Winning Odds Trilogy

by MaryAnn Myers

  Gordon got out of the truck and smacked Randy on the arm in passing. Randy looked at Ben and Dusty. “Where have you guys been?” It was fairly commonplace to run into one another on the way out in the morning, but usually not at night.

  “I was at the hospital.”

  “Any change?”

  “No.”

  “Is Tom there?”

  “Yeah.”

  They both looked at Dusty. “What about you?” Randy asked. “Anything I need to know?”

  “No, I was just checking on the horses. They’re fine, all except for Disco Dan. He’s restless.”

  “I don’t blame him. I would be too,” Randy said. After another set of x-rays, they would make a decision tomorrow. The three of them said good night and walked toward their respective homes. “My mom and dad are back,” Randy said, a short distance away. “Everything’s fine.”

  Dusty and Ben waved. Good news for a change.

  Chapter Five

  Every horse in the Miller barn was scheduled to go to the racetrack. Tom had spent the night at the hospital with Wendy and Matthew, but arrived at Nottingham Downs at his usual time in the morning. Dawn arrived shortly after that and then Ben. Tom had coffee brewing, had fed the horses, and was tacking Red.

  “No news,” he said. “They’re cutting back on the sedative and think around noon he should start coming out of it providing all goes well.”

  Dusty arrived a few minutes later and then here came Junior. Tom walked past the young man without so much as a glance.

  “Who do you want me to get on first?” Junior asked.

  “Do you know how to read? Go read the training chart?” Tom said.

  Junior looked at him. “What the fuck’s wrong with you? The training chart doesn’t tell me who goes first?” The boy made the mistake of absentmindedly pulling out his cellphone at that precise moment and Tom grabbed it out of his hand.

  “Do you know what you could do with this?”

  Ben stepped in. “Tom, enough.”

  “Do we need him?” Tom said. “Do we really need him?”

  When Junior reached for his phone, Tom slipped it into his shirt pocket. ‘I’ll give it back to you when you’re done. How’s that?”

  “How’s you go fuck yourself! Give me my phone, dammit!”

  Tom held both arms out, challenging him. “Come on, go ahead. I’d like nothing more than to kick your sorry ass all the way down the shedrow.”

  “And scare the horses,” Dawn said, getting between them. “I don’t think so. Give me his phone. Now! I mean it, Tom! Give me the phone.”

  Tom hesitated, looking from her to Junior, then Ben, then Dusty. “Tom,” Dawn repeated. “Give-me-the-phone.”

  Ben looked up from his desk when Tom finally handed the phone to Dawn and shook his head. “Get Whinny out first.”

  Dawn gave Junior his phone. “Put it away,” she said, in the same tone she’d just used on Tom. “Put-it-a-way.”

  Junior tucked his phone into his pocket and walked into the tack room to get the exercise saddle and Whinny’s bridle. Dawn did the mare’s legs up in felt bandages for galloping and brushed her off. Whinny, a five-year old mare whose registered name was Winning Beau, was probably going to be retired to breeding after this year. Sired by Beau Born, she was a sweet mare and had done really well for Dawn and Ben. A little headstrong in the morning when going to the track, she always had to be ponied.

  Tom mounted Red outside and sat waiting for Whinny and Junior. Dawn gave Junior a leg-up and led the mare around the shedrow. Ben walked out to talk to Tom.

  “Listen,” he said. “I never had any children, so I’m no expert on this. But if you keep telling that boy he’s a piece of shit, then that’s what he’s going to turn out to be.”

  “I’m not his dad.”

  “He looks up to you. We all know what his dad’s like. Cut the kid some slack. Okay?”

  “What are you, Dr. Phil now all of a sudden?”

  Ben smiled. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

  Tom laughed. “Oh, now you’re going to throw the Bible at me. That’s low.”

  “Whatever it takes,” Ben said, backing up as Dawn led Whinny and Junior out from under the shedrow. The boy winced as he snapped his helmet strap. His jaw was still sore. Whinny bucked and squealed. Tom looped the lead through the D-ring on her bridle. Ben followed along behind them at a safe distance. Another buck. Another squeal.

  “Hey, Tom,” Brubaker said in passing.

  Tom nodded.

  Junior stood in his stirrups to balance them, adjusted his helmet, and stroked Whinny’s neck. “Good girl, good girl.”

  The mare pricked her ears back and forth.

  “That’s a good girl.”

  Tom ignored them both. Horses and ponies and grooms and trainers were coming and going to the racetrack all around them. Red was all business, glowering at the ponies, shrugging off Whinny, head down and all puffed up. A loose horse ran off the racetrack.

  “Be tied on,” Tom said.

  “I’m always tied on,” Junior said.

  “Loose horse,” Tom yelled, glancing over his shoulder.

  Ben stepped back against the side of one of the barns. Just about everyone on foot did. Whinny started bucking even more. Bucking, squealing, and trying to rear. Tom tapped her on the top of her head and she shied, but came back down on all fours.

  “Loose horse!” Several people shouted. “Loose horse!”

  “Whoa! Whoa!” Buck Davidson attempted to stop the horse and it almost bowled him over. He ducked out of the way just in time. “Whoa! Whoa!”

  The horse’s reins were flapping, stirrups…snap snap flap flap!

  Whinny tried rearing again. Tom brought her back down.

  “Whoa, whoa… That a boy! Whoa, whoa….” Digger almost got hold of the loose horse’s rein, but the horse made a sudden turn and headed back in the opposite direction, straight toward Whinny. She squealed, she bucked, she snorted, gnashed at the bit, squealed and bucked some more. And all the while Junior just grinned. He was in the saddle, up out of the saddle, sitting back down, up, down. Whinny kicked out with both hinds legs. The horse stopped just shy of her and one of Nelson’s grooms grabbed hold of its rein. Caught!

  Trainers, jockeys, owners, grooms, exercise riders, all calmed their own horses. Normalcy quickly returned. Tom glanced at Junior, just a glance, no compliment per se, but for an understanding in their eyes. Junior was good. He knew it and Tom knew it.

  “Yep, Lucy is a lucky lady,” the boy said. “A ride like that puts a big smile on her face every time.”

  Tom shook his head and sighed. This kid was surely a punishment from God for all those years of his being just like Junior - or worse. They jogged onto the racetrack at the gap by the track kitchen amidst heavy horse traffic. Whinny kicked out again and again. “Heads up!” Tom warned everyone in striking distance. “Heads up!”

  Customarily when entering the racetrack, horses were walked or trotted on the outside rail for a short distance in the opposite direction of the horses training and then turned around to either gallop or pony. In theory, this strategy kept a horse from walking onto the racetrack and galloping right off.

  Tom turned Whinny and Junior around just this side of the grandstand and kept a good hold of Whinny until Junior gave him the nod. Ben stood in the relatively-new Ginny stand built up by the kitchen. There were times his legs bothered him and he’d stand outside and spare himself climbing up the steps inside. Today he walked right up without even thinking about it. He smiled at Junior as the boy and Whinny galloped past. The mare had her head tucked, a good hold of the bit, and was wide-eyed and aggressive. When she approached another horse, she’d pin her ears. Her ears were pinned at the wire in every win picture they had of her.

  Ben had mixed feelings about retiring Whinny this year. She was still competitive, running allowance races, and sound. But she was also a phenomenal broodmare prospect. She was slated to be bred to
Robo Racer her first heat cycle in February next year. Ben had always wanted to have a foal sired by a Seattle Slew stallion.

  “Hey, Ben,” Bill Squire said. A fellow trainer, owner, and HBPA official, when Ben and Dawn first bought the racetrack, Bill was one of the few trainers that didn’t turn tail early on. Not that he was totally supportive. In fact, he was rather skeptical overall. But he took a wait-and-see attitude, and so far so good. “Joe’s running around the Secretary’s office like a chicken with his head cut off.”

  “What about?” Ben asked, only half-listening. Joe was always running around like a chicken with his head cut off as far as Ben was concerned. He’d been that way for years. Apparently it was just his way.

  “He says no one’s running the racetrack.”

  Ben looked at him.

  “He says he’s been left to do it all.”

  “I see,” Ben said. “You think he’s fishing for a raise?”

  Bill laughed. Ben laughed too. By this time Whinny and Junior were galloping down the stretch and Tom was positioned on the backstretch to help pull her up and lead them back to the barn.

  Bill’s horse passed in front of the Ginny stand. A big dark brown gelding with a white blaze. Ben nodded to Johnny, the jockey riding him. Johnny held up his hand. Five more and he’d be down to the Miller barn to work Bo-T.

  Whinny galloped out strong. Ben watched her pull up, patted Bill on the back in passing and walked down the steps and out to the rail. When Tom was close enough to see him, Ben motioned he was going over to the grandstand to the Secretary’s office.

  Joe Feigler looked up when Ben entered the room and shook his head. “We have problems.”

  “Oh?” Ben said. Surely Joe wasn’t going to discuss this in front of the two trainers standing at the counter.

  “First,” Joe said.

  “I’ll be right back.” Ben headed toward the men’s room as a decoy. Oh, the games he’s had to learn to play these past few years. He didn’t like playing games. But as Richard pointed out, sometimes you have to put your personal feelings aside “For the good of the herd.”

  Ben chuckled to himself remembering the day Richard said that. “What do you know about the good of the herd?”

  “Not much,” Richard had replied. “But I know you do and that’s my point.”

  Ben looked forward to Richard’s return. As he walked down the hall to the men’s room, he took out his cellphone and speed-dialed Joe, another skill he’d honed the past couple of years.

  “Yes, Ben?”

  “Meet me in the lower office.”

  “When?”

  “Now.”

  Joe Feigler was there in a flash. “What’s the matter? What’s going on?”

  “Sit down,” Ben said.

  “Why?”

  Ben looked at the man. “Okay, then stand.”

  Joe sat down on the edge of the seat across from Ben’s desk. Both the lower and upper offices had desks for all three of them, Ben, Richard, and Wendy. Ben preferred the lower office. He could see the racetrack from the grandstand-sized window and….

  “Ben?”

  “Right,” Ben said, with a sigh. “I hear tell you’re feeling a little overworked.”

  “I didn’t say that. Who said that?”

  Ben sat back, studying the man for a moment.

  “If anybody said that, they’re lying. I never said that.”

  “Calm down, Joe, okay. Let’s just relax.”

  There was a knock on the open door and in walked Linda Dillon.

  “What are you doing home?” Ben said, smiling.

  “Didn’t you hear?”

  “Hear what?”

  “They closed down Erie.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “No.” She sat down next to Joe. “Hi.”

  Joe nodded. Everyone on the backside of the racetrack was aware of how “tight” Linda had gotten with ownership-management. Word was she was practically like family.

  “Does this mean you’re looking for a job,” Ben said. “Joe here could use some help, at least for a few days till Wendy gets back.”

  “Where is Wendy?” Linda asked.

  Ben glanced at Joe before answering. “Her son’s in the hospital. We’ll know more today.”

  “Matthew or Gordon?” Linda asked.

  “Matthew. I’ll keep you posted. Where’s uh….?”

  “At the farm.”

  “All right,” Ben said, standing. “I’ve got to get out to the track. Meanwhile, see what you can do to help Joe.”

  “I don’t need any help,” Joe said, in a rather indignant tone.

  “Well, I do. Fill in wherever you can,” Ben told Linda. “Entries, the phone in here, wherever. I gotta go.” It was a long walk to the gap by the Ginny stand. Ben was a little winded by the time he got there, but not nearly as much as he thought he would be considering he’d rushed. He looked down the road between the barns, looked long and hard, squinting, and finally here came Tom and Red, leading Bo-T, Johnny on board.

  Ben climbed the stairs to the Ginny stand and sat down next to Amadou.

  “Mornin’, Mon!”

  “Morning.” Ben nodded.

  “What you know?”

  “Not much,” Ben said. “How about you?” Bo-T walked onto the track as if he owned it, and in a way he did. He still held the track record for 6 ½ furlongs and probably would have won the Ohio Derby last year had Ben not had to scratch him the morning of the race due to a stall injury.

  Amadou pointed. “Your horse, Mon. He no fear.”

  “No, no fear.”

  Johnny adjusted his goggles and looked at Ben. Ben motioned for him to take it easy.

  “He give heart.”

  Ben agreed. Bo-T literally put his head in the air and sniffed as a filly passed by close on the rail. “Oh, for a crystal ball,” Ben said. Bo-T being a four-year-old was still considered a colt, but had stallion written all over him from the time he was a yearling.

  “Too much testosterone,” Randy always said of him practically from the time he was born. “Way too much.”

  Ben wasn’t interested in having two stallions standing at stud on his farm. Beau Born was plenty enough. He’d had offers on the colt, but as Dawn flatly stated, “Bo-T is not for sale.” Ben sighed. Bo-T was now giving thought to trying to mount Red.

  Amadou pointed and laughed a deep laugh. “Ah! Bad boy, bad boy, what you gonna do!”

  Ben nodded.

  “Far be it for me to argue,” Ben had said to Dawn. “Who knows how much longer I’ll be on this earth.”

  Dawn laughed at that. “You’re going to live forever. And he’s still not for sale.” At this point in time, he had her half-talked into leasing him to Breezeway Farm. “He’ll get a shot at some really nice old mares and a few young ones.”

  “We’ll see,” Dawn said.

  “It’s either that or the alternative,” Randy had teased. “When it comes time to bring him home for good, he’s not going to be happy with all those mares around. If you want to turn him into a pasture buddy for Poncho and Biscuit, I have the technology.”

  Leasing him for stud was a good option.

  “And may Beau Born live forever,” Ben said.

  “What?” Amadou asked.

  “Nothing. I was just thinking out loud. I just don’t want any more heartache. Some things I’d rather not live long enough to see.”

  “I know the saying,” Amadou said. “I do not believe in it. No, Mon..”

  Ben shook his head. Even from this far away, he could see Bo-T fighting Johnny, fighting Tom. “Just a little more. Just a little more. All right.”

  “You got him?” Tom asked Johnny, glancing over his shoulder. It was all clear, no horses coming, not that they’d catch up anyway, he thought. “You ready?”

  When Johnny nodded and Tom let them go, Bo-T took off as if he’d been shot out of a cannon. Ben lost sight of him until the horse was coming down the stretch. Ben always had a horse worked an eighth o
f a mile past the wire; his old-school rule of not wanting a horse to get in the habit of pulling up at the wire. Ben picked up the clocker’s phone hung on the wall of the Ginny stand.

  “48 and 2/5ths, Ben.”

  “Thank you.”

  Ben waited until Tom helped Johnny pull up Bo-T and headed toward the barn. When he glanced ahead, it puzzled him to see Dawn. He hadn’t seen her at first, and then there she was standing practically in front of him.

  “Matthew’s coming out of it.”

  “It’s too early. Is he okay?”

  Dawn hesitated, glancing over his shoulder at Tom as he approached with Bo-T. “They don’t know. Wendy needs him there.”

  Tom saw the look in her eyes, dismounted and handed Red to Ben, Bo-T to Dawn. Johnny had dismounted at the gap to get on another horse right away.

  “Is he awake?”

  Dawn nodded.

  “You got him?” Tom asked, of Bo-T.

  “Yes,” Dawn said. “Go.”

  Tom didn’t even stop to take off his chaps and arrived at the hospital in less than twenty minutes. Gordon was standing by his mother’s side, both looking down at Matthew. Two nurses hovered over their patient. Monitors were beeping, the breathing machine hissing.

  “What’s going on?” Tom asked.

  “Something’s not right,” Wendy whispered, not wanting Matthew to hear. “Something’s….”

  “No,” Matthew said. “No.”

  “No what, Son?” Wendy asked instinctively. “No what?”

  “No.”

  The nurses looked at her, glanced over their shoulders watching for the doctor, looked at Wendy again, and stood waiting, ready to administer more sedation.

  “No.”

  “What’s happening?” Tom asked the nurses.

  Both shook their heads, watching the monitors, watching Matthew, another glance of concern at Wendy, another glance at the door.

  Tom stepped forward. “Matthew,” he said. “Calm down, Son. Calm down.” When he touched Matthew’s arm, Matthew jerked and then started trembling.

  “Maybe don’t touch him,” one of the nurses said.

  “No,” Tom said.

  “No,” Matthew said.

  Tom gripped Matthew’s hand.