“I wasn’t thinking of that side of the Derby,” Alec said quietly.
Henry opened his eyes for a moment to look at Alec. “Y’mean tomorrow’s Trial? Yeah, it could be interesting. Wintertime was pretty sharp out there this morning.”
The room was quiet for several minutes. The filly nickered in the next stall. Alec said, “The Derby Trial is due tomorrow, and the last real works for all of us are soon coming up. It’s getting so close I can feel it on my neck.”
“Not nervous, are you, Alec?” Henry asked. Then he grinned. “Not an old veteran like you?”
“Sure I am. Why not? This is the Derby.”
Henry closed his eyes. “I know it is.”
“Have you decided anything yet? Will it be the Derby for her, Henry? Or the Oaks?”
“Give me until Wednesday, Alec.”
“Wednesday? Why?”
“I’m going to let you go in a six-furlong race with her that day. Such a short race won’t be much of a prep for the Derby but she needs a start to get rid of some of her nervousness.” Henry’s eyes were still closed. He didn’t know Alec was on his feet. “We’ll see how she acts, and then we can decide if it will be the Derby or the Oaks for her. We’re in no hurry. We’ve got until Thursday night when the entries close for the Oaks. That’s all.”
Alec said nothing more, but he stayed on his feet until Henry’s deep breathing convinced him his friend was fast asleep. “That’s all,” Henry had said, as if there wasn’t anything more to it.
Alec went out for a long walk.
THE DERBY TRIAL
18
Tuesday morning was heavily overcast and Alec heard much talk of how a muddy racing strip might affect the results of the Derby Trial. It was well known that Golden Vanity preferred a dry track to a wet one. Continued bad weather would also be a factor in Saturday’s Kentucky Derby.
Alec galloped the filly two miles, and none of the other Derby colts did more than that. Most of them would be racing that afternoon, and for Eclipse and Silver Jet there would be the public works. Dan Seymour and Ted Robinson arrived from New York, ready to spend the rest of Derby Week with their mounts. Seymour galloped Silver Jet with the ease and experience of one accustomed to riding many a Derby favorite. He had won three Kentucky Derbies, and on Saturday he would be out for his fourth win in ten years.
Ted Robinson galloped Eclipse with the same quiet air of confidence as Seymour. He, too, had won three Derbies and wanted to make it four on Saturday. But unlike Seymour, who appeared wearing an ancient sweater and breeches which had seen many a morning work, Robinson wore new black breeches, as gleaming as his boots, a white turtleneck sweater and no hat. His heavy black hair was brushed back, as slick and well groomed as the rest of him. He made a lot of money riding horses, and looked it. Seymour made as much money, but didn’t look it.
Lady Lee, along with the other fillies who would race in Friday’s Kentucky Oaks, worked a fast mile. Alec watched her closely, knowing she’d have the race all to herself if Black Minx didn’t go in the Oaks.
“Our filly would give her a real run,” he told Henry on the way back to the barn.
“I think we’d beat her,” Henry said.
The expected rain didn’t fall and by noon there were reports from the track that the bleacher stands already had begun to fill. After lunch Alec returned to their barn to find Henry with a group of old friends who had arrived in Louisville for Derby week. After Alec spoke with them for a while, he went to the filly.
As he groomed her, he told himself that she alone seemed to understand how he felt about the coming Derby. Henry was at home here, as much as he would have been at Hopeful Farm. Henry took it all in stride, becoming, if anything, more likable and more sociable. For Alec it was just the opposite. He wanted to be alone, except for Henry’s and the filly’s company.
“Good girl,” he said. “Good girl.” She shook her small head as if she understood his anxiety. He pulled up the blanket a little more around her neck. He fooled with the buckle—loosening the neck strap, and then tightening it again—and all the time she remained still except for an occasional movement of her hoofs in the straw.
He stayed with her a long while, more at ease there than he’d be any other place. He heard the burst of stable activity and he knew what it meant—some of the horses were on their way to the other side of the track, to the paddock, where they’d be saddled for the first race of the afternoon. Later he heard the wafting sound of the bugle calling them to the post. Still later came the sharp roar of the crowd as the horses went off, then the ever-mounting screams until they died off. The winner of the first race had swept beneath the wire!
Alec stayed with Black Minx through still another race and then he heard Henry calling. Going to the stall door, he found the white-haired trainer sitting on a tack trunk, his bowlegs swinging together and then apart. His friends were still with him.
“Will you be here for a while, Alec?” Henry asked. “We want to watch Eclipse and Silver Jet work between the next few races.”
“Sure, I’m not going any place.”
Henry slid his bulky body off the trunk. “I’ll get back in time for you to see the Trial.”
“Okay. I’d like to see it.”
Alec left the stall to take Henry’s seat on the trunk. He watched Henry and his friends go to the next barn to see Silver Jet. The tall gray colt was outside, already bridled and wearing his dark blinker hood. He never wore his hood on the days he was galloped slowly. He had learned that the hood meant business, so now he was moving sideways and on his toes.
Tom Flint stood beside his colt, and Henry spoke to him, introducing his friends. When Silver Jet was saddled Dan Seymour appeared, wearing the same old clothes he had worn during the morning gallop. It made no difference to the veteran jockey that thousands of people would be watching from the stands. Their eyes should be on the colt, not on him.
After Flint boosted the jockey into the saddle, he led the gray colt toward the track. Henry and his friends moved with the rest of the crowd to watch Silver Jet’s public work between races.
As Alec watched all this activity, he felt the filly’s muzzle against his neck. Her head was pushed far over the stall door and he turned to stroke it. “A lot of people will be naming the Kentucky Derby winner before this day is over,” he thought. “They’ll see the Big Four in action in one afternoon and will make up their minds about the probable winner of Saturday’s race.”
He heard the shouts from the crowd and knew Silver Jet had begun his public work. The colt was to go a mile and an eighth in his last long speed trial before the Derby. Would Seymour urge him to top speed? Or would the jockey hold him snug? What would the time be? The track was fast. A few more minutes and he’d know the answers to most of these questions.
The stands were quiet, the people in them just watching now. Alec heard the long beat of Silver Jet’s hoofs as he came into the backstretch. The sounds grew ever softer until the beat died away completely, and Alec knew the gray colt was on the far turn. He heard the hoofs again from far across the track as Silver Jet went down the homestretch. There was a tremendous clapping as the work ended. A few minutes later an announcement came over the track’s loudspeakers.
“Silver Jet worked the mile and an eighth in one minute forty-nine and two-fifths seconds, and galloped out a mile and a quarter in two minutes and four seconds.”
There was another roar from the stands—most of the people knew, as Alec did, that the average Derby winner’s time was 2:04! Silver Jet’s work had given them a lot to shout about, for he had not gone the last eighth of a mile at top speed. It was obvious that he could do better than 2:04, if he were urged.
Alec saw Henry in the group which followed the gray colt back to the barns, and called to him. “How’d he look?” he asked when his friend reached his side.
“You heard the time, didn’t you?”
“Sure,” Alec said, “but how did he do it?”
“Ea
sy. Seymour didn’t have a strong hold on him most of the way, but he didn’t push him, either.” Henry jerked his head toward Silver Jet’s barn. “Flint just admitted that his colt is in better shape than he was in Florida. This is more than Flint expected and he’s beaming like he’d already won the Derby.”
Henry stayed with Alec through the running of the next two races, but when Eclipse was taken from the barn for his public work the trainer left again.
Alec watched the saddling activity going on around Eclipse. The brown colt moved uneasily, throwing a hoof at the tightening of his saddle. His white face, raised high above the people near him, was turned toward the track. As Eclipse whistled once, Alec looked up the road, where he saw the blanketed Golden Vanity being led through the gate. The chestnut colt was on his way to the paddock for the Derby Trial.
Alec looked up at the dark sky. He hoped it wouldn’t rain before Eclipse had finished his work and Golden Vanity had raced in the Trial. Like everyone else, he wanted to compare the times made by each of the Big Four over the same kind of track.
Ted Robinson appeared at the next barn. Henry was talking to “Red” Dawson, Eclipse’s trainer, but he stepped back to let Dawson boost Robinson into the brown colt’s saddle. The jockey, like Seymour, was hatless and wearing his morning outfit—the black pants and boots, and the white turtleneck sweater.
Soon they were on their way to the track, and once more Alec had nothing to do but wait.
The roar of the crowd came within a short time. Eclipse had started his work. Seconds later Alec heard the beat of his hoofs as he went around the track. Then came the applause from the stands. Once more there was silence while the announcer said over the loudspeaker, “Eclipse worked a mile and an eighth in one minute and fifty-one seconds, and galloped out the mile and a quarter in two minutes and six seconds.”
The applause wasn’t as thunderous as it had been for Silver Jet. Alec was certain the white-faced colt had been held under wraps by Robinson. Eclipse was sharp enough to go seconds faster than he had in his public work.
Henry confirmed this upon his return to the barn. “The colt was held back during the whole work. Dawson told Robinson he wanted a two-minute-six mile and a quarter, and the jock gave it to him right on the nose. Robinson has a clock for a head. He’s a good boy.” Henry pulled Alec off the tack trunk. “You get going now. I’ve been having all the fun. Give me a good account of the Trial. No, on second thought, never mind. I know what’s going to happen, all right.”
Alec didn’t bother asking questions. He’d heard the call to the post a few minutes before and knew the horses should be at the starting gate. He ran up the road, wondering where he’d be able to get the best view of the Derby Trial.
Nearing the track, he saw hundreds of men from the stable area standing along the rail of the backstretch. There was no place there where he could get near enough to watch the race. He looked around at the barn roofs, already crowded with grooms and boys, and went to the one nearest him. Climbing upon a sawhorse, he reached for the roof. “You got room for one more?” he asked the men sitting on the edge.
Grudgingly they moved over, making room for him, and he pulled himself up. He centered his attention on the backstretch and on the chute which extended beyond the stable area. The mile Trial would start in that chute, giving the horses more than a half-mile of straightaway before they reached the far turn and headed for home. The long-stretch run was ideal for Golden Vanity. With his speed there was no doubt that the colt would take command of the race before rounding the only turn in the mile Derby Trial.
The activity going on behind the starting gate meant that all the horses were not yet in their stalls. Alec couldn’t distinguish the horses and riders from where he sat, for he had no binoculars. Although he was at Churchill Downs, actually watching the race, he could not see the start as well as he could have seen it on the television screen at home. He knew Golden Vanity was on the outside post position. But being on the outside was no handicap today, not with the long-stretch run. He knew Wintertime was in number 3 stall, but it looked empty, so the blood bay colt must be one of the horses still behind the gate.
Alec looked across the track. More seats in the gigantic stands were occupied than on any of the previous days, but only the Kentucky Derby would strain the seating capacity of Churchill Downs until it burst and overflowed into the infield. He turned to the still overcast sky. There’d be no rain to hinder Golden Vanity’s race now. It was too late. They’d be off any second.
All the colts were in the gate. The doors had closed, and the crowd was silent, waiting for the break. Suddenly the doors were opened!
Alec rose to his feet to get a better view of the start, but the men behind him pulled him down so they could see. He saw Golden Vanity coming on the outside, already a length in front of the field. Nino Nella was urging the colt, leaving no doubt that he wanted to get out in front fast. The jockey’s gold-colored silks, as bright and shining as the colt’s body, were easy to distinguish in the field. Nella’s hands and feet were moving all the time, and as the horses neared Alec the chestnut colt was well over two lengths ahead.
They thundered out of the chute and onto the backstretch of the main track. As they passed, Alec saw Wintertime, on the rail, move out of the pack and go after Golden Vanity. Billy Watts wasn’t urging the blood bay colt yet. He sat hugging his mount’s neck, his head close to the one-eyed blinker hood that Wintertime wore.
Alec pounded his knee with his clenched fist. He wanted Wintertime to get up there, to catch the flying chestnut leader. But as the horses reached the middle of the backstretch, Golden Vanity continued to pull away from Wintertime and the others.
There was no doubt that the Derby favorite had blazing, blinding speed, for going into the far turn he was four lengths ahead of Wintertime and there was no easing up of his great strides. Like everyone else, Alec remained quiet; he realized that he was watching not a mile race, but an exhibition of extreme speed by Golden Vanity.
In the middle of the turn Billy Watts went for his whip. Wintertime responded to his jockey’s urging and for a few seconds it seemed that he narrowed the gap. But going into the homestretch with a quarter of a mile to go, Golden Vanity pulled away again to add another length to his lead. When Wintertime went wide on the turn, Alec knew the Derby Trial was as good as over.
Perhaps Billy Watts knew the chase was futile too, for he put his whip aside and hand-rode Wintertime down the homestretch.
The spectators were almost quiet in their respect for Golden Vanity’s great speed as he swept beneath the finish wire, five lengths on top. They watched Nino Nella take up a snug hold on the flying chestnut at the end of the race and go another quarter of a mile. Wintertime also worked the full Derby distance.
A few minutes later the Derby Trial winner came back to a tremendous ovation from the fans. But they ceased applauding Golden Vanity when the announcer said, “Your attention, please. Golden Vanity has broken the track record for a mile.”
The crowd roared; then it was quiet again as the announcer went on. “His time for the mile was one minute thirty-five and one-fifth seconds.”
More shouts, then everybody was quiet again.
“He went on to a mile and an eighth under a snug hold in one minute forty-nine seconds, and ran out a mile and a quarter in two minutes four seconds!”
Golden Vanity’s time for the Derby distance equaled that of Silver Jet’s work, yet the chestnut colt had been held under tight rein from a mile on. Two minutes four seconds would win most Derbies—but not the one to be raced on Saturday; that much was certain.
Alec got to his feet while the announcer was giving Wintertime’s clockings to the stands. The blood bay colt had galloped out his mile and a quarter in 2:05. Alec climbed down from the roof, realizing that like everyone else he had been tremendously impressed by Golden Vanity’s blazing speed over the mile route. The chestnut colt had won the Derby Trial without a fight, without any real opposition from W
intertime. It had been that easy. And Nino Nella had been practically standing in his stirrup irons when the colt had gone on to work the full Derby distance.
What was going to happen when Nella really sat down to ride during that last quarter-mile of the Derby? Golden Vanity had just sprinted a full mile in new record time. Could he really carry that kind of speed another quarter of a mile? If so, nothing could catch him. And, if not, what was going to happen? Alec walked back to the barn, knowing that questions such as these never would be answered until the big race.
He was not alone in his thinking. Throughout the country, those who heard of Golden Vanity’s brilliant victory were asking themselves the same questions. And in Louisville there was little talk of anything else.
That night Henry attended the annual Derby Trainers’ party in a downtown hotel. After dinner the horsemen were asked to give the press their forecasts of Saturday’s classic. The trainers were cautious in what they said. The Derby was too close for anything but carefully worded statements. Even Golden Vanity’s young trainer was afraid to speak up about his colt’s chances of winning. He said, “I think it’s going to be a wide-open race. We’ve got high hopes, that’s all.”
“Red” Dawson, trainer of Eclipse, remarked, “If Golden Vanity and Silver Jet don’t go to the post, we might have a chance.”
Tom Flint said of Silver Jet’s chances, “I can’t say we have the Derby winner in our barn, but we might be close.”
Don Conover, Wintertime’s trainer, said, “We’ve been running second so long we feel like a June bridesmaid. It’s taken the wind out of our sails, but if we can get a second in the Derby we might be satisfied.”
There were three other trainers who said they were counting on a lot of rain on Saturday, for their only chances lay in a muddy track. And there were still others—those with surprise entries and lesser lights—who repeated the comment of one: “My boss has wanted his colors in the Derby since he was knee-high, so we’re here and I guess the boss will be getting up his thousand-dollar entry fee on Friday.”