“Don’t worry,” Liz, her mother-in-law had said last night on the phone. “We’ll probably need a nap; at least I know I will. Don’t hurry home.”
Dawn was hoping to be there before they arrived anyway, to welcome them. Randy had three castration surgeries scheduled, and wouldn’t be able to swing by the house until at least two. “I’ll see you all later. Dinner at seven. Tell Wendy, okay?”
Tom nodded.
“Tell her not to bring anything. It’s all set. She has enough to do today.”
Tom nodded again, what was there to say? He looked at Ben. “What would I have done if Dawn didn’t like her?”
Ben smiled. “That would have been a problem.”
“Speaking of problems, Dusty said, uh….” Tom spotted him two barns down and headed this way. “Never mind, I’ll let him tell you.”
Ben sat down on the bench outside the barn to wait. Dusty walked up and sat down next to him. “Issues,” he said.
Ben sighed. It had been such a nice morning until now. “The feed store cut off Ace for not paying his bill. I talked to them but they’re not budging. Deek says he owes them close to a thousand dollars.”
“And?”
“And, I’m thinking we need a certain amount of money in the Billy Martin fund to help out in these types of situations.”
“The Billy Martin fund?”
Dusty smiled. “Yeah, I know, it’s non-existent. But it would serve a purpose if there was one for times like these. Ace has two horses entered for Wednesday and both races are gonna go. He’s got a shot in both of them. His horses have been running good.”
Ben looked at him. “Then why hasn’t he paid his feed bill?”
“He says he’s been having some personal problems. I didn’t ask for particulars.”
The two men sat staring down the road between the barns, the proverbial infinity. “A thousand dollars, that’s a lot of money,” Ben said, stating the obvious. “He doesn’t have that many horses, does he?”
“Six.”
Ben nodded.
“He owes his hay man too.”
Ben looked at him. “How would you handle this, even if we did have a fund?”
“Well, Tom and I were thinking, it’s not like you could just give them the money and….”
“Wait a minute. Them?”
“We’re thinking this is probably going to come up again, particularly if word gets around.”
Tom walked up next to them and heard the last part. “Because if we pay direct out of the Billy Martin fund, we know Deek or someone’s going to say something to someone about it.”
“Which is why we’re thinking that if a fund is set up, the person getting the funds is going to have to be held accountable for it, you know, sign a promissory note or something, since the bills would be paid directly.”
Ben shook his head. “I’m afraid of the can of worms this is going to open. What happens if they don’t pay it back?”
“Well,” Tom said. “We’ve given that some thought.”
“We’re thinking maybe the note should tie into their horseman’s account in some way.”
“Aw, Jesus, now you know that’s not going to fly,” Ben said.
“I don’t think you want to get into asking for collateral,” Dusty said. “We can always refuse them stalls next year if they’re not paid up. That’s one option. Also, we’re thinking we could probably get close to a thousand for Billy’s tack and belongings we’ve got stored. We could put that into the fund to start.”
“And that way, it really is a Billy Martin foundation in a way,” Tom said. “Dusty and I are each going to put in five hundred dollars too, so that’ll help.”
Ben sat thinking. “Well, work out the kinks I guess and go for it. Just be prepared for how you’re going to say no when the times comes if this gets out of hand.” Ben looked around. Activity everywhere, people working hard, bathing horses, doing horses up, grooming horses, putting horses on and off walking machines, horses kicking and bucking and playing, horses coming and going to the racetrack, hopes and dreams following them, riding on them…. “Did Dawn leave her camera?”
“Yes,” Tom said. “Why?”
“We need to film this,” Ben said. “Go get it.”
“What do you want me to say?” Dusty asked, used to having a script of sorts.
“Just tell is like it is,” Ben said, “Because it just doesn’t get any better than this.”
Rupert had enlisted quite a bit of help to relocate his tack store and liked the idea of his moving more and more. He had his own “john” which wasn’t much, just a toilet and a sink, but it was certainly more than they had at the other location.
“It’s like moving up town,” he said.
Tom chuckled. “Does that mean you have no excuse to be full of shit now?”
Rupert laughed. “Oh by the way, your whips came in.” He glanced around at all the boxes, all the tack, all the grooming supplies. “It’s in a white box about this size.”
After a little searching, Tom found the box and opened it. The whips had good grips, had a nice feel. He hit the side of his leg with one and smiled. “I’m liking it!” From there he and Dusty headed to the grandstand. Ben had said he’d meet them there to see the progress on the offices.
Wendy had been up and down the elevator at least a dozen times, had long since given up waiting on it to go from floor to floor, and took to the stairs instead. She had her hair pulled back in a ponytail, was wearing a short-sleeve shirt, jeans, and her paddock boots, and had sweat on her brow.
Ben sat down at “his table” in the glass-front room and looked out at the racetrack. It was a good fit. Wendy smiled at him sitting there. He looked almost as much at home as when he sat at his big kitchen table. “Much better than a desk,” he said.
When Tom and Dusty entered the room, they were impressed.
“Next.” Ben said, waving them in as if holding court.
They laughed. Tom didn’t see Wendy at first. She was over in the area where her desk had been set up and leaning down to put something into one of the files drawers. When she closed the drawer and stood up, Tom turned.
“Well, hello,” he said. “Look at you.”
She smiled. She figured there would come a day when he wouldn’t take her breath away just by looking at her the way he was looking at her now, but until then, she couldn’t help but blush.
He took off his hat and placed it over his heart. “Could I have this dance?”
She laughed.
“I’m serious,” he said.
“No. I’m not dancing with you,” she said. “I don’t hear any music.”
“I do,” he said, putting his cowboy hat back on in that irresistible way of his as he walked toward her. “They’re playing our song. Don’t you hear it?”
Ben and Dusty laughed, which saved her from blushing again. “No, but I do like to dance though. So maybe someday.”
Spears entered the office just then, with details of what he said was good and bad news. “Which do you want first?”
“The bad,” Ben said.
“We are now onboard with the Jockey Club Equine Injury Database. It’s still in the planning, but it’s going to happen. Fatalities from all the racetracks will be recorded, taking into account track conditions, a horse’s age, number of races, distance, all of that.”
“And that’s the bad news?” Tom asked. “How do you figure?”
“Well, near as I can discern, the statistics do not cover injuries, just fatalities. I don’t think that’s the figures you want, not to mention the statistics are only now being compiled.”
Ben shook his head. He was right; that’s not the figures he wanted, nor the time frame. “So what’s the good news?”
“The good news is, since we re-surfaced the racetrack four years ago, our injuries are way down, as opposed to the fatality records from the six years prior to that.”
Tom sat back. “Are we talking hauled off injuries?”
“Yes. Hate to
say it, but it seems to be the only clear way to account for them. If they make it back to the barn….”
Tom nodded. “This goes back to what Randy was saying. We need to keep track of horses coming and going.”
“What do you mean?” Spears said.
“Well, I don’t know if any other track is doing something like this. I’ve never heard of it if they do, but when we were talking about the slaughter issue and how to try and prevent that, he suggested that maybe a horse should have an exit exam. If that horse isn’t hitting the ground on all fours and not headed for rehab, it shouldn’t be allowed to leave.”
Spears saw dollar signs, and not in a good way. “Are we talking about a veterinarian doing the exams?”
“Perhaps,” Tom said. “Or a vet tech.”
“So it would just be a quick physical exam?”
“Yes, and they’d probably have to draw blood. Drugs can mask a lot of pain.”
Spears nodded. “Are there certain times for shipping horses in and out?”
“Yes,” Dusty said. He, Tom, and Ben shook their heads at the reality of that. “They can ship in and out anytime but during training hours in the morning.”
“But doesn’t the guard check them in and out?”
“They check their papers, Coggins test certificate, health certificate - that type of thing.”
“And Randy thinks…?”
“A sound-to-go exam certificate is in order,” Tom said.
“What are the liabilities of a veterinarian saying the horse is good to go and having it turn out not to be?”
Ben scratched the back of his neck as he looked around the table. So many things to think about. “It would be a start, a trial, to see if would work. Even if we end up saving just one horse.”
Tom and Dusty nodded. Wendy nodded. And fairly soon, as he sat there thinking about it, Spears nodded. “Oh, by the way,” he said, changing the subject when several men from maintenance entered the room hauling additional furniture. “Starting Wednesday, it’s buy one hotdog, get the second one free.”
Tom smiled. “Same price as now.”
“Only technically,” Spears said. “It’s two for one, but you only pay for the one. No, now don’t laugh. This is very serious business. No one will be mad if you give one away, but if you try and charge less than the average price, for the same hotdog….”
They all laughed.
“For how long?” Dusty asked. Racetracks everywhere offered free hotdogs routinely as promotions. “You said starting Wednesday.”
“We’re committed to three million hotdogs in the next five years. And,” he said, holding up his hand when their mouths dropped. “They’re all natural.”
“Well then,” Tom said. “I think we’re making progress. We’ve made a commitment.”
Everyone laughed again.
“And on that note,” Wendy said. “Look. The ‘Forget Me Nots’ have arrived.” The landscape crew were carrying flat after flat across the track to the tote board on the infield. “I’ll see you guys later. Go check out downstairs. It’s all done.”
Tom, Ben, and Dusty took the elevator down and marveled. Another table with ten comfortable chairs had been set up in the middle of the downstairs office. They all sat down. Spears’ desk was at the far end, Wendy’s to the side of his, and the most important feature of all, an open door.
Joe Feigler walked in behind them. “Did you guys hear about those steeplechase horses. Day one and already two broke down.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t read the whole article. It’s under investigation.” Joe sat down and sighed. “We have a problem of our own.” All three men looked at him. Just what they needed, more problems. “Rickety entered that Beckon horse of his again. It’s run dead last his last four times out. It’s done.”
“Lose the entry,” Tom said.
Joe looked at him. “We can’t do that. Besides, he said the horse has nowhere to go and that by Nottingham Downs’ rules, if he doesn’t run him he loses his stall.”
True. They all knew the rules. Though the time frame was not etched in stone, the idea was to not have horses stabled on the track that weren’t running. Worse, was horses stabled at Nottingham Downs and running elsewhere, a more common offense. Horsemen don’t pay for stalls; they stable horses at a racetrack free, with the agreement to race the horses.
“Ah, Jesus,” Tom said. Ben and Dusty’s sentiments exactly.
“I’ll take care of it,” Dusty said.
“How?” Joe asked.
“Well, I’m not sure. I’ll go talk to him.”
Ben nodded and looked at Joe. “Meanwhile, you go talk to the Stewards. We need them to back us up if Rickety won’t pull the entry.”
Tom looked out the window and smiled. Wendy had a can of spray paint in her hand and was mapping out a pattern for where to plant the “Forget Me Nots.”
Mim Freemont limped into the room and stood supporting her weight on her cane. “I don’t like where the Ginny stand’s going.”
“Why not?” Ben asked.
“It’s going to scare the horses,” she said.
Ben stood up. Mim wasn’t one to be dismissed easily, nor would he care to. “Let’s go take a look.” She had her golf cart parked right outside the secretary’s office. Ben stared at it. “Come on,” she said. “I ain’t got all day.”
Tom and Dusty piled in the back, Ben climbed in next to her.
“I told the men to wait and they’d better have waited.” She took them by way of the path leading from the Winner’s Circle to the track kitchen and stopped mid-way. “Look,” she said, pointing. “See. It’s going to cast shadows.”
“Fuck,” Tom said, agreeing.
Ben sighed, all four of them just sitting there for a moment. “Drive onto the track.”
Mim pulled down to the gap, Tom hopped off the golf cart, opened the gate, and hopped back on. Steve Simmons yelled to them from his barn. “What’s going on?”
“Nosey old coot,” Mim said. “Nothing!” she yelled. “Mind your own business.”
Steve laughed.
Mim stopped midway on the track and there they sat, assessing the situation. Steve walked out to join them, and then here came Sally Jensen and several others from inside the track kitchen.
“What’s going on?” Sally asked.
Tom looked at Ben. Did he want to talk about this with everyone? Apparently. Why not? “Mim thinks the horses might get spooked from the shadows.” Here came some more people, and then the work crew. All climbed over the fence to join them.
The foreman didn’t quite comprehend the problem. “Well, it’ll cast some shadows, but….”
Mim looked at him; she and this man weren’t on the best of terms already. “There’s an old saying, ‘Horses are only afraid of two things; things that move and things that don’t.’”
All the horsemen and horsewomen nodded.
“All right then,” the man said. “You’ll need to go talk to whoever it is you need to talk to, so they can figure out what they want us to do.”
“Well,” Ben said, somewhat reluctantly. “That would be us.”
“So what do you want to do?”
Time is money; Ben could hear Spears saying in his mind. “Give us a minute. We need to think this through.”
Everyone had an opinion: move it here, how about over there, this won’t work, yes it will…. Ben posed the consensus to the foreman. “How much trouble would it be to move the stand right up against the back of the track kitchen, make it narrower but longer, and also put in an access door from the kitchen?”
The man stood looking the area over with a keen eye.
“See, the thing is,” Tom said, “The horses are used to the kitchen building being there. And set back far enough, it shouldn’t cast a shadow.”
The man glanced up at the sun and had to agree. The shadow would be on the outside of the fence. “It’s still going to be a different structure.”
“Th
at’s okay,” Tom said. “They’ll get used to that; shadows that change with the movement of the sun, no. They don’t race the same time each day. It would be a whole new ball game each time they saw it in a different way.”
“That’s a concrete block wall,” the man said, motioning to the kitchen. “It won’t be easy knocking it out.”
Tom smiled. “Do you want Mim to do it?”
“Mim…?” When he realized Tom was referring to the old woman giving him the evil eye, he smiled. “No, that’s okay, we’ll get it done.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Dawn greeted her mother-in-law Liz and father-in-law Randy Senior with genuine love and concern, and disbelief. To look at the man, one would never suspect a potential time bomb ticking inside his chest. He looked happy, he looked strong, he looked healthy.
“I’m fine,” he insisted. “Wish everyone would stop worrying.”
D.R. squealed and ran into his arms. “Grandpa!”
Randy Senior picked him up and twirled him around.
“Stop that,” Liz said. “Stop.”
Randy Senior handed him off and picked up little Maeve. “How’s my girl?”
“Gampa, Gampa!” She made funny faces when he kissed her on the nose.
“So where’s Randy?” he asked.
“He’ll be home soon,” Dawn said. “He had some surgeries to do. He won’t be long. Maybe you’d both like a snack and a little rest after the long drive?”
“I could go for a cup of coffee,” Randy Senior said.
“I have some made, come sit.” Dawn pulled chairs out around the kitchen table. Randy Senior sat with Maeve in his lap, arms around his neck. Liz sat hugging and loving D.R. “to deffis.”
Dawn laughed. First time she heard one of them use that expression, Randy had to explain. Deffis? “Mom doesn’t like saying ‘love you to death.’ It gives her the creeps. Love you to deffis is more to her liking.”
Dawn’s too. “We’re having Chinese for dinner.”
Randy Senior’s eyes lit up. Whenever they came to town, he asked for Chinese. The nearest Chinese restaurant back home near their farm was over an hour away.
Dawn poured them both a cup of coffee. Randy Senior took a sip. It was nice and hot but awfully weak, in his opinion. “It’s decaf,” Dawn said. “We are all on decaf in support of Ben. It’s the only way he’d give up caffeine. He said he wasn’t going it alone.”
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