of holding her leg back to Tom as he and Raffin put on lead-lined aprons and took several shots of her ankle.

  When Dr. Raffin left with the X-ray plates, saying he’d develop them and be right back, Dawn sat down on the ramp to the tack room and buried her face in her hands. Randy glanced at her as he came out of the stall and walked to his truck.

  “Should I bed her stall down?” Fred asked, devastated and in need of something to do.

  Randy nodded. “In a minute. I’m going to put a cast on her first.”

  Dawn watched him walk back and forth, could hear him telling Tom how they were lucky the skin hadn’t torn, and that this was only a temporary cast, but would give her some support. “Bend the leg a little more, yeah, that’s good. Now a little more.”

  He had Tom put her leg down then, finished wrapping it, and wound another cast over that. When he stood up and stepped back, he noticed Dawn standing in the doorway. She reached up and touched the filly’s face, rubbing it when the filly leaned into her.

  “Is she in a lot of pain, Randy?” she asked, her voice so strained it didn’t sound like her.

  “No, not really,” he said. “I have her pretty well sedated. Between that and the shock, she’s not feeling much.”

  “Do you think...? she started to say.

  Randy shook his head. “Dawn, don’t ask. Just hang on, okay? We’ve got to see the results of the X-rays.”

  Dawn nodded, pressed her face against the filly’s, and stroked her neck. She had to be all right, she just had to be. “You’re going to be just fine,” she said softly, her voice cracking. “Just fine.”

  Dr. Raffin returned a few minutes later. Randy walked out to the truck, and Tom followed him. Fred kept busy bedding down her stall, while Dawn held onto her halter, talking to her and keeping her calm.

  “Fuck!” she heard Randy say, and froze.

  “No...” She shook her head, told herself, “Don’t listen to them.”

  “Shattered sesamoid.”

  “Shit!”

  “Like somebody set off a bomb.”

  “Don’t listen to them.”

  “Dawn...”

  She heard Raffin’s truck drive away.

  “Dawn...”

  She shook her head. “No.” She stared into the filly’s eyes. “No, you’re mistaken. Take more X-rays. You’re mistaken.”

  Tom turned away, Fred left the stall, and Randy stepped closer. “Dawn, I’m sorry. There’s nothing we can do for her.”

  Dawn looked at him with tears in her eyes. “Randy, you have to. Take more X-rays. You just need to take more X-rays. It’s a mistake.”

  Randy shook his head, swallowing hard.

  “Please help her,” Dawn pleaded. “Randy, look at her. She’s standing, see. Look at her....”

  Randy hesitated. “It’s the cast, Dawn. If we take it off...”

  “No,” Dawn said. “This is all a mistake.”

  Randy shook his head and looked at Tom.

  “You’d better go talk to Ben,” he said, and Randy nodded.

  “Dawn...?” He reached for her arm, but she pulled away, and he walked out.

  Ben was sitting in his wheelchair by the window, and felt the blood drain from his face in response to Randy’s pained
expression when he entered the room. He didn’t beat around the bush either.

  “Ben, the filly broke down.”

  “How?” Ben asked, his voice trembling.

  Randy shrugged. “Tom said Johnny saw something shiny on the track. It could have been a shoe, who knows? She was on the lead when it happened.”

  “And Johnny?”

  “He’s okay. I saw him walk to the ambulance.”

  Ben nodded, stared at the floor, and then looked up. “How bad is she?”

  “She shattered her right sesamoid.”

  “Oh my God,” Ben said slowly. He turned and stared out the window. “Did you...?”

  Randy shook his head. “We got her back to the barn to X-ray her. She’s still there now, but...”

  “I know.” Ben nodded, wiping at a tear trickling down his face. “I know.” He cleared his throat and drew a deep breath, and had to clear his throat again. “Is there anything you can...?”

  Randy sat down on the bed and sighed. “Not much. The chances of infection...” All the risks ran through his mind. “We can cast it. I have a temporary one on her now, but...”

  Ben searched his eyes. He knew the risks, one of the biggest being the most basic, the lack of activity and what it does to a horse’s digestive tract.

  “I honestly can’t even see her keeping a cast on, not with her temperament,” Randy said. “And there’s no guarantee even if she does, that when we go to take it off...”

  Ben wanted odds. “Give me odds, Randy.”

  “That she’ll survive? Slim. That she’ll be able to walk some day on her own, I don’t know. We’d have to keep her tranquilized and somehow eating, otherwise she colics. That joint needs rest to heal, and yet we’d have to keep her moving around. If it isn’t one thing, it’d be another.” He raised his hands in exasperation. “And even then...”

  Ben looked at him. “You don’t leave me much choice.”

  Randy hesitated, wondering what Jake would do at this moment. “Ben, there’s a part of me that would like to defy the odds. But I don’t think that part is too objective right now. Maybe you ought to get a second opinion.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Ben said, his voice quivering, but firm. “Put her down.”