“I know,” Danny said. “The surface is as fast as they could make it.” What would Man o’ War have done on a track like that? he wondered. What records would he have set with such an opportunity? All track surfaces were now almost two seconds faster to the mile than in the days his hoofs had known them. And yet most of his records still hung high, records he had made without even being allowed to extend himself!
Danny turned to the younger man beside him. How could this fellow, how could anybody talk about their Whirlaways and Citations, their Nashuas and Native Dancers, being a “second Man o’ War”?
Never would there be another like him! Never, until a champion came along who could outsprint the sprinters, outstay the stayers, carry the highest weight ever put on a horse’s back, and win on every kind of track! And while doing it, such a champion must break record after record. After that he must sire champion colts and fillies and broodmares that would produce still more champions. Only then could a horse be called “a second Man o’ War”!
Danny moved on through the crowded room on top of the stands, nodding to many. But his thoughts were far afield. Someone bumped into him, and he heard a quick apology, “Sorry, Danny. But I can’t seem to find a pencil sharpener anyplace. Imagine a $33,000,000 joint like this with no pencil sharpener!”
Danny smiled. “Yeah, how about that,” he said, relieved to have found something missing at this fantastic racing plant. “It’ll never make it.”
He looked far below and saw that the horses were ready to step onto the track. George Seuffert’s band had stopped playing. The flags on the infield pole were barely moving, so the wind had died. The sun was out. All was as it should be for the first Man o’ War Handicap.
A red-coated bugler, wearing shiny black boots and a black hunting cap, stood in the middle of the track. He placed a four-foot-long coach horn to his lips and for a few seconds held it there without blowing. The sun glistened on the golden horn and finally the music came forth, sounding the call to the post.
Danny shivered. The call would never change. It meant the same now as it always had, and he reacted to it the same way. He watched the horses leave the paddock. There were a couple of flighty ones trying to throw their riders. Everybody was tense. Everybody was waiting. New Aqueduct might be a racing Utopia, but only fine-blooded horses could make it a success. No modern facilities, no glistening pomp, could change things from the way it had to be. The grueling test of speed and stamina was all that really mattered to the eighty thousand people this new track could hold.
Danny’s heart beat faster as he watched the horses parade. Was there among them just one who might have stayed within the shadow of Man o’ War? No, none of these, he decided. Not today or tomorrow or any of the days to come. Not for him.
His eyes grew dim as he moved past clicking typewriters and teletype machines. Few men paid any attention to him, for they were watching the post parade and listening to the introductions coming over the public address system.
He sat down in a chair and drew his own typewriter toward him. The man next to him said, “Pity we still have to pound out our own stuff, Danny. You’d think that with all the modern machines they’ve got around here …”
Danny wasn’t listening. He saw only a fiery phantom and heard the roar of a multitudinous throng of another day. The years that had passed were many and other champions had come and gone. But Man o’ War was the one they should always remember.
The shadows of the stands lengthened across the track, and the breeze blowing off the ocean became colder. Danny put a sheet of paper in his typewriter and stared at it. He never expected to see another Man o’ War in his time. But the very young, might they not one day see his return? They had more time to wait and hope and dream. Perhaps if he helped them a little by telling them of the colt he had known so long ago.… Perhaps … yes, just perhaps, history might repeat itself.
Danny Ryan began typing, not for his newspaper, but for all boys and girls who might read his story of Man o’ War.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Walter Farley’s love for horses began when he was a small boy living in Syracuse, New York, and continued as he grew up in New York City, where his family moved. Unlike most city children, he was able to fulfill this love through an uncle who was a professional horseman. Young Walter spent much of his time with this uncle, learning about the different kinds of horse training and the people associated with each.
Walter Farley began to write his first book, The Black Stallion, while he was a student at Brooklyn’s Erasmus Hall High School and Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania. He finished it and had it published in 1941 while he was still an undergraduate at Columbia University.
The appearance of The Black Stallion brought such an enthusiastic response from young readers that Mr. Farley went on to create more stories about the Black, and about other horses as well. In his life he wrote a total of thirty-four books, including Man O’War, the story of America’s greatest Thoroughbred, and two photographic storybooks based on the two Black Stallion movies. His books have been enormously popular in the United States and have been published in twenty-one foreign countries.
Mr. Farley and his wife, Rosemary, had four children, whom they raised on a farm in Pennsylvania and in a beach house in Florida. Horses, dogs, and cats were always a part of the household.
In 1989 Mr. Farley was honored by his hometown library in Venice, Florida, which established the Walter Farley Literary Landmark in its children’s wing. Mr. Farley died in October 1989, shortly before the publication of The Young Black Stallion, the twenty-first book in the Black Stallion series.
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