Black Stallion's Shadow

by Steven Farley

  Morales went for the whip, smacking his horse repeatedly on the belly and then showing it to him to urge him on. Alec set his jaw, and the skin drew tight about his cheekbones. His body pressure sent new signals to the Black, asking for more speed.

  Ruskin and the Black ran alongside each other like a wagon team in the same invisible harness. Alec moved the Black closer to Ruskin, forcing Morales to switch the whip to his left hand. Ruskin responded by swinging to the outside and bumping into the Black. Instead of faltering from the jolt the Black only changed leads and raced even faster. Both horses reached out to strain for every inch of precious ground. They blew past the last furlong pole left before the wire. Only 220 yards more to go!

  All eyes in the packed stands followed the two horses as they began their neck-and-neck drive to the wire. From private box seats to the grandstands, people waved and cheered wildly. The clamor rocked Santa Anna like an earthquake.

  High overhead a patch of clouds drifted away from the sun. A curtain of shadow fell from the stands and spread out onto the track. The horses drew near the looming darkness. As the light shifted around them Alec glimpsed something incredible out of the corner of his eye. Ruskin broke rhythm and leapt into the air! The colt lost his balance coming down and tumbled to the ground. Morales catapulted out of his saddle.

  All at once the wild cheering from the stands ceased. A great whooshing sound rose up in its place—the sound of tens of thousands of people gasping in horror.

  The wire passed overhead. Alec heard cries and an awful thudding behind him. He didn’t need to turn around to guess what had happened. A horse and riderwere down, maybe more. Riding instinctively, Alec could think only of the Black. “You did it, fella,” he whispered to him. “You did it.” Alec shifted his weight back in the stirrups.

  The black stallion shortened his strides, his breath thundering. He continued all the way around the clubhouse turn before finally slowing to a walk.

  Alec closed his eyes. How he would like to forget this race or just keep on going, ride away and not look back! In the depths of his mind a storm was brewing. But he would not, could not, let the storm overtake him. Not now. Don’t think, just do, he told himself.

  Instead of going directly to the winner’s circle, Alec rode past the clubhouse. He came to the shaded area in front of the grandstand. Crumpled shapes lay in the dirt just short of the finish line—one horse, two jockeys. The horse was Ruskin. The colt was struggling to get up, his foreleg severely broken. Assistants tried to hold the injured horse still and finally managed to get him down again. Another horse, Spin Doctor, stood on three legs by the inside rail.

  A sick feeling knotted Alec’s stomach. A flood of emotion welled up inside him, the blossoming of a fear that he hid from his family, from Henry, even from himself. The fear boiled down to one simple truth. Every time he raced the Black, he risked losing the stallion forever.

  Two ambulances plowed through the torn-up track, stopping in front of the grandstand. Paramedics jumped out to lift the jockeys onto stretchers. Two special horse vans, the equine ambulances, drove out onto the track. The veterinarians and their assistants gathered around the horses. They loaded Spin Doctor into one of the vans and drove away.

  The other horse van pulled up beside Ruskin. While the assistants held the fallen horse still, a small group of men huddled together. Alec recognized one of them as Ruskin’s trainer, Luke Larsen. A moment later a wide screen was propped up between Ruskin and the grandstand, shielding the red colt from view. Those who lived around the horse-racing game knew what this meant. When the screen went up, it signaled only one thing: a humane but certain death.

  CHAPTER 3

  Replay

  At the sight of the screen, more cries of anguish and disbelief rose up from the crowd in the stands. Some people began weeping openly. Even hardened track regulars turned away and lowered their heads.

  No matter how many times Alec had seen a horse put down, there was no getting used to it. Yet he understood very well that a horse with a broken leg was almost always doomed. The physiology of horses was very different from that of humans. Unable to stand while healing, the injured horse’s organs would become misplaced during recovery. Giving Ruskin a fatal injection saved him the agony of a lingering death.

  Alec rode back to the clubhouse and the gap in the fence that led to the winner’s circle. Henry met him halfway there. The old trainer thrust a gnarled hand up tothe Black’s bridle and clipped on the lead shank. News photographers pushed their way through the crowd. They jumped out onto the track to snap photos of the victorious Black. The Black reared slightly. He fanned his nostrils and snorted. Henry jostled the photographers out of the way.

  Police opened up a path through the crowd and into the enclosure. At a nod from the official Alec jumped off, unbuckled the girth strap and took his saddle to weigh out.

  Word came in over the PA system that Spin Doctor’s jockey, Victor Velazquez, had survived his fall bruised but unhurt. Ruskin’s Hector Morales had been taken to the hospital. Spin Doctor’s condition remained in question. Ruskin, the undefeated champion of California racing, was dead.

  The track officials briefly went through the motions of the presentation ceremony. The usual smiles and congratulations were absent. No one really seemed to care about the order of finish. It had to be the most solemn winner’s circle anyone had ever seen. Today there could be no winners.

  Alec politely accepted a silver trophy, the American Cup award. Though he felt uncomfortable, his face displayed little emotion. It was the mask of a hardened pro. Henry took the $250,000 check on behalf of Hopeful Farm.

  As they left the winner’s circle, a burly man in a dark suit pushed his way through the crowd and caught Henry by the elbow. The man showed Henry a badge, identifyinghim as a United States marshal. He reminded the trainer that Hopeful Farm owed the federal government $226,372.59 in back taxes.

  Henry barely flinched as the marshal served him with an attachment on the Black’s winnings, taking nearly the entire purse. As Blood Horse magazine later reported it, Henry just smiled and said, “That’s racing for you. Easy come, easy go.”

  Alec headed to the lockers to shower and put on some clean clothes. A pack of reporters chased after him, shouting questions. “Hey, Ramsay. Any contact between the Black and Ruskin?” “Didn’t Ruskin have a nose in front before he went down?” “Any comment at all?” “Come on, Ramsay. Give us a break.”

  The young jockey held up a hand and waved them off. “Sorry, guys. No comment.”

  Henry led the Black back to the barn, where the stallion underwent the routine postrace urine and saliva tests. When Alec returned to the stable area, the reporters were gone. Henry had already washed the Black. Steam rose from the stallion’s glistening coat. Standing there, he looked like the essence of strength and vitality, anything but delicate. But a tragedy like today’s was a reminder of how incredibly fragile a racehorse really was, Alec thought.

  He reached up to rub the Black’s forehead. The stallion cocked his ears as Alec spoke to him. The words made little sense. Only the sounds and rhythms were important. The Black whinnied in reply. Muscles quivered beneath his beautifully smooth skin.

  Henry covered the Black with a light cooler and clipped a lead shank onto his bridle.

  “You look shell-shocked, Alec,” Henry said.

  “I wonder why,” Alec snapped back.

  “What’s eating you, kid? We’ll survive. At least there’s enough prize money left over to cover our feed and travel expenses. And the Black ran like a champ today. You can’t blame yourself for what happened to the colt.”

  “Am I allowed to have feelings, Henry? Is that okay?”

  “Settle down now,” Henry said. “I don’t know who could have seen what happened out there and not been affected. But you and I both know the racetrack is no place for sentimentality.”

  Even if Henry was right, it still didn’t change the way Alec felt. Without saying anything, he led
the Black to the walking path. The old trainer shrugged. He found a seat on a tack trunk and began thumbing through a Racing Form.

  Alec took his time walking and grooming the Black. Then Henry carefully inspected the stallion’s legs and feet one more time. The Black seemed sound enough, the trainer concluded. He wasn’t so sure about Alec.

  Henry said he had some errands to do, so Alec went back to the motel alone. The Railbird Motel, where he and Henry had been staying for the past week, was situated right next to Santa Anna. Its proximity to the track made it a favorite with visiting horsemen. Alec stretched out on his bed and dozed restlessly.

  The evening news declared that day to be “the darkest racing day of the year.” The reporter replayed a videotapeof the Cup race. For the first time Alec saw what had actually happened.

  The tape ran in slow motion and picked up the race at the neck-and-neck charge down the homestretch. As Ruskin reached the shadow of the grandstand he tried to jump the outer edge. He must have mistaken the sharp contrast between light and dark for something at his feet. The jump was a fatal misstep. Extended to the maximum, he couldn’t gather his legs beneath him again. He went off stride, crashing to the ground less than fifty yards from the finish. Again Alec heard the horrible gasping sound from the crowd in the stands. It was a sound he would never forget.

  Spin Doctor, running a few lengths behind the leaders, tripped over the fallen Ruskin and his jockey went flying. The rest of the field managed to avoid a pileup and followed the Black under the wire. Ruskin struggled to his feet before the track attendants could reach him. The colt hobbled toward the finish line on his three good legs before collapsing tragically.

  The videotape ended. Alec blinked. Seeing the accident in slow motion made it all the more gruesome. The TV announcer continued, “In one fateful moment the lives of two of California’s finest Thoroughbreds came crashing to an end. Ruskin, an unbeaten young champion, the rising star of the racing world, had to be put down as he lay only yards from the finish line. Spin Doctor, another promising young colt, stumbled over Ruskin. When a postrace examination revealed irreversible spinal damage, he also had to be put down.” Alec groaned. NotSpin Doctor too! He’d half expected it, but somehow the news came as a shock. His heart sank a little deeper.

  “Today’s American Cup has already sent shock waves through the entire racing community,” the commentator continued. “Here in California and all over the country racing will suffer from today’s tragic events for years to come.”

  “Yeah. Sure it will,” Alec said sarcastically. He switched off the TV. More likely, in a month or so the nation’s horseplayers would forget all about both Spin Doctor and Ruskin. The fans would turn the page of their Racing Form, as they’d always done, to see another horse, another jockey and another race. In the racing game that’s just the way it was.

  CHAPTER 4

  Spooked

  Alec decided to take a walk. He needed to clear his head. A bag of carrots lay on the table by the door. On his way out Alec picked one up, broke it in half and slipped it into his jacket pocket.

  The young jockey let his feet carry him where they would. He tried not to think about what had happened that day. But like a scratched record, his thoughts kept returning to the race … the dead horses … the jockey lying in the hospital. Get a grip on yourself, he thought. The Black won the race. You should be happy.

  The familiar route he took led toward the Santa Anna stable area, only a few minutes’ walk from the motel. The security guard recognized him and waved him through the gate. Alec walked down the well-lit shed rows and smelled the odors he loved … hay, ammonia and grain. His wandering ended at barn forty-one and the Black’s stall, a roomy fifteen-by-twenty-foot cubicle.

  Alec leaned through the opening and called softly to the Black. The stallion moved toward the half-doors. Alec took a piece of carrot from his pocket and held it out to his horse.

  Watching the Black, Alec wondered what might have been the outcome of the Cup race if Ruskin hadn’t fallen. Would the Black have been able to hold off the colt’s spectacular stretch run? He’d never know now.

  A few minutes later Alec stepped out into the night again. He walked to what had been Ruskin’s barn. On a bench beside Ruskin’s stall were a handful of oats and a neat stack of sugar cubes—gifts left in memory of the fallen colt by friends and admirers. Alec placed a piece of carrot with the other offerings.

  For long moments he stared into the shadows beyond the open half-door, his mind filled with dark thoughts. Racing had changed in the past few years. Younger horses like Ruskin found themselves being pushed to go farther and faster than ever before. Lured by ever-larger purses, the owners and trainers competed under increased pressure to run their horses longer and harder.

  This was not Henry Dailey’s way, but that hardly mattered. When a horse went down during a race, it meant danger for everybody racing behind him. Spin Doctor was proof of that. Alec left the stable area and walked back to the Railbird. He remembered the empty stall, the offerings of oats and sugar. What a way to win a horse race, he thought. And what a waste of two fine horses.

  Habit woke him before sunup the next morning. He felt better. Any misgivings about what had happened yesterday were tucked safely away in the back of his mind. Hadn’t the Black fought off Ruskin’s charge down the backstretch and pulled up fit and strong? Sure, Alec told himself, the life of a racehorse could be a dangerous one. But if it was good enough for the likes of Man o’ War and Secretariat, it should be good enough for the Black.

  Soon he and Henry were at the track again, walking past rows of stalls in rows of barns. When they arrived at the Black’s stall, Henry ordered a light workout, intended only to keep the stallion limber and loose. “Just open up his windpipe a bit,” Henry said. He boosted Alec into the saddle.

  The sound of the Black’s metal shoes rang on the paths and paved roads that wound between the different barns. A security policeman stopped traffic so Alec and the Black could cross an access road leading out of the stable area.

  The Black felt good beneath Alec, bouncing slightly when he walked. Alec came to the gap in the fence and turned right. A half-dozen horses were working out on the oval-shaped training track, running at different speeds. One and two at a time, they moved around the track counterclockwise. The exercise riders clucked to their mounts. Sometimes they shouted and called out to egg each other on.

  The sun moved above the mountainous backdrop that cradled Santa Anna. Wisps of low fog and mist rose fromthe dew-moistened training track. The drumming of hooves filled the air.

  A flagpole stood at the center of the infield of the training track. The sun crept higher in the east and the pole cast a long shadow, a line of darkness, halfway across the track. Alec had never noticed the shadow before. After what happened to Ruskin yesterday, it was hard not to.

  Slowly the Black moved off after the other horses. No crowd of horseplayers cheered him on today. The area outside the track railing was empty except for the handful of trainers and early birds there to watch the morning workouts. Trainers punched their stopwatches as their colts paced each other around the course. One trainer followed his filly’s workout using a palm-size video camcorder.

  After a couple of lazy circuits Alec decided to give the Black his head and let him run at will for a turn or two. Alec moved the Black into the center of the track. The stallion took off at a sharp canter. His strides lengthened to a full gallop. Alec could feel his own heart begin to race. As the speed increased, time seemed to stand still. There was no past, no future. Alec belonged entirely to the Black. No room existed for anything else.

  Ahead of him the thin line of darkness that fell from the flagpole became more defined. The shadow seemed to dig a gutter across the left side of the track. Images from yesterday’s stretch drive flashed through Alec’s mind, tightening his entire body. He could almost hear the crowd chanting “Rus-kin! Rus-kin!” The Black bore down on the shadow. Alec sensed a slight tremor
, a shiver of twitching muscles.

  Suddenly the stallion no longer responded to the reins. Before Alec knew what was happening the Black swerved hard to the right, avoiding the spot where the shadow fell across the inside of the track! He shook his head furiously and swung to the outside railing.

  “Hey, hey, hey!” Alec shouted as the reins were wrenched through his hands. It took a long second or two for Alec to regain control. The Black slowed and snorted. Alec stood up in the stirrup irons. Wind-burned tears wet his cheeks as he leaned back in the saddle.

  What happened to Alec and the Black did not escape the attention of the trainers and spectators watching the workouts, or the keen eyes of Henry Dailey. Alec rode over to where Henry was standing by the rail. “See that?” Alec asked, a look of bewilderment on his face.

  “I saw it. What happened?”

  “Don’t know. He just took the bit and swung out. Wasn’t a thing I could do.”

  Henry slipped between the fence rails and walked Alec and the Black to the point where the shadow fell. The old trainer took off his fedora and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief, the way he did when something was starting to bother him. The Black lowered his head to sniff and paw at the dark line on the ground.

  “I don’t like this, Alec.” Henry’s voice sounded serious. The Black bobbed his head impatiently. Henry stepped out of the way and tried to read the stallion’s mood. He replaced his hat and turned to look up at Alec. “Try him again. Let him run with you this time.”

  Alec leaned forward in the saddle and set the Black in motion. Faster and faster he ran. The quadruple rhythm of his hooves thundered in Alec’s ears. The Black’s mane whipped his hands. Round one bend they flew, then the other. As the Black turned onto the stretch he switched leads to come on in full flight.

  Alec tried to gauge the Black’s speed—not quite a breeze, running close to all out, but plenty fast enough. He held the reins stiffly in his hands and drove hard along the inside rail. The shadow crossed the track directly ahead of them. At this speed the Black wouldn’t have enough room to turn away.