Live and Let Growl

by Laurien Berenson

  “Aunt Peg was told that she might need to find a stallion to breed Lucky Luna to this year?” I asked. “Do you know anything about that?”

  “I do, actually, and it’s already been taken care of. The previous owner booked Lucky Luna last fall to a stallion at Lane’s End named Candy Ride. We have the signed contract on file in the office. I assume that meets with your approval?”

  “Should it?” asked Aunt Peg. She clearly had no more idea who Lucky Luna’s potential suitor was than I did.

  “Absolutely,” said Erin. “Candy Ride is a very good horse and a super choice for your mare.”

  “Excellent,” Aunt Peg declared. “One less thing to worry about.”

  I stared at her in surprise. Usually Aunt Peg wasn’t happy unless she was micromanaging everything and everyone. So this was a change, and a pleasant one at that. Maybe this trip to Kentucky would be good for her. Maybe it would be good for both of us.

  After all, it was spring break. One could only hope.

  Chapter 5

  “I’m a little disappointed,” I said when Sergio had taken Lucky Luna back to her stall and the three of us were walking back to Erin’s truck.

  “Why is that?” asked Erin, pausing. “Was there something else you wanted to see?”

  “Yes.” I nodded. “Racehorses.”

  “You just saw Lucky Luna,” Aunt Peg said. “She was a racehorse.”

  “Sure, once upon a time. But now she’s retired. And pregnant. So she doesn’t really count. I came to Kentucky thinking that I was going to see real racehorses and so far I haven’t seen a single one.”

  Erin was smiling by the time I finished speaking. “I can help with that,” she told me. “Hop in.”

  Erin started up the truck, and headed off in a different direction than the way we’d come. The new road conveyed us past yet more fields and farm buildings before finally coming to an end on the far side of the property.

  “Here we are,” Erin announced. Stopping the truck on the crest of a small rise, she lifted a hand and swept it wide. “Is that what you wanted to see?”

  It was indeed. In the hollow below us sat a three-quarter-mile racetrack with a pristine dirt surface and waist-high white rails that glistened softly in the afternoon sun. As we watched, a trio of horses went galloping by. Their legs moved gracefully in unison. Long tails streamed out behind them. Three riders bobbed gently up and down in their saddles.

  “This is the Six Oaks training track,” Erin said. She put the truck back in gear and coasted down the shallow hill to a parking lot beside an airy, center-aisle barn. “It’s where the young horses get started before they’re ready to go to a real track, and where older campaigners get legged back up after a break. Most of the work usually gets done in the mornings, but with the Keeneland two-year-old in-training sale coming up, we have lots of buyers stopping by to have a look at the horses we’ll be offering, so there are youngsters on the track at all hours. Would you like to get out and have a look?”

  “I’d love to.” I didn’t even wait for the truck to stop moving before opening my door and scrambling out. “Can we go over near to the rail?”

  “Sure, if you like.”

  “I don’t want to disturb anyone.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” said Erin. “No one will even notice us.”

  She and Aunt Peg followed me across the grassy verge between the training barn and the track. Off to one side was another big field. This one was filled with curious yearlings. At least a dozen of the young Thoroughbreds had lined up along the fence to observe the activity on the track.

  “I guess we’re not the only ones who want to watch,” I said with a laugh.

  “Not even close,” Erin agreed, but she was gazing in the other direction. “Look at the gap.”

  She gestured down the track and I saw an opening in the rail where horses could enter and exit the oval. Clustered nearby were several dozen observers. Some were talking, others were hanging over the rail. One man was videotaping the proceedings.

  “Six Oaks shares this training track with a neighboring farm and it looks as though both farms are entertaining visitors today,” Erin said, shading her eyes to have a look. “It’s a full house. But we should be fine over here.”

  Our placement was better than fine, it was amazing.

  As we approached the track’s outer rail, another pair of young Thoroughbreds came thundering toward us. By comparison, the previous group had been loafing along at an easy pace. These two meant business. Both horses’ legs pumped like pistons. Their riders sat motionless, hovering low over bowed necks. The two young horses, moving together, were the embodiment of power and finesse. Their hoofbeats pounded a loud tattoo as the pair went flying past us and down the stretch.

  “Wow,” I said on an exhale. My head whipped around to follow the action as the Thoroughbreds went by. “That’s incredible.”

  “Isn’t it?” Erin’s eyes tracked the horses around the remainder of oval just like mine did. “I could stand here all day and watch them do that.”

  “Me, too,” I agreed.

  Aunt Peg had a question. “Is there a significance to the color of the cloths beneath the saddles? The first group all had yellow. This group was wearing green.”

  “You have a sharp eye,” said Erin. “Most people wouldn’t even notice that.”

  “Aunt Peg notices everything,” I told her. The two colts were now on the far turn. Their riders were standing in their stirrups. They appeared to be pulling up. “Just so you know.”

  “I’ll consider myself warned,” Erin replied with a smile, before turning back to Aunt Peg. “Like I said, Six Oaks shares the use of this track with our neighbor, Green Gates. They breed and race Thoroughbreds just like we do. Actually they’re one of our oldest competitors in the industry. But for the purposes of owning and maintaining a track, it makes sense for us to work together. The first group of horses you saw, the ones wearing yellow saddle cloths, are Six Oaks horses. The second pair, wearing green, come from next door.”

  “We’ve heard of Green Gates Farm,” I said. “Aunt Peg and Ellie Wanamaker are old friends.”

  Erin’s face lit up. “You know Miss Ellie? Isn’t she great? That woman is a powerhouse. I only hope that I have half her energy when I’m her age.”

  “We just saw Miss Ellie this morning,” Aunt Peg replied. “We stopped at her house in Midway on our way here.”

  “Oh,” said Erin. Her smile faded.

  “Is that a problem?” I asked.

  “No, of course not. I mean, not really.”

  “But?” I prodded.

  “I hope Miss Ellie didn’t try to convince you to move Lucky Luna over to her family’s farm. She’s a wonderful mare and we love having her here.”

  “She did nothing of the sort,” Aunt Peg said stoutly.

  No, she hadn’t, I realized. That omission hadn’t even occurred to me earlier. But now I found myself wondering why Miss Ellie hadn’t put in a good word for her family farm.

  “That’s a relief,” said Erin.

  We spent the next twenty minutes watching the activity on the track. It was all interesting to me. Horses came and went from the training barn, some of them singly, others in small groups. A few merely trotted around the well-cushioned oval, but most were galloping. Some, like the pair we’d seen earlier, appeared to be working at a fast rate of speed.

  “They’ll take a break now for track maintenance,” Erin told us when the last set of horses was finished. “Have you seen enough?”

  “Plenty,” I said. “That was great. Thank you so much for showing it to us.”

  “You’re welcome,” she replied. “It was fun for me, too. I spend my days at the broodmare division, and I don’t get to come to this side of the farm nearly enough.”

  Erin’s truck was parked on the other side of the barn. As we approached the building a handler exited through its wide door, leading a fractious young Thoroughbred on a leather shank. Two men disengaged t
hemselves from a group of people who’d been standing at the gap. The pair followed the chestnut colt to a level spot nearby where a pea stone-lined path formed a small walking ring. There, the handler posed the horse in much the same manner that Lucky Luna had been presented to us earlier.

  Erin continued walking but Aunt Peg’s steps slowed, then stopped altogether. It was probably reflex on her part. Once a judge, always a judge. She took a long look at the colt.

  Standing several feet way and with their backs to us, the two men examined the colt together. Both appeared to be closer to Aunt Peg’s age than mine. One man was tall and distinguished looking, with perfect posture and thinning gray hair that was precisely styled. The second man was wearing a ball cap pulled low over his face. He had a brawny build and sinewy arms, which he was using to gesture expansively as he spoke. I couldn’t hear what was being said, but I guessed from their body language that the shorter man was engaged in pointing out the colt’s merits while the other man leaned in and listened with interest.

  Annoyed at being asked to stand still, the chestnut snorted and stamped his foot impatiently. Then he shook his neck from side to side and snaked out his head in a sudden burst of movement. Teeth bared, he aimed a quick nip at his handler’s arm.

  I gasped softly under my breath, but the handler barely reacted at all. Instead he simply flicked the end of the leather shank in the direction of the colt’s nose and nimbly sidestepped the intended strike. Then, having obviously heard my quick intake of breath, the handler looked over at me and winked before turning his attention back to the horse in hand.

  Absorbed by the chestnut’s antics, it took me a moment to realize that a second handler had also left the barn and was now heading in our direction leading a muscular bay colt. While the chestnut was long-limbed, high-headed, and fiery, the newcomer looked plain by comparison. Striding along sedately beside his handler, the bay walked into the expected pose at the other end of the path, then dropped his head and pricked his ears politely.

  The two men watched the second colt approach. Then they moved toward him for a closer look. The shorter man began to gesture again. Now that they were facing us, I could hear snatches of their conversation. The tall man was asking questions. The shorter one was mostly looking at the bay colt and shaking his head.

  Erin, who’d gotten halfway to the truck before realizing she’d left Aunt Peg and me behind, had come circling back to find us. “Shall we?” she asked.

  “Sure,” I agreed. “Sorry to hold you up. It was just interesting to see the horses close up.”

  Once again I started to follow Erin away. Aunt Peg, however, was still looking back and forth between the two colts. She stayed where she was.

  “He’s recommending the wrong horse,” she said.

  I slammed on the brakes and pivoted back. “Shhh!”

  “Don’t shush me. I have something to say. That man . . . the one in the cap. He’s recommending the wrong horse.”

  “How could you possibly know that? All these horses look alike.”

  Aunt Peg slanted me a look. “I remember a time when you said the same thing about Standard Poodles.”

  “Yes,” I hissed under my breath. “And it took me a whole year to learn differently. You’ve only been in Kentucky for two days.”

  “That doesn’t matter in the slightest. One either has an eye for a good animal or one doesn’t. Form needs to follow function. A sound horse is like a sound dog; both are bred to perform. Surely you can see that.”

  “I hope you’re joking,” I muttered.

  “Hardly. Take a good look at those two young Thoroughbreds. They’re nothing alike at all. For starters, the bay is a better mover.”

  “How do you know?” I asked incredulously. “All we’ve seen them do is walk out here from the barn.”

  The expression on Aunt Peg’s face was withering. “We watched those two colts gallop on the track earlier.”

  “We did?” That was news to me.

  “Yes, we did. They were racing side by side. Don’t you recognize them?”

  Not a chance, I thought. These two looked more or less the same to me as all the others I’d seen go by.

  “Aunt Peg, we have to go,” I said in a low tone. “I’m sure the guy doing the talking over there is a horse expert.”

  “Then he should know that while the chestnut is more impressive at first glance, the bay is ultimately the better colt,” she retorted.

  And once again, Aunt Peg was back to micromanaging the world. I should have known that the brief respite wouldn’t last.

  “Excuse me.”

  I looked up. To my horror, I saw that the man in the ball cap, the one whose opinion Aunt Peg had just been disparaging, was coming over to join us. I hoped he hadn’t heard what we were saying.

  “Who are you?” he demanded.

  Yup. I swallowed a sigh. He’d heard us all right.

  Aunt Peg straightened her shoulders. She drew herself up to her full height, a shade under six feet. Then she gazed down her nose imperiously. Usually I’m the one who’s the recipient of that shriveling look. But under the circumstances, it didn’t make me feel any better to see it aimed in another direction.

  “I’m Margaret Turnbull,” she said.

  “And what do you know about racehorses?”

  “I’m sorry!” Abruptly Erin reappeared. She insinuated herself between Aunt Peg and the man and asked, “Is there a problem?”

  “No,” I said hastily. “No problem at all. We were just leaving. Right, Aunt Peg?”

  “I don’t think—” she began.

  I grabbed her arm and cut her off. “Yes, you do. In fact sometimes you think too much. But not today. Today we’re not going to share our opinions with anyone. Are we, Erin?”

  Looking baffled, Erin sputtered, “No?”

  “Good answer,” I told her.

  I pulled on Aunt Peg’s arm. And got no response. She just stood there like a large, unmovable mountain. The second time I tried a yank and a glare. If I had to make a third attempt to get her moving, I swear I was going to kick her.

  Fortunately it didn’t come to that. With Erin on one side and me on the other, we finally succeeded in hustling Aunt Peg back to the truck. To add to the ignominy of the situation, when I glanced back I saw that the handler who’d winked at me previously was now laughing at our predicament. Just perfect.

  We’d barely gotten our doors closed before Erin had the truck in gear. She spun the vehicle around and aimed it back up the hill. Within moments, the track and the training barn had receded in the distance.

  Then she looked at the two of us and asked, “What happened back there?”

  “It was just a small misunderstanding,” I said.

  “My foot!” Aunt Peg harrumphed.

  “Something’s the matter with your foot?” Erin sounded dismayed. She leaned over and had a look. “Did you get stepped on by a horse? Dammit, I should have been paying more attention.”

  And thus we descended from mere ignominy into total farce.

  “Aunt Peg’s foot is fine,” I said. “It’s her mouth that’s the problem.”

  As usual, I thought. It didn’t seem necessary to voice the thought aloud.

  “Who was that man?” Aunt Peg asked. “The one in the ball cap.”

  “His name is Billy Gates,” Erin said. “He and his cousin are co-owners of the farm next door.”

  I stifled a small groan. This day was just getting better and better.

  “And what was he doing back there?”

  Erin shrugged. “It looked like he was trying to sell a horse.”

  “The wrong horse,” Aunt Peg said firmly.

  “Excuse me?”

  Of course Erin sounded surprised, I thought. She didn’t know Aunt Peg nearly as well as I did.

  “And the other man,” Aunt Peg continued. “Who was he?”

  “I’ve never seen him before,” Erin replied. “He’s probably a client from out of town who’s here to shop at
the sale. Judging by what we saw, I’d guess that Billy is his bloodstock agent. Billy probably picked out a few nice colts for the client to look at ahead of time.”

  “I heard Mr. Gates tell the other man that the chestnut was the better colt.”

  Aunt Peg was like a Labrador with a tennis ball. She just couldn’t let it go.

  “Then he probably was the better colt,” I said. Leaning up from the backseat, I looked across at Erin. “Wasn’t he?”

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “I wasn’t paying that much attention.”

  “Aunt Peg doesn’t know either,” I said. “But that’s never stopped her from having an opinion.”

  “I may be new to horses,” Aunt Peg told me, “but I do understand the make and shape of a good, useful animal. It has to do with balance, and proportion, and a pleasing blend of parts. The chestnut might have been flashier, but the bay colt was an athlete.”

  “Even if that’s true,” I said, “you shouldn’t have butted in.”

  I looked to Erin for support. After a moment, she nodded.

  “Someone had to say something!” Aunt Peg insisted.

  Never mind about the Labrador. Aunt Peg was more like a Bulldog, tenacious and stubborn. And apparently never wrong.

  I supposed there was a bright side. At least we’d made our escape before Billy Gates had had us thrown out.

  “You’re probably glad we don’t visit often,” I said to Erin.

  She turned and flashed me a quick grin. “Not at all. Most days are pretty routine around here. It never hurts to shake things up a bit.”

  “My sentiments exactly,” said Aunt Peg. She sounded very pleased with herself.

  So help me, I wish I’d kicked her when I had the chance.

  Chapter 6

  Erin drove us back to the farm’s office and dropped us off in the small parking lot out front. I was sure she heaved a sigh of relief as she drove away and left us behind. Aunt Peg headed into the building where Ben Burrell was waiting for her. I hurried over to the minivan where I’d left Faith.