Raja, Story of a Racehorse (22 page)

There was no way around it and I was moving fast. It was too late to stop. I had too much momentum. If I tried, I would slip and fall. I couldn't see the other side, but it was too late. I would either make it or crash in a terrible fall. Five strides out, I measured the distance, rebalanced, gathered myself up, and jumped over it in a giant leap.

As I landed, I swerved, extending my forelegs and picking up my hind legs to avoid a tractor parked on the other side of the barrier, then kept galloping.

“Sasha,” I heard a voice. It was Dee. I began to slow down, the possession fading as I pulled to a trot and then trotted back to Dee, still heaving and blowing and catching my breath. “Easy buddy, relax, settle.” I jigged sideways.

Dee grabbed my reins and vaulted on using a Cossack move she had seen Yuri do, then steered me back down a path through some trees around the barrier to a man wearing a battered old tweed cap and a weathered green parka with silver duct tape over a tear.

He smells like the country. Like alfalfa and wood smoke.

“Uncle Paddy,” she said excitedly, “This is the horse I told you about — Sasha.” Paddy's brown forelock fell over twinkling grey eyes, now aflame with excitement. He looked familiar.

I've seen him before, where?

“Holy Mother Mary! Did you see that? I haven't seen a horse jump like that since I saw Nick Skelton and Everest Lastic win the high jump at Olympia. That fence was almost seven feet high. Incredible! And he jumped a tractor on the other side! That was one of the greatest jumps I've ever seen. And I've seen lots of top international jumpers in my day.”

He walked over to me with a slight bowlegged hitch to his gait, energetically, yet smoothly, so as not to startle me, and gave me a friendly pat on the neck with un-gloved, callused, knowing hands as his eyes scanned my body.

The horse dentist! Paddy Murphy! I could tell by his movement, his touch.

“You can trust me,” he said with his hands and his movement. I was still breathing heavily, hot and excited from the run. Almost unconsciously, I nudged him, rubbing my head on his shoulder and letting out a big rumbling sigh.

“Uncle Paddy! He likes you!”

“Keep him walking. He's still blowing. 'Tis a very handsome horse. Well bred, judging by the look of him. He looks familiar. I feel like I've met him before. I never forget a horse. I know I've seen him. Ah well, I'll probably remember in the middle of the night.”

He reached into his pocket, found a roll of Polo mints, unrolled a strip and offered one to me, patting me on the forehead. “Hullo, lovely boy.” He turned to Dee. “He's certainly not your typical police horse. I see why you are infatuated with him. Did you see him jump that barrier? Incredible! He made it look like nothing. Ah, Dee-girl, you reminded me of your mother just then. That was quite a bit of riding — where did you learn that move? You looked like a Valkyrie, jumping on like that! You have your mother's blood, there's no doubt about that. She was the best horsewoman in County Limerick, God bless her soul. She'd have been proud of you. Now, then, shall we take this horse back and find out what happened?”

He walked beside me, putting his hands on the reins to steady me as I jigged and snorted, still agitated from the run. A crowd of people had gathered around an ambulance at the patch of ice where I had slipped. Yuri lay on a metal bed, awake, joking with the EMTs as they loaded him into the vehicle.

Oliver and Officer Mike were at the scene.

“Thank you. Is Sasha OK?” Mike asked, taking the reins from Dee.

“He's fine as far as I can tell. No scrapes and he feels sound. What happened? Is Yuri OK?” Dee asked, with a worried expression.

“It sounds like Sasha was scared by the photographers. He bolted and slipped on the ice going around a corner. Yuri has a pretty good concussion and he broke his leg — his femur. It'll be a while before he rides again.”

Yuri smiled at me through the pain as he was loaded into the ambulance. “It's OK, Sasha, it wasn't your fault. It was the ice. I'll see you soon, I promise.”

Oliver looked at me sadly and shook his head. “Ayuh, boltin' ain't looked on so good in the force, if ya know what I mean. Don't know that I've evah known a bolter. Lucky ya ain't huhrt with that fall an' everythin.'”

When would Yuri get out of the hospital? When will I see him?

Officer Mike spoke again,“I'll take him back. It looks as though Sasha may not be cut out for police work.”

A freezing rain started to fall as I walked home through the grey and yellow rain-slicked streets of New York with Oliver and Officer Mike.

January, Manhattan, New York

The New Year came with me still in the stable, unridden, and Yuri still gone. The routine went on around me as usual, but I felt a heavy, uneasy, feeling. The stone in the pit of my stomach was growing. There was a lot of talk about what I would do now that I wasn't cut out to be a police horse.

Rob was speaking to Captain Rourke. “I think Sasha needs to go to the retirement farm. He's too much of a liability for a riding school. I wouldn't want anyone to get hurt riding such a dangerous horse.”

Dangerous! So that's what they think. But I'm not dangerous. I'm kind and and I always try my best.

The stone in my stomach got heavier.

Why don't they understand me? Where's Yuri? What's going to happen to me?

“My friend ships horses.” Rob snorted loudly before spitting a yellow glob onto the ground, staring blankly at me. “He can come and get Sasha tomorrow. I'll take care of everything.”

February, somewhere in New Jersey

 

The icicles forming around my nose and whiskers made it hard to breathe as a bitter wind blew through the open-sided stock trailer. Every once in a while a huge truck whizzed by, inches from me. Oliver had told me that the farm was seven hours away. We drove for two.

As we turned into the yard of a run-down farm, I saw three skinny horses huddling together for warmth in a small paddock surrounded by rusted barbed wire tied to crooked fence posts with baling twine. A large pile of frozen manure and rusted metal farm equipment sat in the center of the paddock and an old, tired bathtub leaned precariously against a corner, anchored in place by the yellow-and-brown ice that covered the rutted, tire-scarred ground.

I planted my feet firmly while Rob's friend pulled and jerked a chain he had put over my nose and clipped to my halter.

No way am I going into that paddock.

The chain hurt, but I didn't care. Rob's friend tied me to the trailer and went into the truck, pulling out a metal stick, too thick for a whip.

What is it? What does he plan to do?

“Earl, git yer fat butt off the couch and help me,” he yelled to someone in the house. While he waited, he took off my warm, heavy blanket and new leather halter, replacing it with an old, frayed nylon halter that smelled bad, like cat pee. Then he placed the chain under my lip and over my gums and gave it a sharp tug.

Ow…that really hurts.

I stood my ground. I was not going into the paddock.

“See here, I mean business,” he snarled.

A heavy, bearded man emerged from the house, lumbering down the porch steps as he pulled on a red checkered jacket.

“You owe me one, bro. It's freezing out here and the game is in overtime. Flash Jackson just scored to tie. Man, that guy is good, I tell ya.”

Flash? Is he here? Things are getting strange.

“Give me a hand. Hold him.”

Earl held the chain while Rob's friend walked behind me with the metal stick.

Whoa!

I jumped high in the air in surprise at the shock. It hurt — a lot. He did it again and I bolted into the paddock, trembling all over and snorting loudly, feeling violated. He nodded, smiling at Earl through brown-stained teeth, before spitting on the ground.

“Cattle prod. Best investment I ever made.”

I was so cold, so hungry, so thirsty. By now I knew I wasn't going to the retirement farm. My heart began to pound and my stomach tightened as a feeling of cold dread came over me.

Where am I going?

Rob's friend pricked me with a needle. I was sleepy, so sleepy. I could barely stay awake.

I drifted off into a restless, troubled, dream-filled sleep.

February, New Holland, Pennsylvania

“We made it to the ‘retirement farm' OK,” Rob's friend barked gruffly into his cell phone, jumping up and down next to the trailer to stay warm.

“It's colder'n sin out here. I'll let you know what he brings and I'll send you a check next week, or would you rather have cash?” He stomped his feet, trying to stay warm.

“We're lucky that meddling Beth ain't here. I'll bet she's stuck in the storm. Glad to see the meat buyers made it. Thoroughbreds are highest quality, Grade A. Your nag's got a lot of meat on him. He'll get a good price.”

Are they talking about me? Where are we?

The big cement building and muddy stock-trailer–filled parking lot looked familiar.

The livestock auction!

Rob's friend put me into a small pen with the other three horses and tied us to a metal bar. The frigid wind picked up, biting into my thin, newly clipped coat.

Freezing! It's freezing.

As the other horses and I silently huddled together, desperately trying to stay warm, I smelt an acrid, sickening, bitter smell, like something burning. Looking up sharply, I saw Rob's friend talking to a man wearing a cowboy hat.

He has a patch over his left eye! The kill buyer!

The deal was done in the parking lot. Rob's friend led me to the back of the building where a large tractor trailer idled loudly, belching black clouds of diesel smoke. Inside the open back door, 12 horses stood shivering.

This doesn't feel real. This feels like I am in the worst nightmare imaginable.

“Git,” the man in the cowboy hat growled as he roughly tried to pull me into the tractor trailer. I pinned my ears back and kicked out a warning.

I'm not getting in there.

The crack of a bull whip pierced the icy night air, accenting the terrible sounds of the rumbling truck engine, horses whinnying in fear and men cursing harshly.

“Git, hoss,” he snarled louder, stinging my flank with his whip, one, two, three times, each time harder than the last. I skittered sideways, my metal shoes sliding on the ice-covered pavement, and whinnied loudly to the others.

Think! DO something. There has to be a way out.

The stench of diesel fuel mingling with the smell of cigarettes and pig manure from the livestock pens made me dizzy. I suddenly felt weak. I stood unsteadily, pulling back against him, trying to catch my breath.

Oww. OWW!

I felt a strong shock — a surge of electricity — and jumped forward onto the truck, hearing Rob's friend laugh cruelly as I did.