Horse Race

by Bonnie Bryant

  Before long, Carole and Deborah had picked up the tune and were singing along.

  After a few minutes Carole noticed that the farms were getting smaller and the houses closer together. “We must be getting closer to town,” she said, breaking up the sing-along.

  Deborah nodded and stifled a yawn. “We’re almost to our hotel,” she said. “Thank goodness. I don’t think I could drive much farther. I’m ready for a quick dinner and an early bedtime.”

  “Too bad,” Carole said. “Because I could look at Kentucky for hours and hours more. It’s beautiful.”

  “Maybe we’ll have a chance to drive out and look around some more tomorrow or the next day,” Deborah said. “I can’t make any promises, though—my story is going to keep me awfully busy. And your work will keep you pretty busy, too.” She smiled. “But I know you’ll find some time to have fun. You always do, right?”

  “Right,” The Saddle Club answered in one voice.

  LISA RUBBED HER EYES. Carole yawned. Stevie stretched her arms wearily.

  “Are we really awake?” Lisa mumbled. It was five-thirty A.M., and they had just climbed out of Deborah’s car near the stable area of Bluegrass Park.

  “I’m not sure,” Carole said. “I’m afraid it may be a dream, since Stevie isn’t singing ‘doo-da, doo-da.’ ” Stevie had kept the others up half the night by singing “Camptown Races” in her sleep.

  “I told you girls you could sleep for another hour,” Deborah said. “The exercise riders don’t get here until about six, and the hot-walkers start after that.” She sounded just as wide awake and cheerful as always. Lisa guessed that Deborah was used to getting by on minimum sleep because of the baby. Of course, not sharing a room with Stevie probably helped, too.

  “We’re not just hot-walkers,” Carole said. “We’re unofficial assistant grooms, too, right?” She stifled another yawn. “That means we’ve got to be here early.”

  “Have it your way,” Deborah said, looking amused. “Come on, let’s go meet everyone.” She led the way through the maze of barns with the three tired girls stumbling after her.

  Lisa woke up a little when she recognized the Maskee Farms colors decorating one of the shed rows. She followed as Deborah led them inside.

  All three girls felt a lot more awake once they were inside the long, narrow stable. Outside the track gates, most people were still sleeping, but in here the day had already begun. Horses looked out of their stalls or munched on the last few bites of their breakfasts. Music was pouring out of a small portable radio plugged in at the far end of the row. A tall, athletic-looking bay colt was in cross-ties being carefully groomed by a young woman with a ponytail. Two men were deep in discussion just a few yards away.

  “That’s Garvey Cannon,” Deborah whispered to The Saddle Club, nodding toward the taller of the pair. “I recognize him from his picture.”

  “You mean you’ve never met him?” Stevie asked.

  Deborah shook her head. Then she stepped forward and introduced herself to the young trainer. Garvey was large and broad-shouldered, with a thick neck and huge arm muscles. Atop his bulk, his head, with its ruddy skin and thin blond hair, seemed almost too small. The assistant trainer looked even larger next to his companion, a tiny, slender man Lisa guessed was a jockey or exercise rider.

  “So you’re the reporter McLeod was talking about,” Garvey said flatly as the small man wandered off toward the bay colt in the aisle. Lisa noticed that Garvey didn’t smile. In fact, he didn’t look very pleased to see Deborah at all.

  Deborah nodded and gestured for the girls to step forward. “And these are your temporary hot-walkers,” she said. She started to introduce them, but Garvey cut her off.

  “Them?” he said in disbelief. “But they’re just kids. These are valuable animals we’ve got here, you know, not hacking ponies.”

  Lisa felt her face flush at Garvey’s tone. But once Deborah had reassured him that Mr. McLeod had approved the whole thing, Garvey seemed to relax a little. “Okay, he’s the boss,” he said with a shrug of his huge shoulders. He glanced at the three girls. “I just hope you know what you’re doing,” he added. “We’ve got some important races coming up this weekend. I don’t want anything to hurt our chances.”

  “We understand,” Carole said. “Don’t worry, you can count on us.”

  Garvey didn’t look terribly reassured, but he shrugged again and pointed with one huge finger to the stall behind Stevie. “That’s Cookie Cutter right over there. She’s our star, or at least she will be if she performs tomorrow like everyone thinks she will—knock on wood.” As he spoke, the trainer reached out and rapped on the wooden wall with his massive fist.

  Lisa turned with her friends to look where the trainer had pointed. Cookie Cutter was peering back at them out of her stall. She was a chestnut filly with a gleaming reddish gold coat and a wide white blaze down her intelligent face. The stall was open except for a barrier of webbing, so the girls could see almost every inch of the gorgeous Thoroughbred, from the tips of her alert ears to her delicate ankles and hooves. “Oh, she’s beautiful!” Lisa exclaimed. She took a step forward, then hesitated. Some racehorses could be highstrung or even nasty. Just because Cookie Cutter looked sweet and friendly didn’t necessarily mean she was. “Um, is it safe to pet her?”

  “Sure,” Garvey said with another of his massive shrugs. “She’s friendly enough. But if you really want to win her over, feed her a few of these.” He reached into a bucket hanging nearby and pulled out several large, crisp, palegreen leaves.

  “What is it?” Carole asked, gingerly taking one of the leaves.

  Garvey grinned, revealing several big gaps where teeth used to be. “Cabbage,” he replied. “She loves the stuff.”

  He was right. The filly eagerly gobbled down every one of the cabbage leaves The Saddle Club offered her. Then she nuzzled the girls, looking for more.

  Lisa laughed. “Whoa, girl,” she said, gently extricating the edge of her T-shirt from the filly’s mouth. “Save room for lunch!”

  By this time Garvey had wandered off to talk to the jockey again. The two men were standing near the far end of the row of stalls. “What do you think of your subject, Deborah?” Stevie asked, glancing down the aisle to make sure the huge man wasn’t close enough to hear her. “I bet you never expected to interview The Incredible Hulk.”

  “Stevie!” Deborah chided. Then she giggled. “I guess I should have mentioned that Garvey was a heavyweight boxer before he started training horses.”

  “That explains the missing teeth,” Carole said. “I just assumed he got kicked in the face by a horse or something.”

  Stevie reached up to stroke Cookie Cutter’s soft nose. “Maybe he did,” she said. “I think the polite part of his personality got kicked out of him along with his teeth.”

  Deborah shook her head. “Come on, Stevie. He’s not that bad. Put yourself in his shoes. This is the first time he’s had sole responsibility for part of the Maskee string. It’s a big job, and he’s probably nervous—especially since this girl is getting ready for her debut.” She reached up to give Cookie Cutter a friendly slap on the neck. Then she looked at her watch. “I’d better get going,” she said. “I’ve got to pick up some information in the track steward’s office. Will you be okay by yourselves?”

  “No problem,” Stevie assured her. “We’ll be right at home.”

  After Deborah hurried off, the girls spent a few more minutes with Cookie Cutter, who seemed happy with the attention.

  Finally Lisa said, “I guess we should go find one of the grooms and offer to make ourselves useful.” The bay colt was back in his stall and the groom was nowhere in sight. Garvey and the jockey had also disappeared.

  “Uh-huh.” It was clear that Carole hadn’t even heard her. She was too busy looking the horse over from stem to stern. “Can you believe her conformation? Look at how straight her hind legs are.”

  Stevie gave her a funny look. “Were you expecting them to be crooke
d?”

  “No, look at them from the side. See? A straight hind leg is a big plus in a racehorse,” Carole said. She had read that in a book she had taken out of the library recently, and she continued to explain as the girls headed away from the stall in search of the groom. “It helps her run faster. That straight hind leg means she can propel herself forward more powerfully and efficiently.”

  “Really?” Lisa said. She paused to peer into the makeshift tack room that had been set up in one of the stalls. Nobody was there.

  “She’s right,” said a voice from behind the girls. “Hi, I’m Josh Winfield. Who are you?”

  The Saddle Club turned and saw a boy about their age standing in the aisle. He was dressed in boots and jeans almost as worn out as Stevie’s and a faded Kentucky Derby T-shirt.

  The girls introduced themselves. “We’re just visiting,” Lisa said.

  “For visitors, you seem to know a lot about racing,” Josh said, giving Carole an admiring look.

  Stevie grinned. “Well, some of us, anyway,” she said. “Carole’s our resident expert on anything and everything horse-related.”

  “But I don’t actually know much about racing,” Carole put in quickly. She didn’t want the friendly boy to think she was bragging. “Do you work here?”

  “Assistant groom at Bartlett Stables right here in Kentucky,” Josh replied proudly. He smiled at Carole, revealing a mouthful of braces. “When I’m not in school, that is. I help out at the farm before and after school during the year, and in the summer I get to go to the track with the racers.”

  “That is so cool!” Stevie exclaimed.

  Carole thought so, too, but she didn’t say anything. Something about the way Josh was looking at her made her feel a little shy.

  “You must know a lot about racing,” Lisa said to Josh.

  He nodded. “I guess I do,” he said. “My dad trains the yearlings at Bartlett, so I’ve been around the sport all my life. I want to be a jockey when I get older, if I don’t get too big. Otherwise I’ll probably be a trainer, like my dad.” He glanced at Carole again and took a step closer. “How did you learn so much about horses, Carole?”

  Carole shrugged and took a step away. She liked Josh, but he was definitely making her nervous, and she still wasn’t sure why. “I’ve been riding since I was little.”

  “What kind of riding do you do?” Josh took a larger step toward her, smiling eagerly. “English? Western?”

  “English, mostly.” Carole held her ground this time, deciding that she was being silly. Josh was just being friendly. “I really don’t know much about racing at all.”

  “But we can’t wait to see some action tomorrow,” Stevie said. “Especially Cookie Cutter’s race.”

  “Cookie Cutter?” Josh said. “Oh, you mean that chestnut filly down the aisle. She’s getting a whole lot of talk for an untested two-year-old.” He grinned. “My boss isn’t scared, though. We’ve got a filly who’s going to beat the bridle off her tomorrow.”

  “Oh, really?” Josh’s words sounded like a challenge, and there was nothing Stevie liked more than a challenge. “Who says?”

  “I says,” Josh returned with a good-natured laugh. “Our filly’s called Leprechaun. She’s got amazing early speed and a heart of gold.”

  “Leprechaun is in the same race as Cookie Cutter?” Lisa asked.

  “That’s right,” Josh said. But Lisa noticed he was looking at Carole as he said it. “It’s a maiden race. That means only horses that have never won a race can enter. But I’m sure tomorrow will be the last time Leprechaun will be eligible for one of those.”

  Carole already knew what a maiden race was, but she didn’t say anything. She could tell Josh was trying to show off for the visitors. Or was he just trying to show off for her? He had hardly taken his eyes off her since he joined them, and she couldn’t help noticing that most of his comments seemed to be directed at her rather than her friends.

  “Are you Leprechaun’s groom?” Stevie asked.

  “Not exactly,” Josh admitted, looking away from Carole long enough to answer Stevie’s question. “But I help her regular groom a lot. He’s even going to let me walk along with him when he leads her to the paddock tomorrow before the race.” He smiled proudly. “If she wins, maybe I’ll get to go to the winner’s circle, too.” He turned and gave Carole a conspiratorial wink. “But my most important job is to remind the jockey not to use his whip on her during the race. We’re afraid he’ll slip up and automatically go for it in the stretch, and that would be a disaster.”

  It was a strange comment, and it made Carole so curious that she forgot about her nervousness for a moment. “Really?” she asked. “Why can’t he use the whip on her?” She and her friends knew that a jockey’s whip, used properly, didn’t hurt the horse. It was just a way to direct the horse during a race, to get it to run faster or pay attention to its rider.

  “She hates it.” Josh shrugged. “Nobody knows why. Maybe she has extra-sensitive skin or something. Every time someone touches her with the whip, or even holds it where she can see it, she either stops dead in her tracks or bolts across the track. Luckily we found that out before she started racing.”

  The three girls nodded solemnly. They knew that a horse that reacted either of those ways during a race could cause a serious accident.

  “It’s a heck of a personality quirk, all right,” Josh said. He grinned at Carole again. “I don’t know about the horses you ride, but it sometimes seems like racehorses make an effort to come up with weirder and weirder habits to drive us humans crazy. For instance, there’s another filly in the race tomorrow that won’t go to sleep until her groom kisses her goodnight. One of the colts from your stable is famous for trying to throw the first exercise boy who gets on him each day. He’ll let anybody ride him the rest of the time, but if you’re the first one aboard in the morning, look out! One of our colts back at Bartlett refuses to walk onto the track with a lead pony. Most horses like having another horse there to keep them calm just before a race, but he just hates sharing the spotlight. Half our ponies have big bite marks on their necks, thanks to him.”

  Lisa shook her head. It still amazed her sometimes to discover that horses had such distinctive personalities. “Wow,” she said. “That makes Cookie Cutter’s cabbage habit seem almost normal.”

  “Speaking of Cookie Cutter,” Stevie said, glancing down the row, “isn’t that her heading out right now?”

  The others looked just in time to see Garvey leading the chestnut filly out of the shed with a light racing saddle on her back. “I guess it’s her turn to work,” Carole said.

  “That’s right,” Josh said, giving her a big smile. “See? I could tell right away you knew your way around the track.”

  Lisa and Stevie kept quiet. Carole’s comment hadn’t been especially brilliant—anyone could guess Cookie Cutter was going out to the track for some exercise—but Josh certainly seemed to be impressed.

  “Come on,” Stevie said. “Let’s go watch. Our chores can wait another few minutes.”

  “Mine can’t,” Josh said reluctantly. “I’ve been gone too long already. But I hope I’ll see you around.” He smiled at Carole, then seemed to remember the other two girls. “Um, all of you, I mean. Bye.”

  Stevie and Lisa contained themselves until Josh had disappeared. Then they burst out laughing.

  “Carole and Josh, sittin’ in a tree …,” Stevie sang.

  Carole blushed. “Stop it,” she said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Then why are you blushing?” Lisa asked with a grin. “Come on, Carole. It’s obvious the guy is gaga over you.”

  Carole shook her head. She wasn’t disagreeing with what Lisa was saying, but she didn’t really understand it. “It’s a little weird, don’t you think? I mean, he doesn’t even know me.”

  “I don’t think it’s weird at all,” Stevie said loyally. “Any boy in his right mind would naturally fall in love with you at first sight. I
’m surprised it doesn’t happen all the time.”

  Carole shook her head again. “I just don’t get it,” she said. She didn’t have as much experience with boys as either of her friends, and sometimes the things they did confused her.

  She decided to forget about Josh’s bizarre behavior. There were much more interesting things to think about at the racetrack. “Come on, let’s go catch up to Cookie Cutter or we’ll miss seeing her run.”

  THE GIRLS REACHED the track just in time to see Cookie Cutter start cantering. All around the wide oval dirt surface, other horses and riders were walking, cantering, or running, either alone or in groups of two or three. But the girls were able to spot the Maskee filly’s bright chestnut coat and white face almost immediately. The small man Garvey had been talking to earlier was perched high on her back.

  Stevie soon spotted Garvey himself leaning against the rail nearby. Deborah was next to him, looking very small by comparison. “I guess Deborah finished her errand,” Stevie commented. “Come on, let’s go watch with them.”

  The Saddle Club joined the two adults at the rail and looked back toward Cookie Cutter just in time to see her break into a run. “Wow!” Carole exclaimed. “Look at her go!”

  Even running by herself, the filly was impressive. Her long, slender legs flashed forward rhythmically and her nostrils flared slightly as her head stretched out in front of her. She looked thrilled to be running and eager to show everyone how fast she was.

  It was over all too soon. After he had taken her just a short distance around the track, the jockey pulled her up. Cookie Cutter shook her head a little, obviously disappointed. But after a moment she obediently slowed to a canter, then to a walk. Her rider turned her and rode slowly back in the direction of the spectators at the rail.

  “That was great,” Lisa said. “Even though it was kind of short. How long is the race she’s in tomorrow?”