The Mystery at Saratoga

by Campbell, Julie

  With exaggerated dignity, the two girls linked arms and followed the adults to the stables. Once they were around the horses, however, their pose dissolved, and they found themselves oohing and aahing at the beautiful animals that were being groomed and curried in preparation for the afternoon’s racing.

  In one stall, a small, weathered man was working over a sleek, glistening horse.

  “Carl,” Mr. Worthington said to the man, “we have guests. Trixie Belden and Honey Wheeler, meet my trainer, Carl Stinson. Carl has been with Worthington Farms for over twenty years.”

  Trixie and Honey exchanged an electrified glance as they realized that this was the man that Regan had worked for.

  “How d’you do?” Carl Stinson asked curtly, returning his attention to the horse.

  “Do you mind if we watch you for a while?” Honey asked.

  “Nope,” the trainer replied, not bothering to look up.

  “That’s a good idea,” Mr. Worthington said. “I have some business to discuss with Mr. Wheeler, and I’m sure you girls will be more interested in learning about Carl’s horse sense than about our dollars and cents. We’ll meet you back here in a few minutes.”

  “That sounds great, Mr. Worthington,” Trixie said, “if Mr. Stinson doesn’t mind.”

  “Carl won’t mind, as long as you stay out of his way and don’t frighten the horses. Right, Carl?” Mr. Worthington asked.

  “Right,” the trainer replied, still not looking up from his minute inspection of the beautiful Thoroughbred.

  Mr. Worthington and Mr. Wheeler walked away, quickly lost in conversation, and the girls stood quiet, watching the trainer.

  Carl Stinson finished his inspection of the horse and began rubbing him down with liniment. Then he buckled ice packs around the horse’s front knees.

  “What are those for?” Trixie asked.

  “Keeps the swelling down,” Stinson replied.

  Trixie gave Honey an anguished glance. This man could provide important information about Regan, but only if they could get him to talk, and it was beginning to seem as if that might be an impossibility.

  “This is one of the most beautiful Thoroughbreds I’ve ever seen, Mr. Stinson. You must be very proud of him.”

  Stinson paused in his work and gave Honey a sidelong glance. “More than proud, miss. There’s a big chunk of my life invested in this horse. Name’s Gadbox, son of Gadfly out of Jack-In-The-Box.”

  The girls stood in startled silence, which the trainer mistook for confusion. “That means his father was a horse named Gadfly and his mother was named Jack-In-The-Box,” he explained. “Gadfly was the best horse I ever trained. Pegged him as a winner first time I ever saw him work out. When we had to retire him, I thought I’d never see his like again. And I didn’t, for five long, dry years. Then, two years ago, he presented me with Gadbox, here, and I knew I had another winner.” Stinson stopped speaking suddenly. He stood with his mouth clamped shut, the muscles in his jaw moving as he gritted his teeth.

  The girls stood silent, too, moved by the depth of emotion they sensed behind the trainer’s brief speech. Both knew that he hadn’t really been speaking to them at all, but to himself, remembering his hopes for Gadbox, the son of the horse he’d pegged for a winner. No wonder he says there’s a chunk of his life invested in Gadbox, Trixie thought.

  Carl Stinson reached out and began to stroke Gadbox’s silky neck. “I’m not going to make the same mistake twice,” he said intensely. “I’m not going to trust anyone else with this horse. No one touches him, grooms him, or feeds him but me. His sire could have gone all the way, become one of the greatest horses in history. Now his son has a chance, and no thieving little groom like that Began kid is going to dope him before a big race and ruin his chances.” The trainer’s face had hardened as he spoke, and when he spoke Regan’s name, his mouth twisted as though the word had left a bitter taste.

  Trixie felt tears welling in her eyes. It was painful to hear this stranger speaking of Regan, her good friend, with such contempt. She wanted to blurt out a defense. “Regan—” she began, then stopped when she felt Honey’s hand on her arm.

  The trainer turned and looked at her. “Yes, Regan,” he said. “He was a groom who worked for me seven years ago. He wasn’t more than sixteen when he came to me looking for a job. A runaway. From what, I don’t know. Didn’t ask. Just took him in. Treated him like a son. Taught him about horses. And he learned fast. He had a natural gift for working with horses, that boy. So I started trusting him with more and more of the work around here. Thought he’d be able to take over from me someday.” Stinson snorted. “But someday wasn’t good enough for that redheaded sneak. He had no time for living on a groom’s wages and taking orders from me. So he found a way to make some fast money by doping a horse. He ruined Gadfly, and he almost ruined me. But not quite. Not quite.” Abruptly, the trainer straightened his stooped shoulders and turned to face the girls.

  “You better move along,” he said. “I have to feed Gadbox before the racing starts, and I don’t even let anybody see where I keep his feed. Not anymore.”

  The girls stood in confused silence for a moment after the trainer finished speaking. His attack on Regan had left them shaken, unable to move. Then they heard the voices of Mr. Worthington and Honey’s father as 'the two men neared Gadbox’s stall. Trixie pulled herself together, taking a deep breath to try to ease the tightness in her chest.

  Honey once again put her hand on Trixie’s arm, pulling her friend in the direction of Mr. Worthington’s voice. “I hope Gadbox does as well as you hope, Mr. Stinson,” she said in a soft, trembling voice.

  A moment later, Mr. Worthington’s booming voice shattered the stillness. “Come along, girls,” he said. “We have to have a bite to eat and then get to our seats before the racing starts.”

  At the Races ● 10

  HONEY AND TRIXIE walked miserably along behind Mr. Wheeler and their host. It can’t be true, Trixie thought, it just can’t. Turning to look at Honey, she saw her own misery reflected in her friend’s eyes. More than anything, she wanted to be alone with Honey, to talk over what Carl Stinson had said and to refute, out loud, the accusations that he had made. But there was no opportunity for the girls to be alone during lunch, so Trixie was forced to keep her jumbled thoughts to herself.

  Part of her misery, she knew, came from not being able to discount everything that the trainer had said. Regan had always been very loyal to all his friends. But he was also a strongly independent man whose fiery temper matched his hair. It was very easy for her to imagine Regan’s growing impatience at taking curtly worded orders from the trainer and his feeling of helplessness at the thought that it would be years before he would be given full responsibility for the horses he was working on. Still, that wouldn’t mean that he’d have had to dope a horse. He could have just left, found a better job somewhere else. Unless—

  Unless, Trixie thought, unless he had gambling debts to clear up before he left. If he were in debt, that might have seemed like the only way to pay them off so that he could leave without being followed. She bit her lower lip, hard, to chase the thought from her mind. The real pain of her teeth digging into her own lip was better than the emotional pain she felt when she found herself doubting Regan’s innocence.

  “Is anything wrong, Trixie?” Mr. Worthington asked.

  Trixie shook her head. “I have a little bit of a headache,” she told him. “I guess there was just too much excitement this morning.”

  “I understand,” Mr. Worthington said. “But I’m sorry you’re not feeling good. You’ve hardly touched your hamburger. Why don’t you try to finish it? It might be just what you need to perk yourself up and get back in the spirit of things.”

  “I’ll try,” Trixie said, smiling across the table at Mr. Worthington.

  “By the way, what did you think of Carl Stinson?” Mr. Worthington asked.

  “He seems like a very knowledgeable person,” Honey replied.

  Mr.
Worthington laughed. “That probably means that he hardly spoke to you the whole time you were with him. Carl isn’t much for talk, but he’s the best man with horses I’ve ever seen. I’m lucky to have him working with me. I trust Carl so completely that I can leave all the details of running the stables to him, and just concern myself with the buying and selling end of the business— and the excitement of watching the horses race, of course.”

  “What kinds of details does Mr. Stinson handle?” Trixie asked.

  “You’d be surprised how many there are,” Mr. Worthington said. “Of course, the main work of a trainer is training the horses—deciding whether they need tough workouts to make them give everything they have or light workouts to keep them from losing their speed and endurance before the race, for example. Some trainers don’t do much more than that. But Carl does much, much more. He makes sure that the horses are moved from track to track in the most efficient way possible, in terms of both saving money and saving wear and tear on the horses. He decides what food they should have, and he finds out where to get it at the best price. And, of course, he’s responsible for the rest of the staff. He makes all decisions on hiring and firing grooms and exercise people, putting on extra help when we need it and laying people off when we don’t. All I do is give him a budget. He decides how to use it. Why, right now I couldn’t even tell you how many people are working for Worthington Farms, let alone who they are or where they came from.”

  “Has it always been that way?” Honey asked.

  “Oh, not at first, of course,” Mr. Worthington replied. “But remember, Carl has been with me for twenty years. All of these responsibilities fell to him gradually. I’d say that he’s been fully in charge for the past fifteen years or so.”

  Trixie looked at Honey and raised her eyebrows. That let Mr. Worthington out as a source of information about Regan. The two had probably never even met.

  “Actually,” Mr. Worthington continued, “when I said I was lucky to have Carl working for me, I wasn’t being exactly accurate. Truthfully, I have Carl working for me because I’m unlucky.” He chuckled at the girls’ bewildered looks. “What I mean is that we haven’t been very lucky with our horses the past few years. The stable has just about broken even; we haven’t actually lost money, but we haven’t made any, either. And that, in a way, is what’s kept Carl with me. He’d like to be an owner himself, and he has all the knowledge of both training and finances to do it. But, although he’s paid a fair salary, he needs the bonus he’d get for bringing along a real winning horse to raise the capital to buy stock and set himself up in business. So you see,” Mr. Worthington concluded, “if my luck improves and I have one or two good seasons, I’ll probably lose my trainer.”

  “Does that mean you’d rather not win?” Trixie asked bluntly.

  Mr. Worthington scowled, and for a moment Trixie was afraid that he was about to lose his temper. Then he regained control and chuckled once again. “Of course not,” he said. “Carl is a brilliant trainer, but no one is irreplaceable. I’ve devoted my life to making money because I like making money. The horses have been pretty much a hobby until now, but if they turned into a profitable concern, I’d be as pleased as anyone. And now I’d suggest that we take our seats at the track. The race will be starting soon.”

  Mrs. Wheeler joined them in Mr. Worthington’s private box at the track, chatting happily about her morning’s shopping and asking the girls about their behind-the-scenes tour. The girls assured her that the morning had been very educational, exchanging a guilty glance as they both thought again about how much of the reason for their trip to Saratoga they were keeping secret from Honey’s parents.

  “With what you learned this morning, you should be well able to make some educated picks this afternoon,” Mr. Wheeler said jovially. “If you have any sure things you’d like to tell me about, I’ll be happy to listen.”

  “I’d say Gadbox is a sure thing,” Trixie said. “And I’d say nobody should bet on that bay we saw this morning.”

  “The bay is in the first race,” Mr. Worthington said. “There are only four horses in the race, so if you’ve eliminated one of them, you only have three left to pick from. Which one do you like?” He handed her his copy of the racing form, which contained information about all of the horses that would be racing that day.

  Trixie and Honey studied it carefully, trying to make sense of the mass of information about the horses’ sires and dams, their workout times from that morning, and their record of wins and losses in past races.

  Finally Trixie handed the form back to Mr. Worthington with a sigh. “I guess my favorite horse for the first race is Freckles. That isn’t based on his track record, his workout time, or his breeding record.”

  “I know what it’s based on,” Honey said with a giggle. “The reason for your choice is as clear as the nose on your face—or maybe I should say as clear as the freckles on the nose on your face.”

  “You guessed it, Honey,” Trixie said. “If that poor horse has freckles, too, he has my sympathy— and my hopes for his good luck.”

  “I’ll pretend that I went down to the window and placed a bet on him for you,” Mr. Wheeler said, laughing.

  Very soon, the horses were being led onto the track. “That has to be Freckles,” Trixie said, pointing to a dapple gray horse that stood out against the field of bays and chestnuts.

  “It is indeed,” Mr. Worthington said after he’d checked the horse’s number against his racing form. “And the horse we saw this morning in the workout is number five, Willmore. We’ll soon see if his time this morning was his all-out best or if we were fooled by his trainer’s little game.”

  The horses were settled in their gates, the gun went off, and the race began. Freckles took an early lead, then began to lose ground to the other horses. At the same time, Willmore began to move up, and at the finish line he was in the lead by more than a length, while Freckles lagged far behind.

  Trixie tossed both hands into the air. “So much for all the inside information I picked up this morning,” she said, with a bleak smile.

  Mrs. Wheeler hugged her. “It happens to the best of them, Trixie,” she said. “Real gamblers don’t let it keep them from trying again.”

  Trixie and Honey did try again—and again. But in the first three races, they found themselves out of the “pretend” money every time.

  The fourth race was the one that Gadbox was entered in. “Here’s your sure thing, Trixie. Do you want me to increase the size of your ‘bet’?” Mr. Wheeler asked.

  “It isn’t as though you’ve lost a small fortune, Trixie,” Mrs. Wheeler said reassuringly. “We wanted you to have a good time at the races, and part of having a good time is betting, especially when it’s ‘pretend’ betting, which doesn’t hurt, even when you lose!”

  “Well-1-1,” Trixie said slowly, going along with the game and acting as if she wanted to be persuaded.

  “Come on, Trixie, let’s have a sort of bet,” Honey urged. “Think how bad Gadbox would feel if he found out his two new friends didn’t even bet on him!”

  At Honey’s words, a picture formed in Trixie’s mind of the beautiful Thoroughbred pouting in his stall, his lower lip stuck out like that of a hurt child. She began to giggle so hard that she could only nod her agreement to Mr. Wheeler.

  Mr. Worthington and his guests all leaped to their feet the minute the gun signaled the start of the fourth race, and all of them strained nearly as hard as their favorite horse for the duration of the race. The girls jumped up and down and screamed until their voices broke. The adults, trying to be more dignified, lost their composure, and they, too, began to shout encouragement as the horses came round the final turn and Gadbox began to surge into the lead.

  When he finally crossed the finish line, he was four lengths ahead of the second-place horse. Trixie and Honey threw their arms around each other, dancing up and down with excitement.

  “We finally picked a winner, Trixie!” Honey said.


  At Honey’s words, Trixie’s elation vanished. “That’s right, Honey,” she said soberly. “We finally picked a winner. And in the excitement I forgot that, if we were really playing horses, I’d picked three losers before, and I hadn’t paid for the winning ticket, either. I also forgot how much of my ‘winnings’ should go to pay back the money lent me.”

  Smiling, Mr. Wheeler said, “I very much admire your honesty, young lady.”

  Trixie flushed at his praise and pretended to study the racing sheet in order to cover her embarrassment. Suddenly she was struck by an alarming thought: With twelve imaginary dollars in her hands from her winning imaginary bet, Trixie had completely forgotten even Mr. Wheeler’s generosity in buying her dinner the night before and lunch just that afternoon, to say nothing of the hotel bill. Everything had fled from her mind at the thought of having even twelve extra imaginary dollars to spend as she pleased. And for her, they would have been extra dollars, not needed for food or a roof over her head. What if she were really poor, and what if there were a lot more than twelve dollars at stake? It would be even easier, under those circumstances, to forget about loyalty, to forget about someone who had treated you well. Is that what happened to Regan seven years ago? Trixie thought. Try as she might, she couldn’t get the bothersome idea out of her mind. She turned it over and over again during the rest of the afternoon. Once again she wished that she could get Honey alone so that the two girls could talk, but it wasn’t possible. Even when Trixie suggested that she and Honey go to the refreshment stand for a soft drink, Mrs. Wheeler decided to come along to stretch her legs.

  Worried and distracted, Trixie found it hard to keep her hosts from realizing that she was no longer enjoying herself at the races. She was relieved when the last race was over and the stands began to clear.

  “Shall we go down to the winners’ circle?” Mr. Wheeler asked.

  “I—I’d rather not,” Trixie said. “It’s been such a long day. I’d like to go back to the hotel and rest for a while.”