Shedrow (3 page)

Duncker replied in a smooth southern drawl, “Iced tea for me, please.” He made no secret of the fact that he was a recovering alcoholic and hadn’t consumed a drink in over thirty years. Duncker had also given up the courtship of new clients long ago. The reputation of Bushmill Stable was such that he was no longer required to do it. He
was blessed with plenty of clients who were more than willing to risk considerable cash on the hope and promise of a great thoroughbred. He had agreed to this meeting only because he had to be in Manhattan anyway, and Dr. Gianni had asked him to meet with Hill.

Hill asked, “So which of those two-year-olds do you like the best?” All prospective new clients and even some old ones couldn’t resist asking that one question, which in Duncker’s mind was akin to asking, “Who’s your favorite child?”

Duncker continued in his slow southern drawl, “Why I like them all, Bradford, otherwise I wouldn’t have bought them. But I will say that I am particularly fond of Chiefly Endeavor. He is by one of this year’s leading stallions, Dynaformer. The dam is a stakes winner herself, and her first two foals are both winners too. Hard to beat that at his sale price. This is her
third
foal, of course. He’s a real bruiser, stands about sixteen-three and has the bone, muscle and physique to go with it. Intelligent look to him, could be a
real good one
.” The last three words were drawn out in slow southern longhand. “But in this business there are no guarantees. I
always
tell my clients that I don’t want to see a penny that you can’t afford to lose, and I absolutely mean that.” That was Duncker’s standard approach with clients—brutally honest, always with the highest hope, but low expectations.

“Count me in on a share in Chiefly Endeavor. I’ve studied the material, and of course, I place a good deal of trust in the opinion of our mutual friend, Dr. Gianni. I guess I just needed to meet the patriarch of Bushmill Stable myself, and now that I have, well as I said, count me in on Chiefly Endeavor.”

“I most certainly will and we are delighted to have you with us.” Even though Duncker was no longer courting clients, he was happy
to have another from “the grid.” He often analyzed the demographics of his client base, rating their desirability. Manhattan’s grid, or the areas represented by zip codes 10021 and 10028, was among the best. He had many clients from the publishing industry, also a generally desirable bunch. Doctors were among the worst. They seemed to want to dissect every last detail of a pedigree or a billing statement. It was a wonder Gianni had lasted as long as he had with Bushmill. Duncker and Gianni did genuinely like and respect one another, nonetheless.

Brad Hill, on the other hand, had just spent $75,000 for a twenty-five percent stake in a massive but fragile four-legged athlete, sight unseen, in the time it had taken for his cocktail to arrive.

Saratoga Springs, NY
Three months later

The rising sun had begun to penetrate the thick fog overlying the famed Oklahoma training track in Saratoga Springs.
Like the pea soup over the New England coast
, Gianni thought as he approached the gate on Union Avenue, drove inside and headed towards the training track. The fog over the track reminded him of the still fog over a harbor, blurring the shapes of horses rather than boats, of jockeys not sailors.
Fog so thick it feels like a misting rain when you walk through it.

Gianni loved the early morning tranquility of both scenes, though of late he had abandoned the seascapes in favor of the training track. Once inside those gates, he felt as though he were a million miles from the hustle of Manhattan and the frenzy of a big city emergency room.

THE WORLD INSIDE the gates of the Oklahoma Track usually exploded with activity around mid July, though it remained open from spring through late autumn. Saratoga was the venue
where all owners and trainers wanted to spend the summer, hoping they had the sort of stock to compete against the best in the world.

Brad Hill was already parked along the track, chatting with another owner when Gianni drove by. “Good morning, Mr. Hill. Hop in and I’ll drive you to the barn.”

“Perfect vehicle for this place, Anthony,” Hill said as he opened the door of the black Jeep Wrangler.

Gianni said, “Hold on. It’s not the ride you’re accustomed to in your Range Rover.”

They rocked up and down over ruts in the dirt road and pulled up on the grass across from Barn 74, Jeff Willard’s barn.

“He’s been training really well,” Gianni said. “Jeff thinks he could be ready in August, September for sure. Though nothing is really for sure where thoroughbreds are concerned. If nothing else, Brad, horses will save you from a predictable life.”

They parked on a grassy area in front of the shedrow, a row of a dozen or so individual stalls facing a walkway. The smell of hay and manure was unmistakable when they approached the barn.

Most of the trainers converted the end stalls to offices. As they walked towards Jeff’s office at the end of the barn, Gianni recognized their horse heading at them.

“Look, here he comes now, right on schedule.”

“Good looking animal,” Hill said. “I’d love to see him make his debut while we’re still in Saratoga.”

“Wouldn’t we all.”

Chiefly Endeavor was slotted for one of the earlier sets, and the muscular colt was now prancing sideways, full of himself, with
Alison McKensie in the saddle. Alison was one of Jeff’s strongest exercise riders, and she had taken a special interest in the Chief, her nickname for the fractious two-year-old. Her legs were covered by leather chaps that hugged the barrel of the horse, and her blond hair was tied in a long pony tail that wagged behind her safety helmet, nearly in unison with the horse’s tail.

“Come on,” Gianni said. “Let’s go watch from the viewing stand.” They changed direction and walked back across a grassy area to the training track.

At every barn there were grooms tending to horses in the stalls, hot walkers circling them around the shedrows after their workouts, and exercise riders up and down on horses in a continual parade to and from the track. Trainers walked from the barn to the track and back again, on foot or on horseback, stopping to exchange words with anxious owners who always had questions for which there were often no answers.

From a host of illegals just up from Mexico, to the likes of the Whitneys and the Vanderbilts, the world inside the gates was a microcosm of the world outside. Even the horses exhibited a class system. Each barn had its alpha male, with others assuming more submissive roles, not unlike a litter of dogs. Among the two-year-olds in Jeff Willard’s barn, word was spreading that Chiefly Endeavor was the new alpha-elect.

Gianni could see Jeff standing in front of the viewing stand, a small bleacher-like structure raised several feet above ground level. At six-foot-three, Jeff could forego the stand. He looked back and forth between the stopwatch in his hand and his horse on the track.

“Four furlongs in forty-nine and one. Not bad, not bad,” he said.

“Good morning, Jeff.”

“Morning, Doc. Your colt is next.”

“Jeff, meet Brad Hill.” They exchanged pleasantries, and then the three climbed the stairs of the viewing stand.

“He’ll be going five furlongs on the turf.”

The fog had lifted, and the trio had a clear view across the track to the far side of the turf course. At the five-eighths marker they could see Chiefly Endeavor accelerate.

“Good stride,” Jeff said. “Look at the way he holds his head, he’s fluid and he has a good long stride. That’s a good horse.”

As he crossed in front of the finish pole, Jeff clicked his timer. “Looks like 1:02 flat, without looking like he had to work all that hard. That’s good.” Jeff began to walk back towards his barn with Gianni and Brad Hill at his side.

Jeff said, “Doc, I was going to call you this morning. Chiefly Endeavor is our good news of the day, but I’m afraid I have some bad news as well. The filly got very sick yesterday.”

Gianni only had one filly, so he knew Jeff was referring to his three-year-old, a pretty chestnut named Boots. “What’s wrong with her?”

“After that last race, when she ran so poorly, I thought she might have a laryngeal paralysis. The jockey said she seemed to just quit, and she was blowing hard like she couldn’t get air.”

“The vet was going to look at her next week, right?”

“Yeah, and in the meantime she started to drain this foul smelling mucus out of her nose, on one side only. The vet scoped her
and at first he thought it was a tumor. Then on closer examination, he found and removed a sponge.”

“A what?”

“A sponge,” Jeff replied.

“How the hell did a sponge get in her nose?”

“You’ve never heard or read anything about sponging?”

Gianni stopped walking and looked quizzically at the trainer, then at Hill.

Jeff continued, “Sponging. A piece of sponge is inserted deep into one of the nostrils. It interferes with breathing, and obviously with the horse’s ability to run. Longer term, it will cause infection and a whole host of problems if it’s not found in time.”

“My God, who would do that to a horse?” Hill asked.

“Hard core gamblers, organized crime, crooked trainers or owners,” Jeff said.

Gianni shook his head in disgust. “I want to see her.”

“In her case, I can’t figure any motive,” Jeff said. “That race was a low level claiming race, so an owner or trainer would have to be pretty desperate for a lousy win. And she wasn’t enough of a threat in that race for some high stakes gambler to target her and try to put her out of the running. In fact, the favorite won that race and paid peanuts. Right now it’s in the hands of the police and the Racing and Wagering Board.”

“Can I see her now?” Gianni asked again.

“Sure, she’s lying down in her usual stall. The vet thinks she’ll be okay. One more thing, though.” Jeff stopped walking and gave a somber look in Gianni’s direction. “She’s the third horse this month who was sponged right here in the backstretch at Saratoga.”

Bradford Hill looked quizzically at the trainer, then at Gianni. “What kind of business have I gotten myself into, Anthony?”

Armonk, NY

“Must you drink that now, Janice?” Gianni said.

She looked up at her husband with a bored expression on her face. “It’s only water.”

“The hell it is, and Jesus Christ, it’s not even noon yet.”

Janice took a generous gulp of the clear iced liquid, then clinked the glass loudly on the table beside her. “Come here and taste it if you don’t believe me.”

“I don’t have to. I can tell by the way you swig it. Christ, I didn’t even have to come out here to know. I can tell by the way you clink the goddamn glass on the table. I can hear it from upstairs.”

Janice smiled, replaced her sunglasses, laid back in the recliner and stared at the sun. She had recently bleached her hair blonde, and she twirled the streaks idly with her fingers.

“I’m not going to argue today, we have to be at Belmont for the fifth race,” he said.

“I know, I just want to get a little more sun,” she said.

“And I want to leave here by one-thirty at the latest. Aren’t you tan enough already? It’s almost time to close the pool for God’s sake. Another week and it’ll be full of leaves.”

“Never tan enough. I want to look as tan as your friend Brad Hill does today.”

“One-thirty, Janice. And if you’re not ready I’m leaving without you.”

They left together at one-thirty-five. Janice had finished a second tumbler of vodka and was considerably more chatty now.

When they arrived at the track, she lagged behind her husband as she struggled to navigate the soft gravel walkways in her four inch heels. Gianni made little effort to alter the pace for her. He hustled his way past the attendant at the entrance to the paddock, a brief wave exchanged between them.

A towering white pine tree sat in the center of the paddock, its many branches reaching out like huge tentacles at all angles, some skyward, others growing out horizontally from the fat trunk. In an area outside the shade of the great pine, a bronze statue of Secretariat glinted in the sunlight, giving tribute to the horse’s spectacular thirty-one length romp in the 1973 Belmont Stakes and his capture of the Triple Crown.

Gianni went directly to stall four, where he met up with Jeff Willard. A double-breasted, light grey suit framed the trainer’s tall, rugged body. His boyish face and blue eyes appeared a bit incongruous, belonging on a smaller frame, perhaps. Jeff wasn’t always the most winning trainer, but he usually found himself ranked in the top fifty nationwide. More importantly, Gianni knew that Jeff understood how to treat horses. Often quoting one of his mentors, Jeff would
remind his owners that “if you take good care of the horses, they’ll take good care of you.”

“How’s he looking, Jeff?”

“He’s fit, Doc. Mean as hell like the old man, but fit. Tried to bite the blacksmith again this week.”

Gianni looked devotedly at the animal. Chiefly Endeavor was large for a two-year-old, a dark brown muscular animal with an alert demeanor and an intelligent look in his eye. He reared slightly and shifted his body when the saddle was cinched up under his flank, then again after his tongue was secured with a thick elastic band to keep it from interfering with his airway—a technique many trainers utilize before a race.

Chief pranced off alertly to join the other two-year-olds in the paddock. There were seven other horses, and nearly in unison eight jockeys got the “leg up” as they were boosted like anxious little warriors into the irons.

Anthony was rejoined by Janice, who had found Brad Hill on the way in, and the two had been quite content to gab and watch the people in the paddock while Anthony tended to the horse. Alison McKensie, the exercise rider, was there too. She could have easily passed for one of the owners, wearing a simple but elegant print dress that accentuated her shapely torso and muscular calves, conditioned by years on horseback.

Together they all followed Jeff out of the paddock area. They walked by a block of betting windows, where edgy bettors lined up ten deep. Some carried crumpled
Racing Forms
and scribbled combinations of numbers with pen or pencil as they nudged their way forward in line.