Don Conover jiggled the bit to attract his colt’s attention.
Alec asked, “Are you still using a run-out bit on him too?”
“Yes, Alec,” the trainer answered, “anything to keep him running straight. If he hadn’t gone wide moving into the Derby stretch we’d have caught you.”
“I don’t think so,” Alec said. “We were meant to win that day.”
Billy Watts’s eyes were bright when he spoke up quickly. “We almost caught you, Alec. Another foot and we’d have made it.” He pulled his red cap down hard on his big ears as if to lend added emphasis to his words.
Alec watched Wintertime. “Well, at least we both surprised the others who figured to win,” he said. Wintertime was built much the same as Black Minx, strong and solid. Alec turned to his filly and found her looking at the blood bay colt. For long seconds he studied her eyes.
Don Conover spoke. “Yes, we surprised those big colts, all right. Not that I’m ever impressed by the height and heft of a horse. I always figure that a well-proportioned, good-muscled, medium-sized horse can beat the good big ones. They haven’t got so much of their own weight to carry around with ’em, and there’s not much difference in lung capacity.”
Still looking at the filly and remembering her Derby race, Alec said, “And no difference at all in the size of their hearts.”
“That’s for sure,” Don Conover echoed, but his eyes were only for his own colt.
Finally Henry led Black Minx over to them and she showed her aluminum-plated heels to the red colt. “Ready, Don?” Henry asked.
“We’ve been ready a long time,” Conover said.
Henry chuckled. “I sure wish I had a pretty boss like you do.”
Alec moved to the filly’s side. “But you do, Henry,” he said, nodding in the direction of the filly.
Henry’s face reddened while the others laughed at Alec’s remark.
Don Conover said, “That saddle looks like you’re down to your last dime. Where’d you get it?”
Henry grunted. “Never mind where I got it,” he said. “But I wouldn’t take any horse in your stable for it.” He boosted Alec up and added, “Including Wintertime.”
Don Conover grinned and Billy Watts nervously slapped his whip against his right boot. Wintertime jumped. Black Minx began to sweat. Alec took up rein.
Henry told Alec, “We’re blowin’ her out good. Three-quarters. Break her from the gate, and just hold on to the reins.”
Alec saw Don Conover nod his head to Billy, who was now up on Wintertime. “Same thing,” the trainer ordered, “only get out in front and stay there. Use your stick on him if you have to.”
Henry said, “He’ll have to use it plenty if you expect him to stay out in front.”
Don Conover didn’t answer.
Now Alec listened only to the filly. Her every movement told him that she would extend herself as she hadn’t done since the Derby. She was trembling with eagerness to pull free of Henry’s hand on her bridle. Her ears were pricked and her eyes were on Wintertime. It wasn’t the first time she’d been worked with other horses but this was different. She must actually think it was race day!
Henry led her to the track behind Wintertime. Just up the backstretch the starting gate was being used by sets of horses. Alec leaned over, whispering in the filly’s ear and trying to calm her down. But he felt the growing uneasiness in his own stomach. Wasn’t the filly right in thinking she was going to race? Wasn’t this to be the Kentucky Derby finish with Wintertime all over again?
BACKSIDE BACKFIRE
5
When Black Minx’s hoofs came down upon the track Henry turned her loose. She tossed her head and bolted.
“Easy now,” Alec said. “We’re in no hurry.”
She swerved, trying to unseat him. He moved with her, his hands and knees firm, and got her straightened out again. He didn’t mind her trying to get away from him. It settled his stomach. Now he could look at things the way they were. This was just a workout but Henry wanted the filly to think it was a race. Such strategy made him one of the finest colt trainers in the business.
The filly was excited now and that’s the way Henry had planned it. She’d do no loafing this morning.
A set of four horses broke from the gate and came down the track toward them, their hoofs rocking the ground, their riders flashing whips and yelling. Black Minx nervously side-stepped but her eyes didn’t leave the red-silked rider and colt just a few strides beyond.
Alec kept her from grabbing the bit. She tried to get it away from him by buck-jumping but he went with her, forward then backward in the creaking old saddle. He stood in the stirrup irons, catching his breath and wishing that Napoleon were alongside so he might use the gelding’s big body as a buffer.
Billy Watts turned in his saddle. No longer was his face boyish but very grim and set, just as it had been before the start of the Kentucky Derby.
Alec’s gaze met Billy’s. It seemed that Black Minx wasn’t the only one looking upon this as more than just a workout. He leaned sideways in his saddle, patting the filly’s neck. He liked her eagerness but he didn’t want her to go to pieces before they reached the gate. Her black body shifted uneasily and she reached for the bit again. Alec didn’t let her grab it. There would be time for that in a minute or so.
The starter and his assistants were waiting for them, a little impatiently, Alec knew, for the startinggate schooling hours were just about over. Yet the eyes of the men were filled with respect for the filly and colt who’d finished first and second in the Kentucky Derby.
Wintertime went behind the gate and the starter called from his platform, “What’s this? A match race?”
One of his assistants laughed and answered, “It’s a Derby Special, Hank.”
“Better call it the Preakness Special,” another joked.
Neither Billy Watts nor Alec said anything in return.
Alec waited until Wintertime went into one of the inside stalls and then he took Black Minx into the stall on the colt’s right. Now nobody was talking or smiling. The starter watched while two of his assistants moved across the framework of the gate, helping with the horses. All was as it would have been in a race.
Black Minx went up, twisting in the close quarters of her narrow box. She came down against the padded sides without hurting herself.
“No chance. No chance,” Alec called to the starter.
Black Minx’s handler reached for her bridle to straighten her out and Alec said, “Other side, Kelly, please.”
The man clambered to the right side of the stall. “Yeah, I remember now. She’s been trained to be handled on the off side. Why? What d’ya want to be diff’rent than the others for?”
Alec didn’t answer. Instead he kept the filly’s head up. Small details helped win races and an assistant’s holding a horse on the near side usually caused the horse to go off on the wrong lead and of course he’d go into the turn that way. Henry made certain his horses went off on the left lead so they’d go into the turn the same way.
The filly and colt were quiet. Alec took a deep breath. Through the wire-mesh door he saw the empty track. On his left Wintertime’s red body was already shining with sweat. Black Minx, tossing her head, was just as wet. From the corner of his eye Alec saw the looming grandstand across the infield. Like the track, it too was empty. But for him and the filly, for Billy Watts and Wintertime, it was race day. In spite of what he’d told himself, this could not be considered an ordinary workout. He gave Black Minx the bit. “Okay, Baby, come out flying,” he whispered. “Henry said to hold on to the reins and that’s all I’m going to do.”
The bell clanged and the front doors opened, freeing the two horses.
The filly and the colt broke from the gate together. Head and head, eye and eye, they pounded from the chute and into the long backstretch. There was no difference in their straining bodies or in the length of their strides. Nor was there any difference in the seats of their riders. Both sat
very still and well balanced in their saddles, allowing their mounts to settle into racing stride without hurrying or worrying them.
Yet the colt and filly moved faster and faster, as if no force on earth could have stopped them. Black Minx was stretched out, hard against the bit, running the way she’d run in the Kentucky Derby. Wintertime’s red-hooded head bobbed with hers. Neither had an inch over the other. Neither gave way.
They swept into the only turn with blinding speed, and the red colt edged out toward the filly. Then his rider used his whip just once and Wintertime stopped swerving and began hugging the rail again. Like the filly’s, his strides were made for turns. But the red colt had the shorter way around, and going into the homestretch he was on top by a head’s length.
Shouts rose from the great grandstand as white-coated cleaning men stopped their work to watch the very special race which was being run for them. But there were so few of them amidst the thousands of empty seats that their voices were lost in the sound of onrushing hoofs.
They saw the colt’s rider start to use his whip again, moving it in rhythm to the strides of his mount without touching him. But the black filly wouldn’t be left behind and once more drew even with him. Her jockey was still hand-riding but now his head and shoulders were moving, urging her on. She responded, slowly at first, then ever faster. She pushed her head in front of the colt’s.
It was evident now that she was going on to win, even though she’d have to work for every inch. She surged forward, stretching out lower and ever faster. Relentlessly she came down the stretch, her head up and small ears pricked forward, her tail billowing like a cloak in her wake. She had less than a furlong to go to the finish line when suddenly her ears flicked to the right as if she were listening for something; then came a quick shifting of her bright eyes to the vast empty stands. She went on for another few strides, then suddenly slowed. The colt swept by her while she went the rest of the way in a very slow and easy gallop.
A little over an hour later Alec returned to the same section of track. The Black was with him, pulling a bit uneasily on the lead shank while his great eyes swept the towering grandstand.
“This is where she quit,” Alec told him. “Henry said she was counting all the people who weren’t there. He said he should have figured she’d do that.”
The Black snorted and moved along the outer rail with Alec following.
After what had happened, Henry was convinced that the wearing of silks wouldn’t be enough to fool the filly into working again even to the extent she’d gone that morning. But he wasn’t giving up. Next time he planned to work her between races during the afternoon program. Then she’d have her cheering crowd.
The Black stopped to watch a tractor come around the first turn. He wasn’t unduly excited by it, just interested, for he’d seen tractors pulling harrows at the farm.
The morning training hours were over and only by special permission of the track superintendent had Alec been allowed to take the Black on his sightseeing tour around the sun-baked oval.
After the tractor and harrow had passed Alec said, “Let’s get moving again so there won’t be any travel kinks left in your legs.”
It was quiet on the track compared to the stable area, but the Black had been manageable even there. Aside from a larger number of people, the activity in the stable area was not a great deal different from what he’d left at home. The Black was getting used to the loading and unloading of horses, the whinnies of mares, even the calls of other stallions. As at the farm the same trembling eagerness to go forward to meet them swept through his great body but he always awaited Alec’s spoken command. Stable manners were as important as track manners, and Alec had worked hard on the Black.
Now the tall stallion stood still again, his eyes on the old clubhouse just off the first turn. For a moment he lifted his head high as though looking at the horse-and-jockey weather vane on top of the wooden frame building. Then he turned once more to the long, modern grandstand, whose freshly painted yellow-and-black boxes and thousands of other seats would be filled when the afternoon program began.
On Preakness Day there would barely be room to breathe and many more thousands of fans would spill into the infield to watch the running of the famous classic, the Run for the Black-eyed Susans. Would it be won by a black filly? It could, Alec decided, if she kept her mind on racing as she did for a while this morning. And she just might with such a crowd to cheer her on coming into the homestretch!
The Black tugged on the lead shank and Alec went with him.
“At least, if she goes like that she’ll give a good account of herself,” Alec said aloud. “We’d be proud of her—you and Henry and I. But nothing can be certain from now on. Just as anything can happen in the Kentucky Derby, something usually happens afterward to upset the winner from capturing the Preakness and the Belmont.”
It was only a few hours later that Alec and Henry saw the “something” for that year come into view. They stood before a television set in a store across the street from the racetrack. Together they watched the running of the Withers Mile for three-year-olds in New York. They saw Eclipse, a burly brown horse with a white face, emerge from the tightly packed field and come billowing down the home-stretch to set a new world’s record.
Alec and Henry turned away, knowing Eclipse had come into his own and there’d be trouble ahead for everybody, including Black Minx at her very best.
“BRING ON ECLIPSE!”
6
It wasn’t often that a great horse came along as a three-year-old and when he did he presented a problem to everybody but those in his entourage. If he proved to be truly great, the number of horses in his age group who’d be sent out to race him would become fewer and fewer. No owner or trainer was likely to want his entry to take beating after beating. And when a situation like that developed, a track’s most celebrated races could become nothing but “walkovers” for the champion, costing the management money and leaving the customers nothing to watch but a one-horse exhibition at a slow gallop.
It would be up to the trainers to decide if it was worthwhile having their three-year-olds race such a horse. The night following Eclipse’s record-shattering victory in the Withers Mile the men at Pimlico were still unafraid.
Don Conover said, “One race doesn’t make a horse great.”
“We beat him in the Derby,” Alec added confidently. “We can do it again.”
Henry snorted. “He’s not the same horse. He even looked different on the screen … bigger and higher in flesh.”
“It’s only been a few weeks since we last saw him,” Conover scoffed. “He couldn’t have grown much in that time. But you’re right about one thing, Henry. He was long overdue for that kind of a race. I wish he’d put it off a little longer. Now we’ve got him right in our laps for the Preakness and the Belmont.”
Alec banged a boot heel against the tack trunk on which he sat. “Don, this morning you said you’d take a good small horse any day in preference to a good big one.”
“I still would,” Conover reaffirmed.
Henry laughed. “Except for Eclipse, maybe?”
“No maybes,” Conover answered.
“Henry,” Alec said, “I think you’re overestimating Eclipse. You’ve always liked him because he’s burly and big. You like size. Don doesn’t.”
“That’s right,” Conover agreed. “I’m not scared of him at all. It’s just that I know a problem horse when I see one.”
Henry leaned back in his chair and surveyed the group in a bored way. “Y’got me all wrong, fellas. It’s not that I have anything against a small horse. I like ’em any size, just as long as they can go. But the thing about Eclipse is that he’s more than just big. There’s nothing of the colt in him. There never was. He’s all stallion and has been right along. As we know, a colt doesn’t usually mature that fast. When he does, well, he’s playin’ with a bunch of kids and someone’s goin’ to get hurt.”
A groom turned over a pa
il and sat down on it. He said, “Eclipse was a big horse in the Derby but he sure didn’t scare nobody. He got shoved around, too. It was just by luck he got up to be third.”
Alec called to an exercise boy standing near the Black’s stall. “Take your fingers away from that screen door or he’ll mistake them for carrots.”
“Better shut the top, Alec,” Henry advised. “Let him get some sleep. Tomorrow will be a busy day.”
“Okay, but I wanted him to get used to this.”
“He will,” Henry said. “You don’t have to do it all in one day.” He turned to the groom sitting on the pail. “You weren’t watchin’ Eclipse in the Derby or you would’ve known that they didn’t push him around any. He fouled himself up. He’s so big he got in his own way. That’s been his trouble right along. But he got his legs straightened out today. I knew it would come. There was no stoppin’ it. Just a matter of time.”
Henry stood up. “That was a man-sized job he did today. Remember, it was Citation’s world record that he broke. Citation at five years old on a fast California track! It’s been in the books a long, long time.”
“I’m impressed,” Alec said. “But the chances are good that it’ll be broken again.”
“By a filly?” an exercise boy suggested.
A trainer leaning against Black Minx’s stall door said, “She won’t if she stops like she did this morning, Alec. She won’t even get a chance to wave Eclipse good-by.”
Henry moved down the row, stopped, and turned back. “She won’t quit on us. Don’t you worry none about that.”
“I’m not worryin’ none, Henry.” The trainer laughed. “Are you forgettin’ I have a colt goin’ in the Preakness, too? Her stopping would suit me just fine … the earlier the better.”
“She won’t stop,” Henry repeated angrily. “No filly’s goin’ to outsmart me.”
Don Conover grinned. “Y’got a way with women, all right, Henry.”