Lucy was hiding in the closet, covered in flour. “Lucy! Lucy, where are you?” Ricky searched their apartment. There was flour everywhere. He traced the footprints and opened the closet door.
“If you don’t mind me asking, where is Maria’s father?”
“Ah,” Linda shook her head. “There were no odds there, none whatsoever. I was just a speed bump in the night.” She reached for an afghan off the back of the couch and covered up in it. “Life sure has its twists and turns.”
Wendy nodded. “You can say that again.”
“Lucy! You have some splainin’ to do. Look at you!”
“Oh, Ricky!”
Wendy and Linda laughed. There was always a happy ending with “I Love Lucy,” no matter what. “It’s a shame it didn’t cross over into real life, huh?” Linda said, yawning.
Wendy reached for the other afghan. This must be Tom’s, she thought. It had the scent of his cologne. What was it? She sighed. “You know, there’s a part of me that wishes I could see a little of the old Tom, the Tom that….”
When she hesitated, blushing, Linda laughed. “I hear it was one hell of a ride.”
Wendy looked at her and shook her head. “Go to sleep.”
“I’m just sayin’!”
Wendy turned off the lamp next to her and snuggled into the afghan.
Lucy was crying happy tears in Ricky’s arms.
“Oh, Ricky.”
“Oh, Lucy….”
Wendy opened her eyes and turned. There was someone in the kitchen. Tom? No, it was Ben. She glanced at Linda, waking now also, and little Maria waking up next to her. “She came out in the middle of the night.” Linda said.
Wendy smiled, rubbing her eyes. “I can’t believe I slept that soundly.”
“There’s coffee made,” Ben said. “And some oatmeal.”
“Thank you,” Wendy and Linda said in unison.
Wendy wondered where Tom was. “What time is it?”
“Ten to five,” Ben said. “Tom phoned. They’re still at Shifting Gears.”
Wendy stared. “Where?”
“The rescue farm.”
“Is this horse okay?”
Maria climbed into her mother’s arms.
“They’re hopeful.” Ben hesitated at the door. “I’ll see you later. We don’t lock the door. Just pull it shut.”
“Ben,” Linda said. “Thank you.”
He nodded. “You take care of that little one.”
“I will.”
“Let Dawn or Wendy know how you’re doing. All right?”
“All right.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Ben walked through the stable gate and greeted the guard. “Good Morning.”
“Mornin’, Ben.”
“Is everything okay? Anything I need to know? Anything you need me to do?”
The man smiled. “Everything’s good.”
“That’s what I like to hear,” Ben said, walking on.
“But there is one thing.”
Ben dropped his head and turned around.
“Just kidding.”
Ben shook his head and laughed. Dawn had fed the horses their breakfast, made coffee, and was taking leg wraps off Bo-T. She looked up. “Tom’s on his way. He just called.”
“Everybody clean up?”
“Yep.” All the horses had eaten their oats.
Ben walked into the tack room and stood looking at the training chart on the wall. B-Bo was scheduled to walk, Whinny and Wee Born were marked to gallop, Batgirl was going to be breezed and Bo-T was scheduled to pony.
Randy’s father’s medical assessment was scheduled for nine this morning. They were told it would take up to four hours. Dawn had offered to go stay with Liz at the hospital, but Randy Senior insisted Dawn go to work.
“Work, work, work,” Liz had said in response, rolling her eyes.
Randy hoped to get there for the evaluation and recommendations. “You can if you want,” his dad said. “But I’m not having surgery. There’s no two ways about it.”
Tom showed up a few minutes later, sporting a fair amount of dried manure on his jeans and looking “rode hard and put away wet.”
“I ain’t had that much fun since I stayed up all night with the Inkster twins.”
Dawn shook her head. “Do you want to pony Bo-T first?”
“Might as well.”
“How’s the horse doing?”
Tom hesitated. “I need to tell you something about that bad-ass husband of yours.”
Dawn smiled. This was going to be good. She’d just talked to Randy. He was fine. Tired, but fine.
“I’m serious,” Tom said.
Dawn paused.
“He doesn’t know the word “quit.” And if that horse makes it, he owes his life to Randy and them two crazy women.”
Dawn smiled.
Tom grabbed Red’s saddle and bridle, walked down to tack him up, and here came Dusty. “Wait till you see.”
“What?” Ben asked, fearing the worst of whatever it was.
Joe Feigler made an announcement just then. “Attention, horsemen. Be aware of the Ginny stand. Make sure your horses get a good look at it. We don’t want anyone dumped on their heads. Have a good day.”
Ben smiled.
“Like I said, wait till you see it,” Dusty said. In addition to having Joe Feigler make the announcement several times this morning, Dusty had visited every barn to warn them personally. “So far only a few of the horses have spooked from it.”
“How’s it look?” Ben asked.
“Unbelievable,” Dusty said.
“Well, no time like the present,” Ben said. “I’ll see you up there, Tom. Dawn, do you want to come look?”
“I’ll be up in a few minutes.”
The Ginny stand was a big hit. Ben heard comments along the way. An occasional “It’s about time,” didn’t dampen his spirits one iota. It was a fine Ginny stand, a positive statement, a testament to the importance of the employees on the backside. As he and Dusty stood admiring the structure; a min-version of a grandstand for spectators, Dawn walked up next to them.
“Wow! Now that’s nice. I like it.”
Tom, astride Red, led Bo-T onto the racetrack and the big colt snorted and balked, then stomped. Ben laughed. “Ah, you gotta love him. If he isn’t a chip off the old block, I don’t know who is.” Of all the horses Beau Born had sired thus far, this is the one that most resembled Beau in Ben’s eyes.
The sun was just coming up over the trees and shone on the infield. “Diamonds on green velvet,” Dawn said, of the dew. She didn’t get up to the track this early in the morning very often. She usually had her hands full at the barn. The first time she ever came to the racetrack was a morning just like this.
“Oh look,” she said. “The Forget Me Nots.”
Ben and Dusty gazed at them and smiled. “They look like they’ve been there forever,” Ben said. Dawn and Dusty agreed.
“What was there before?”
“I don’t know. Grass?”
Dawn walked back to the barn and was happy to see Randy’s truck parked next to it. He was sitting in the tack room, having just poured himself a cup of coffee. She gave him a hug. “I’m so proud of you.”
“For what?”
“For everything,” she said. “Did you stop by the house and see your dad?”
He nodded and took a sip of his coffee. “I’ve never seen my dad scared, ever. Not even when our bull penned him in the barn and it looked like he was about to kill him.”
“What did he do?”
“Then?” Randy smiled. “He told me to go tell my mother that if all went well, we were having sweetbreads for dinner.”
Dawn smiled. “Do you think he’s scared now?”
Randy nodded and for a second, a split second, tears welled up in his eyes. “I’m exhausted,” he said. “He’ll be fine.” And just like that, he was smiling again.
“You two are too much alike,” Dawn said, smoothing the side of his hair back.
Randy kissed her, finished his coffee, and was off again.
“Go see the Ginny stand,” Dawn called to him.
He nodded.
Wendy arrived at work a little earlier than usual for a Tuesday. Oddly enough, her days off were Saturday and Sunday, both the biggest race days. Since she’d worked Saturday morning and all day Sunday, she certainly could have stayed home today. But she had too many things she wanted to get done.
First on her list, was making sure the finish work on the offices was underway. She made several trips up and down the stairs, and at one point walked into the secretary’s office for a drink of water. Two men at the entry booth motioned discreetly in her direction. “Who’s that?”
“That would be your Assistant General Manager,” Joe said.
“You’re kidding?” Not only was she dressed in jeans, boots, and a casual shirt and looked like she belonged here. She was sweating.
“Hey, Joe,” she said in passing as she wiped her brow. “How’s it going?”
“Good,” he said. “We’re going to have a full card.”
She gave him a thumbs up, not exactly sure what “full card” meant, but the way he’d said it, she figured it had to be good. And back up the stairs she went. Ever since she’d worked on finding advertising space for the jazz band that played at Billy Martin’s funeral, she’d been kicking around the idea of coming up with a new front-cover design-layout for the racetrack program. As it was now, it had only the name Nottingham Downs across the top, a photo of three horses in a race in the middle and a blank space across the bottom for the date. There was so much wasted space, not to mention suggesting nothing about the uniqueness of this racetrack, no signature statement; no slogan.
She sat down at her desk, stared out at the infield and smiled. What was it about those little tiny flowers, the Forget Me Nots that changed everything? “It’s like a promise,” she said, and took out a note pad and started sketching.
“Nah!” She crumbled that piece of paper and started another drawing.
Her cell phone rang. “Hello.”
“So, you spend the night at my house, first time, and I’m not even there,” Tom said. “What’s that all about?”
Wendy chuckled. “How’s that horse doing?”
“I think he might make it. It was touch and go for a while. Hey, I was thinking. What about you and me go on a real date tonight? Dinner, dancing if you want? ”
“Okay. Where are you?”
“I’m sitting outside the barn waiting for Juan. He’s going to come gallop Whinny and try out the soft whip. She hates a whip.”
“I’ll watch for you.”
“Are you up in your office? Isn’t this your day off?”
“Yeah, but I’m working on something.”
“Is Spears there?”
“No, not today. I’ll be by the barn a little later. I have something I want to show you and Ben and Dawn.” She sat watching out the window, watched and watched, and then finally spotted Tom on Red, leading Whinny. When they came in front of the grandstand and he and Juan looked up, Wendy waved.
Winning Beau, “Whinny” was a bay filly. Wendy was learning the different colors of the horses. Whinny had a black mane and tail and black legs, characteristics of a bay. The horse was sired by Beau Born but was not an offspring of All Together. She smiled, feeling rather proud of herself for remembering all this information, even if she couldn’t recall Whinny’s dam’s name.
She watched as Tom turned Whinny and her jockey around, watched as he glanced over his shoulder to see if any other horses were approaching, watched as he and Red galloped along next to Whinny, watched, watched, watched….and caught her breath when Tom let Whinny go and she took off so fast, running so hard. She watched as the filly galloped all the way around the track…never took her eyes off of her.
Juan asked Whinny for more run down the stretch, trying out the soft whip again and then again, and then once more as they approached the wire.
Wendy watched it all. The jockey stood up in his stirrups after he passed the finish line. She looked for Tom. He was on Red out in the middle of the racetrack on the far turn. When the filly galloped up next to him, he reached over and took hold of her rein.
“Wow.”
She stared at her sketch, an only slightly better version of the previous one; crumpled it also and feverishly started sketching another. The program should show everything, all aspects of the Thoroughbred’s life, not just the racing, but the babies, the barns, the training, the caring, and yes, she gazed at the Forget Me Nots, it should show the day when they no longer raced. It had to show it all. This wasn’t just about racing. This was about the life of a Thoroughbred. She couldn’t draw fast enough.
Ben was anxious to hear Juan’s opinion of the soft whip. He stood smiling at the playful way Whinny nipped at Red and chuckled when Red pinned his ears at her and she lowered her head as if to say, “I’m sorry.” Was it his imagination or was she coming off the track calmer than usual?
Juan seemed reluctant to talk about it at first. “I don’t know, I….”
Tom smiled. “Have you ever known a jock to be speechless?”
“You suck,” Juan said, laughing. He hopped off Whinny and walked along with Ben as Tom led the filly back to the barn.
“Well?”
Juan looked at him. “If you say I should try it in a race, I say that is your choice.”
Ben nodded and patted him on the back. “Thank you.” There was a lot said and unsaid in that exchange. Juan walked off, tapping the side of his leg with the whip. Ben walked away, smiling. Dawn and Tom gave Whinny a good suds bath and they too noticed a difference in her behavior: calmer, happier, playful. Ben stood at the barn, thinking. When a horse wins a race easy, they also cool out easier as a rule. They’re not wired as tight, so to speak. A common bragging rights expression about their “not even breathing hard” under those circumstances came to mind. He’d always, always associated it with their not running as hard. But there were many occasions when they’d run their fastest race, and yet, since they’d win easy - no one challenging them at the end - no one whipping them to run harder, just hand riding….
Ben sighed. Another expression came to mind, “You can’t teach old dogs new tricks.” Oh yes you can, he said to himself. If someone could prove to me that whipping a horse stresses that horse, I’d damned sure make a change. He’d read a study once that supported the theory that shipping horses, whether by van or trailer, regardless of vehicle size, stressed a horse.
The study was disputed by many horsemen, particularly the ones that raced off the farm, but Ben stopped racing off the farm shortly thereafter that. Upon observing his own horses before and after shipping, he found that even if they ran well, they were different horses shipping in and out and running the same day. Yes, they liked being back home, but they seemed to dread going back to the racetrack next time around. Stress? Anticipation? They all shipped well. It wasn’t that. He’d never had a bad shipper. The day of a race, horses aren’t given hay; there was nothing to distract them on the ride there. On the way home, they had a full haynet hanging in the van. The study said horses just having to work at keeping their balance in a moving vehicle, particularly on the starts and stops, plus loud traffic noises seemingly coming out of nowhere, added stress. Even a horse that walked off the van, looking cool and calm, had been stressed.
“What’s the matter?” Dawn asked, from the expression on his face when they returned to the barn.
Ben shook his head. “The older I get, I think too much.”
Probably the most convincing comment for him was, “Do they ship Derby horses in the day of a race?” No one would even think of doing that. They arrive at the track days before the race. They get settled in, they….
“Old man,” Tom said. “You worry me when you think too much.”
Ben laughed. “I worry myself. Stand in line.”
The rest of the morning went fairly fast. By eleven, the ho
rses were all done up and Dusty had made several trips to the barn. “I’m getting so I dread seeing you coming,” Ben said.
Dusty smiled. “Rickety’s still not budging. I’ll tell you, I almost wish I still had my stalls. I’d offer him a killer price and take the horse off his hands. But then even if I did, I don’t know what I’d do with it. I asked Randy and he said Shifting Gears is full.”
“What we need,” Tom said, “is a transition barn; somewhere to put these horses in the meantime.”
“Do you mean there’s more than one,” Dawn asked.
“I’ll bet there’s one in every barn,” Tom said, “Particularly this time of year.”
Dawn sighed.
“What about Brubaker’s old stalls?” Tom asked.
Ben looked at him. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying,” Tom said. “Thoroughbreds need transition time anyway. Why not have a barn, half a barn, whatever, where these types of horses can go?”
“And who takes care of them, who feeds them?”
“You’re starting to sound like Spears,” Tom said.
Ben held his hands out. “You know he’s going to ask.”
“Yeah, I know.”
The four of them turned when they saw Wendy coming down the shedrow, looking every bit the horseperson, except for when she would duck and shy if a horse rushed its stall webbing. She had a notepad in her hand.
Tom smiled, a smile that took Dawn somewhat by surprise. “Oh my God, Tom, you really are in love, aren’t you?”
“Big time,” he said.
“Okay,” Wendy said, approaching them. “I’m no artist, but…I’ve been thinking and thinking. We need a slogan.” She dodged B-Bo, who lunged at her playfully, mouth open. “We need a more positive image.”
All four of them looked at her, no argument there from any of them.
“Now, again, I’m not an artist. But I think you’ll get the gist of it. This is a sketch for our new program.”
“New program?” Ben said, motioning for her to hand it to him.
She gave it to him and held her breath.
Across the top of the page read, “Nottingham Downs” and underneath it, “Where Thoroughbreds Reign and are Never Forgotten”
Winning Odds Trilogy Page 75