He chuckled, and before I knew it, the call was over.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Clients
The phone rang the next evening, and I answered it with glee. Alexander making the call! He hardly ever called; he left me to do the honors. He misses me, he misses me, I thought, hugging the phone close to my cheek.
But he was all business tonight. “I’m sending you a client,” Alexander said. “To look at youngsters at Fasig-Tipton. You can show him what you like best.”
This should have been good news, of course. His tone was expectant, waiting for my words of thanks for this wonderful opportunity.
“A client,” I repeated, trying to imagine finding the time and energy to deal with a needy, demanding human with lots of money and absolutely no sense. Sunset was flooding the room with yellow and orange and I was counting the moments until it sank below the tree line and troubled me no more. I wanted darkness and sleep, as many hours as I could cram in before the morning came to claim me again. It had been such a long day, a morning at the barn, an afternoon at the races, a desperate attempt to figure out where my horses belonged, where on the track they should run, who should ride them, and all the while Roddy Ellis put the moves on Kerri every time he thought my back was turned. And she responded. I saw the way she smiled at him.
She was out at a bar right now. She was probably with him.
I was starting to suspect Kerri had come to Saratoga to catch herself a man.
“A client sounds like a lot of trouble on top of trying to run the shedrow,” I suggested.
“No one you don’t know, it’s Mason Birdwell.”
I put my forehead against the cold drywall. “Mason Birdwell is coming here?”
“Alex—”
“What.”
“Darling, this is trainer stuff. Clients and picking out horses you want to train and convincing them to buy them … that’s part of the game! This is the thing you want to be doing.”
He didn’t say this is what you said you wanted. Because he knew it would be an infuriating, chiding thing to say. I appreciated that.
“Mason makes me tired. And I’m already tired.”
“He wants a few yearlings to send to Florida. So he’s a year closer to running, since he’ll only have weanlings this fall. And that mad black horse at Littlefield fell through.”
“Right.” At least he’d agreed that the man-eater should not come back to Cotswold to train. And he would have twenty-two yearlings on the ground next year. That was pretty impressive. That was actually kind of insane. But he’d have nothing ready to run unless he bought older horses. And he wanted them, so he would have them. Who knew scented candles could bring such riches?
So I would be sailing into Fasig-Tipton ready to drop a few million tea lights on nice babies. I supposed it wasn’t the worst thing in the world. Might actually be a good time now that I thought about it. I’d always enjoyed the sales, scoping out the babies, looking for the hidden gems and the diamonds in the rough that other horsemen might overlook. Yes. This could be fun! Spending a millionaire’s money! What wasn’t to like? And who needed sleep? “Thank you for trusting me with this, love,” I said warmly, and I meant it. “What hip numbers are we meant to be looking at?” I opened the little paperback catalog that had been sitting on my desk, gathering dust all week, and uncapped a pen.
***
Despite his extraordinary name, there was nothing to set Mason Birdwell apart from any other businessman. A nondescript black suit, a nondescript unfit, unfat body, a nondescript clammy face climbing out of a nondescript black car. Granted, the car was a BMW, but there was nothing to set it apart from any other monochromatic luxury sedan. Just another rich guy without much imagination, buying the trappings of wealth without putting any real thought or expression into it other than “I’m rich, bitch!”
I had never had any fondness for guys like him, but they were my generation’s face of horse racing. The sport of kings, indeed. Half the time I felt like it was the sport of personal-injuries lawyers and soft drinks manufacturers and investment bankers. Which wasn’t fair to them, of course; I had met some perfectly nice lawyers and manufacturers and bankers. But I’d met quite a few who were only there to smile in the winner’s circle, too, enough to color my opinion of every owner who ever showed up in a black luxury sedan.
To be fair, Mason had been a pleasantly hands-off owner. I barely knew him, and that was impressive considering the number of horses I took care of for him. He had done most of the arrangements for his mares over the phone. Most of that had been his secretary talking to our secretary. Breeding contracts were sent by fax and returned promptly with the required signatures; bank deposits for the princely sums we billed him each month were prompt and his checks never bounced. Vet bills were not questioned. There were no wild queries as to why a pastured broodmare might need shoes or late-night phone calls disputing charges for vitamins. He was actually an ideal owner. I’d only met him once, when he’d toured the farm, and then he’d only spoken to Alexander while I drove them around in the golf cart.
These were all validating reasons for the unusually profane text message Alexander sent me the next day, when he knew I was planning to meet Mason Birdwell at the barn. Please be nice and do not fuck this up. That wasn’t exactly a common way for Alexander to speak to me, although the f-word was a pretty normal part of the racetrack lexicon and wasn’t offensive to me. What it meant, however, was that he wasn’t altogether confident that I was going to be smooth enough, and professional enough, to finesse this owner into thinking that his arsehole was the source of sunlight and good in my world. And that, Alexander always said, was exactly what owners wanted to believe. That and that their next horse was a dead-cert for the Kentucky Derby.
(Always their next horse.)
So, Mason Birdwell, nondescript luxury car driver, scented candle tycoon, black suit-wearer, baby racehorse-owner, aspiring big dog, climbed out of his car and brushed at his suit. I noticed he dropped a napkin from his lap and ignored it. The scrap of paper went skimming across the lawn where it would probably turn into a Flapping Napkin of Death under some racehorse’s hooves tomorrow. Then he slammed the car door shut; he didn’t shut it gently so that no horses would be spooked. The good impressions I had been ready to form of him dissipated. I hate you already, Mason Birdwell, I thought, and pointedly walked after the napkin, still blowing enthusiastically in the afternoon breeze, without so much as a nod in his direction. He waited by his car while I retrieved it. Mason Birdwell was happy to wait, his folded hands and cheerful smile conveyed. Mason Birdwell was a reasonable man when dealing with his servants.
His servants? I shook my head. I needed to get a hold of myself. Don’t fuck this up, Alex, I reminded myself, because Alexander had been absolutely correct, as usual. Thirty broodmares! Twenty-two foals! The prospect of half a dozen new yearlings, with any luck, from the best blood in the country! In short, the mother lode. Be nice, Alex. I shoved the napkin, noticing it came from a chicken restaurant which used as their logo an alarming image of an apocalyptic, wide-eyed chicken grinning from atop a spinning globe, presumably having taken over the world by luring its citizens into contented obesity, deep into my jeans pocket and walked back to the unperturbed Mason Birdwell, holding out a hand I’d washed for just this occasion. It still smelled of menthol liniment but that really couldn’t be helped. “You must be Mr. Birdwell,” I said, as warmly as I could. “I’m Alex.”
I noticed the slightest bit of hesitation before he took my hand; did he pause to examine it, to see if it was clean or smeared, in the usual equestrian fashion, with horse snot and molasses and vitamin supplements? I couldn’t be sure. There was no doubt about the medicinal odor, but it wasn’t something I found unpleasant. At any rate, his grip was firm enough, without being ridiculously tight, so he must have passed his Business Etiquette class with flying colors. And once I had asked him into the barn, he stepped into the raked perfection of the shedrow with enthusiasm, and
didn’t wrinkle his nose at the smell of manure nor sneeze at the dust of hay and straw, so I gave him extra credit for that. And when he reached out a hand and let Barn Kitty rub against his knuckles, I gave him a few more points. I watched him make love to Barn Kitty with his baby-kitty voice and finally my face relaxed into something approaching a genuine smile. “Mr. Birdwell, how have you been?”
Birdwell—we had always referred to him as Mason at home, but I had already changed to the formal in my mind-—looked up from Barn Kitty’s purring advances and smiled at me. Perfect white teeth in a perfectly white face. Like a ghost with a good dentist. He didn’t get outside much, our Mr. Birdwell, and his dramatically receding hairline was going to be as red as a beet if he didn’t wear a hat. I thought of suggesting a nice fedora. Maybe he would think it fun to dress up like a 1930s horse trainer. Maybe he’d get a brown trench coat. I enjoyed mentally dressing Mason Birdwell up as Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons. Perhaps a little too much; Birdwell’s smile faded a little as I continued to scrutinize him. I smiled quickly to cover up my slip in propriety. “We’ve been so happy with your mares … such beautiful horses and lovely foals!”
Birdwell returned to his previous, more genuine smile. “Pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Whitehall. It was a shame about Robin Redcoat. Wonder where she is now.” He said this without the least bit of curiosity. Robin Redcoat had been one of the lot of mares he’d bought in Kentucky but had not borne a foal; she’d been the victim of an infection that had left her barren, and Birdwell had left it to us to find her a new home.
And so I happened to know where she was. “She’s a therapy horse at a therapeutic riding program in St. Petersburg. The kids are already talking about dressing her up as Captain Jack Sparrow for Halloween this year.”
“Oh,” Birdwell said blankly. “That’s, um, that’s great.”
“I keep tabs on all our horses,” I said. “I have a spreadsheet.”
“I see.”
“Call me Alex, by the way.”
“Alex, yes.” Barn Kitty, high on a stack of straw bales, rubbed against his hip and he didn’t bother to pet her this time; he only brushed at the white hairs left on his suit. Had he forgotten that he was making nice with the animals in order to impress me? That had been a quick, flimsy little show. “Alex and Alexander.”
You only laugh at these things so many times.
“So, Mr. Birdwell—” he hadn’t invited me to use his first name, so I guessed we weren’t going to be that kind of owner-trainer partnership, great, great — “Want to meet the horses here, before we get down to business? I have six up here, all homebreds from Alexander and me, but I have a few open stalls available to me as well.” Not that the open stalls were relevant, since Birdwell was here to buy yearlings, but you never know … Birdwell might get the bug while he was watching some afternoon racing and decide he needed to claim a horse, or privately buy one that was already running. Gorgeous horses plus empty stalls plus a full wallet can change a mind pretty quickly. Actually, gorgeous horses plus empty stalls was all it really took. The full wallet was just a nice bonus in this case.
And, I reflected, leading Birdwell up the shedrow so that we could visit with each of the horses, as much as I had been telling myself that I wasn’t up to the responsibility or the challenge—yet—of training for someone else (let alone that of adding more horses to Kerri’s and my workload) the ambitious side of my mischievous brain was quickly taking over. My ambitious side was a problem, the side that always got me in trouble, the side that left me exhausted and burned-out and ready to run screaming for the nearest exit, the side that always repeated—and fervently believed—that this time would be different. All at once, with the prospect of my own client in the barn, I wanted this guy to get hooked on the competition and pageantry and tradition of Saratoga and insist that he couldn’t wait until next year, that he needed a horse to run now, two horses, three—and I could prove not just that I could succeed with our own homebreds but with other people’s horses. To myself, to Alexander, to everyone on the backside who had been making my life a misery. I could stand there in the winner’s circle and say I am a trainer and everyone would have to admit that it was true.
Oh, that would be amazing. That would be the culmination of a lifelong dream; that would be the beginning of a new and glorious chapter. Endings and beginnings, wasn’t that perfect? And Alexander would be so impressed and proud and, yes, surprised.
So determined, I shook my head to clear it of visions of roses and trophies and pointed out the first horse in the shed to Birdwell. We were at the top end of the barn, next to the office, and here was where the big horse lived, the first to go out in the morning, eating his hay under my watchful eye when I was doing office work: Of course it was my own darling boy, Personal Best.
Birdwell’s eyebrows shot up when he saw the colt’s brilliant white blaze turn in his direction. “Whoa—that’s some face on that horse.” He drew closer and stopped short as Personal Best, feeling wired and excited and ready for some fun, rushed at his stall webbing and reached out, neck extended like a giraffe and head turning this way and that, trying to get his big yellow teeth on that plain black suit. “Got a big personality on him, too,” Birdwell said, trying to see more than the colt’s broad chest and big-boned legs. He was trying very hard to be a horseman. I decided to be nice.
“You’re so right,” I agreed helpfully. “Big personality and a lot of run. I’m going to put him in a race next week, and we’ll see if we can get him a little black type before the end of the meet.”
“I believe it,” Birdwell said, watching Personal Best as he gave up trying to reach the man’s suit and began flinging his head up and down. “What does he want? A peppermint? The horses at the farm all like peppermints, I remember.” He was impressed with himself for recalling the candies we had put into his hand as we instructed him on the safe dispensing procedure.
“Anything he can get his lips around. He’s a very mouthy colt. Don’t reach out … you’ll just encourage him.” I walked down to the next stall door and Birdwell followed, still looking over his shoulder at the red colt. Personal Best snorted and went back to his hay. “This is Idle Hour,” I said, putting my palm up to cup the chin of a little dark colt, and Birdwell moved forward to briskly rub the colt’s wide forehead, relieved to be able to show some sort of equine know-how. “He won a Grade 2 at Tampa Bay Downs over the winter, and he’s here for some turf action this summer.”
“Likes the grass, eh?” Birdwell appraised the colt’s long legs in the most professional manner he could muster, arms folded across his chest and his brow furrowed. “Got it in his pedigree?”
“Sadler’s Wells,” I said quietly, which caused Birdwell to look at me quickly, but “really,” in a thoughtful tone was all he could think to say. I thought he recognized the name and gave him a few points for reading racing journals. Sadler’s Wells, being a great English sire, was not the most common name in American racing stables, but it was a fine one.
We went through the rest of the stable quickly enough, then Birdwell looked at his watch. “I have a lunch date in about half an hour. Is this a good time to look at the catalog? I want to be able to think about these and then we can meet at the sales grounds to look at horses tomorrow, if that works for you.”
I nodded. “Let’s go to the office.”
Across the chipped laminate of the desk, which Kerri had mercifully dusted with a wet rag while she was wiping off bridles earlier, we flipped through the skinny paperback catalog of the Saratoga Selected Yearling Sale, which listed the pedigrees and racing family history of nearly two hundred aristocratic Thoroughbred babies. They were indexed in a variety of ways to accommodate the endlessly varying permutations and equations and magic spells that bloodstock agents, buyers and trainers used to determine which horse in the book was worth what to them: index by sire, index by dam, index by broodmare sire, index by consignor, index by place of birth. But I liked to just start at the beginning, which was actuall
y about sixty pages in, after the listings of hotels, restaurants and necessary amenities like golf courses and private air chartering services; after the barn layout maps, the indices, and the fourteen pages of closely typed, un-spaced Conditions of Sale, and look at the horses: in this case, Hip Number One: Dark Bay or Brown Filly.
“Hip number one?” Birdwell sounded dubious. I supposed he’d rather be out in the bar schmoozing for the first ten or fifteen hips and then be fashionably late to the pavilion itself.
“She’s beautifully bred. Look at all the black type in the first two dams’ progeny. How often do you see that? She’ll be worth a fortune as a broodmare after she’s done racing, and she has a better than average shot at being a stakes horse as well. But here’s the thing: She’s consigned by Stone’s Throw, just some little guys, and they aren’t known for big-money horses. I think there’s a lot of value there. They might have just gotten her by accident from an owner who didn’t know what he had. If someone like Taylor-Made had hold of her, she’d be a sales topper.” I was confident in my assessment; I’d run it all by Alexander earlier and he’d agreed. I knew what I was doing with this catalog.
Birdwell looked at me over his reading glasses. I had an impression of trout: that shiny head and those bugging eyes. “Sales topper? That seems extreme. Darjeeling hasn’t even had a two-year-old winner yet. His yearlings weren’t top-dollar. If he were a freshman sire, now—”
“If he were a freshman sire we wouldn’t be talking about that anyway, because you’re not here to pin-hook,” I said argumentatively. “You’re here to buy racehorses to run, aren’t you?”
He nodded. “But I still think it’s relevant—”
“It isn’t,” I interrupted again, annoyed. “The whole freshman sire thing is a game pin-hookers play trying to get buyers ramped up about two-year-olds from horses that were winning stakes races three years ago. It’s a news cycle thing. It’s got nothing to do with breeding real solid racehorses. And Darjeeling was a solid racehorse. He ran until he was five. He won the Pacific Classic twice. You like synthetic, right? Okay, here’s a filly we can run at Del Mar and Keeneland. Maybe Dubai, who knows?”
Other People's Horses (Alex and Alexander Book 2) Page 12