B-Bo was 7-2. Switch and Slide was 2-1. The race was a mile and 1/16th.
“The horses are in the gate.”
Dawn glanced up at the office window. Wendy had her binoculars poised for the start of the race.
“And they’re off! Taking the early lead is Switch and Slide.”
The horses passed in front of the grandstand for the first time in a tight pack, hooves thundering.
“It’s Switch and Slide in the lead by half a length. Then it’s Paper Money, Native Beau Born and on the rail moving up to third is Fortunate Factor. Two lengths back it’s Happy To See You and Next Time Around.”
“What did they run the first quarter in?” Ben asked.
Dawn looked. “23.4.” She did a double take at how hard Ben was squinting to try to see. “The half in 46.3.”
Ben nodded. “Good, good.”
“On the outside it’s Fortunate Factor and a length back it’s Native Beau Born.”
“What’s he doing?” Ben asked.
“He’s….” Dawn stretched to see over the tote board. “He’s coming. He’s making a move.”
“Into the far turn it is Switch and Slide, Paper Money and making a move, Native Beau Born.”
“Come on, B-Bo!” Dawn said. “Come on, B-Bo!” Then, “Oh no!”
“What?” Ben said, grabbing her arm.
“He got cut off! Damn! Wait, he’s coming back!”
“Challenging the leader it’s Native Beau Born. Switch and Slide and Native Beau Born battling for the lead. Switch and Slide, Native Beau Born, neck to neck, head to head, nose to nose. Switch and Slide and Native Beau Born. It’s Switch and Slide at the wire!! Ladies and gentlemen hold onto your tickets. There is a photo finish.”
“Did he get up?” Ben asked.
“I don’t think so,” Dawn said. At the moment she was more concerned with how little Ben could see. No wonder he’d been so worried.
“How’s he pulling up?”
“Good. He’s good. Tom’s got him.”
Switch and Slide was posted as the winner. B-Bo placed second. Paper Money finished third. Happy To See You ran fourth. Dawn walked around the winner’s circle to the track, took hold of B-Bo as Juan dismounted, and followed Tom as he led B-Bo over to the spit barn. Ben waited for Juan to weigh in and walked with him toward the jocks’ room.
“He don’t get stopped Ben, he win easy! He have his A-game today!”
Ben thanked him, patted him on the back, and walked on. He hoped the horse came back all right. Randy was hoping the same thing. He got out of his truck studying all four of B-Bo’s legs as Tom and Red led him off the racetrack. “Shit,” he said, under his breath. B-Bo had a big cut on the inside of his left hind leg, dripping blood pretty heavily.
He looked at Dawn. She’d be seeing it soon enough. He waited until the rest of the horses passed in front of him and then drove the back way to the Miller barn. Ben was just coming down the shedrow. Randy got out of the truck, gathered some supplies, and was ready when he got paged to the spit barn. “Dr. Iredell, please report to the test barn. Dr. Iredell, please report to the test barn.”
Ben climbed into the passenger seat with a cooler-blanket for the horse. Randy handed him the supplies. “He’s got a pretty good gash on the inside of his left hind.”
Ben rode along in silence, got out, arms held tight around the blanket and supplies, and followed Randy into the spit barn.
“Aw, Jesus,” Randy said.
“Does he need stitches?” Ben asked.
Tom held B-Bo with Dawn standing at his side.
“Maybe not. We’ll see.”
Randy signed a treatment form and they all followed Tom and B-Bo to the wash area. “Just cold water,” Randy said out of habit. He dabbed at the wound. B-Bo kicked out at him and he dabbed again.
Ben leaned down to look and then stepped back. “Did I see bone?”
“Yeah,” Randy said.
Ben walked over to a bench and sat down. No sense getting in the way, he said to himself. The track veterinarian came out and drew blood from B-Bo. Randy covered the gash to isolate it and taped it at the top and bottom to keep it from getting any wetter. The horse was given a drink and a quick bath. Tom scraped B-Bo off. Dawn retrieved the blanket from Ben and they all went inside the spit barn. The horse was given another drink of water and Dawn started walking him around the shedrow. As soon as Dawn put the horse in a stall so he could pee, he produced a urine sample. Though it wasn’t needed, since the track vet had already gotten a blood sample, the attendant tagged it anyway.
Ben signed the test form and Dawn walked the horse back to their barn. Tom and Red walked alongside. Randy and Ben followed in the truck. “Do you want me to keep walking him?” Dawn asked.
Randy listened to B-Bo’s breathing, gave him an injection, and stepped back. “A couple more times.” Tom untacked Red and put him away. While Dawn was walking B-Bo down the backside of the barn Tom fed the other horses. Ben finished B-Bo’s stall, bed it down, hung his haynet and filled his water bucket. Randy gathered his head-mount LED light and more supplies from his truck. No one said the obvious. An injury this severe could be the end of a horse’s racing career.
B-Bo didn’t seem to care much about the gash on his leg. Once he was put in his stall, he buckled his knees, took a couple of good rolls in the straw, stood up, circled, went back down and rolled again, stood and shook off, and then walked over to his haynet and started eating.
Randy went to work on the horse’s leg. “I’m glad you were here,” Dawn said, down on her knees next to him in the straw.
“So what do you think? Is it going to need stitches?”
“I don’t think so, Ben. It’s almost right on the shin. I’m going to butterfly it.” He adjusted the light, applied adhesive staples, sprayed the area with an antibiotic ointment and motioned for Dawn to hand him a non-sticky pad and then the cotton wrap and ace bandage. Dawn did B-Bo’s other three legs up. It was standard procedure to do a horse up all fours after a race.
Randy gathered up everything.
“Should we take him home?” Ben asked.
“No, I don’t think so. Let’s not even go there yet. This is B-Bo, remember. He’s got the temperament of a horse that helps to heal himself.”
Ben nodded. B-Bo had had his share of mishaps, but mostly on the farm, and they always healed quickly. “I’ll see you guys at dinner,” Randy said. Dawn walked with him to the truck, and there, gave him a brief update on the evening plan for T-Bone’s Place.
“Ah, bet Dad’s raring to go.”
Dawn smiled and just looked at him.
“What?” he said.
“Helping you just now reminded me of when we first met.”
Randy put his arms around her and pulled her close. “I’ll see you at home. If I’m late, go ahead and eat dinner without me. I’ll be home eventually.”
~ * ~
Liz had made fried chicken, oven fries, and coleslaw for everyone and had it all set up at Ben’s farmhouse. As a treat for being so exceptionally well-behaved, the children were allowed to sit together at their own table with no adults.
Glenda had run off copies of the list of projects to be completed at T-Bone’s Place and they all sat hashing over who was going to do what and which tasks should be tackled first. It was a loud affair, arms in the air, passing food, talking strategy. Judging from the list, there was a lot of painting that needed done. Linda, Glenda, Dawn, Wendy, and Liz opted to do the painting.
“Do we want to each take a room or work all together as a unit?” Wendy asked. “By the way, Matthew, you’re staying home.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. Ben, would you mind staying here with Matthew?”
“I don’t need anybody to stay with me?”
“Oh yeah? Well, I do,” his mother insisted.
“I say we each take a room,” Linda said, trying to change the subject and avoid a confrontation. “Let’s see a show of hands.”
All the women raised their hands, Carol included, even though she’d be on child duty and wouldn’t actually be there physically to help. “I just like having my say.” When the dogs all started barking, Tom leaned back in his chair to look out the window. “It’s our resident veterinarian.”
After he fussed over the dogs, Randy came in and washed up at the sink. “I just stopped and checked on B-Bo. He’s doing good.” He tapped each child on the head in passing and sat down next to Dawn. “Ooh, fried chicken.”
“All right, so we’ll each pick a room to paint,” Glenda said, studying the list. “Dawn, since you’re the tallest, I think you should take the living room. It’s got the highest ceiling. If we get done with the other rooms first, we’ll come help you finish. You might want to start at the top. George, we need ladders or buckets to stand on.”
“Pass the coleslaw, please,” Senior said.
“Do we have more fries?” Dusty asked.
“Yep, there’s a whole other tray.” Liz retrieved it from the oven where she’d been keeping it warm and refilled the platter.
“Ketchup! Ketchup! Ketchup!” D.R. said.
Randy looked at him. “Do you want more Ketchup or are you just singing its praises?”
The children laughed. “Daddy. You’re so silly. I want more Ketchup?”
“Please?”
“Please.”
“Pease. Pease,” Maeve and Maria echoed.
Tom passed the boy the bottle of Ketchup. “Here you go, little man.”
D.R. poured Ketchup on his fries and then poured some on Maeve’s and Maria’s. Not too much and not too little, to everyone’s amazement.
“Say thank you,” Dawn said.
“Tank you,” the girls sang.
“So, Son.” Senior said. “Are you home for the night?”
“Well, I should be.” Randy snuck a dramatic peek at his phone. “Yep, so far so good.”
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Wendy said. “You just reminded me. There’s a recent grad coming to see you Monday morning. He’s just out of vet school.”
“A recent grad,” Randy said. “No.”
“No wait, listen,” Wendy said. “He’s thirty-seven years old. He was a Standardbred trainer for years and decided to become a vet.”
Randy looked at her. “Seriously? Cool. Where’s he from?”
“Arizona I think. Or was it Arkansas? Anyway, he’s driving.”
“Is he good-looking and single?” Linda asked.
They all chuckled. “I don’t know,” Wendy said. “I suppose I should have asked.”
“I would think so,” Linda said. “Who cares if he might not know the difference between a Thoroughbred and a Standardbred? A lot of people don’t. If he’s single, let’s not even think of holding that against him. Okay?”
Everyone laughed.
“Eat up,” Senior said. “We have lots of work to do. Time’s a wasting!”
~ * ~
The Amish crew had all the boards cut to size for the front and back wheelchair ramps and railings. According to the notations, it basically would be just a matter of screwing all the boards and rails together and installing them. Simple, the women thought. However, the exact process of how to go about it was cause for a lengthy debate amongst the men.
“Do we put them both all together and just attach them or build it as we go along?”
The women had the painting underway. “You gotta see this,” Glenda said. The five of them looked out the window and laughed. There the men all stood as if suspended in time, tool belts strapped on, sharpened pencils behind their ears, and at a complete standstill. They hadn’t even begun yet.
Once the men determined their course of action, the handicap ramps went up quickly, front and back. They had to have just the right pitch; each board had to be level. Too steep an incline could prove dangerous; wheelchairs rolling too fast on the way down, too much of a struggle on the way up. Then, they installed a new railing on the back porch, extra bracing for added support in the event one of the old-timers leaned heavily on it for balance. They installed outdoor slip guards on the side steps. They measured and cut railings for the hallways, stained them and set them aside to dry. They cut all the ceiling molding and floor trim boards, stained those and set them aside to dry as well.
Ben and Matthew took a walk over to check on the progress. “The blind leading the blind,” Ben said. The dogs followed them there and back. There were horses grazing all around in the pastures, the night sky clear, the stars bright, a crescent moon. No traffic, no street lights, and the further they walked, the sounds of distant hammering, buzz-sawing, and home-building for the old-timers.
Just after eleven, Senior announced it was time to call it a night. “We want to get an early start tomorrow.” They’d have a smaller crew for most of the day. Tom, Dawn, Dusty, and Randy wouldn’t be home until the evening. Gordon would be home around noon. “We have a lot more to do if we’re going to even get close to making headway.”
Chapter Sixteen
Tom arrived at the barn at the track first and looked in on B-Bo then started down the shedrow toward the tack room. “What?” He glanced ahead. There was a note taped to the door with Vetwrap.
DO NOT DISTURB!!!
He glanced at the latch, lock missing, and opened the door. “What the hell?”
Junior and Lucy were curled up together, asleep on the cot, covered in horse blankets. “Hey,” Junior said, waking and sitting up.
“Do not disturb?” Tom asked.
“Well, I didn’t want you just opening the door and scaring yourself to death.”
“How’d you get in here?”
“I know where the key is,” Junior said, yawning. “We didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
Tom was just about to lit into the boy in his customary manner, but Lucy stirred and woke up and looked so pathetic. Tom shook his head. This was her future? Junior?
“Here.” Tom took a ten dollar bill out of his wallet. “Go get something at the kitchen to eat.”
Lucy had just sat up, and at the mention of food covered her mouth. Junior reached for a bucket quick.
“Oh, geez,” Tom said.
When Dawn arrived a few minutes later Tom shared the story with her. “Where are they now?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I guess up at the kitchen. Junior was still standing outside the ladies room a few minutes ago. He’s gone now.”
“It was cold last night.”
Tom just looked at her.
“What are they going to do?” Dawn asked, pouring herself a cup of coffee.
“I don’t know. It’s not my problem.”
“Did you ever hear the story of the Convenient Christian?”
“Don’t go there, Dawn. You’re as bad as Ben. You two don’t play fair at all.”
She looked at the training chart. “Will he be back to gallop Whinny?”
“I guess so. Why wouldn’t he be?’
Ben walked in behind them, heard the story, and shook his head. Though usually light by now, it was still dark out, rain in the forecast. They heard the sound of distant thunder and swung into action. They only had one horse to track today, the rest to walk. Wee Born was in the third race and Bo-T the ninth race feature. He was favored to win.
“I’ll get Bo-T out now,” Tom said, hoping to get him handwalked before the storm bore down on them. The colt was difficult enough to handwalk the morning of a race, let alone with fireworks lighting up in the sky. “We’ll save B-Bo and Batgirl for last.”
Randy arrived at the barn a few minutes later and checked for abnormal swelling in B-Bo’s leg. There was a little edema above and below the bandage. “I’ll be back this afternoon to change the dressing.”
Dawn cleaned one stall after another as fast as she could. The wind was picking up, the dark cloud of rain just over the horizon. “Where’s Junior?” Tom asked, muscling Bo-T around the corner of the shedrow the final lap.
“He’s here. I just saw him,” Be
n called from down the shedrow. Dawn was cleaning stalls and he was bedding them.
“Have him tack up Whinny,” Tom said.
“I got it,” Junior said, following right behind him with Whinny’s bridle and exercise saddle. “Red’s all ready.”
“What?”
“I said Red’s ready!” Here came the rain, pelting the metal roof, sending horses bucking and kicking and bouncing around in their stalls and charging their stall webbings.
“You all right, old man?” Tom called out to Ben.
“I’m fine!” Thankfully he was bedding B-Bo’s stall right then. Nothing rattled B-Bo.
“Dawn?”
“I’m fine!” she yelled, ducking out of Alley’s stall just in time. “I’m fine!” The mare bucked and squealed.
Tom put Bo-T in his stall and shut the bottom Dutch door just in case the horse took to charging the webbing. It would prove no match against Bo-T’s strength and determination. He walked down to the tack room, dodging other grooms, trainers, and hotwalkers trying to lead their sky-high horses, and put on his rain gear. “Let’s go!” he said to Dawn and Junior as he mounted Red. Dawn gave the young man a leg-up and led Whinny out to where Tom and Red stood waiting.
“Old man, stay here, all right?” Tom yelled.
Ben waved, not about to argue for once. If it started lightning, they’d close the track anyway. There wasn’t any yet, but the skies were getting darker and darker. He couldn’t see as it was, let alone in a raging downpour.
~ * ~
Linda’s major task of filling in at the Secretary’s office that morning was heading off trainers wanting to scratch their horses because of the rain. “I wish you wouldn’t. I understand, however….” The rain was supposed to let up by noon. Nottingham Downs’ track surface was “state of the art” when it came to weather conditions and good drainage. She repeated that fact many times. “Don’t tell me. I know that track better than anyone.” A flash flood in the morning and it could be a hard fast track by race time. Fortunately, by eight o’clock and the end of scratch time, only five horses had dropped out of today’s card.
All in all, she survived the process relatively unscathed. “Guess my old kick-ass reputation comes in handy for something,” she told Wendy on the phone. “I just took the list upstairs to the printer. How are things going there?”
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