Horse Heaven (8 page)

I
F THERE WAS A VARIETY
of female that fit in on the backside, either here at Pimlico or anywhere else in the racing world, Deirdre Donohue didn’t know what it would be, but she did know that it wasn’t her variety. Over her long five years as a trainer of Thoroughbred racehorses, she had learned that she was (1) too loud, (2) too opinionated, (3) not pretty, (4) without charm, (5) badly dressed, (6) too unassociated with men to be reliably heterosexual, (7) too liberal in her political opinions, (8) too taciturn (which fit in with her loudness and opinionatedness because she only spoke up when she was really pissed off), and (9) lacking a sense of humor. When the men trainers were telling dirty jokes during morning works and she came up, they always fell silent. Being generally men of the old school, they would naturally fall silent if a woman came upon them telling dirty jokes anywhere, but they resented the fact that they couldn’t tell dirty jokes on the backside of a racetrack of all places, and so they resented Deirdre, without differentiating between her femininity and her lack of a sense of humor.

Deirdre could not say that her switch from training jumpers to training racehorses had been a success, but in the end it was easier to put a jockey, which she had never been, up on a talented runner than it had been to put a rider up on a talented jumper that she herself might have ridden if she hadn’t broken her back falling off over a six-foot oxer at Devon. That was eight years ago, when she was thirty-two. Now she was forty, with no husband, no children, no friends among her colleagues, twenty extra pounds that felt like they belonged to someone else, and a manner that even she didn’t like. She had two things going for her: a splendid Irish accent and a string of steady winners. Her old friends on the jumper circuit were still her best friends, partly because she still had an eye for a good potential jumper who might make a match with a rider she knew. More than a few runners she had retired showed up in
The Chronicle of the Horse
, their necks arched and their knees neatly folded over impressive obstacles, but she never went to watch them, and the people she
knew at the track acted as if that world didn’t even exist except below a certain fiscal horizon. And it didn’t. The racetrack, even in Maryland, where the big money most assuredly was not, thought of itself as Hollywood or Big Oil, and of the jumper circuit as writing poetry or owning a family restaurant—a good enough way to while away a life, but nothing Important.

It was thinking these sorts of thoughts at the track that kept Deirdre Donohue silent and pissed off.

It was only with her bookkeeper, Helen, and her assistant trainer, George Donohue, an actual second cousin who hailed from five miles away from the Curragh itself, that Deirdre put on her other personality, which was the one the horses knew—attentive, thoughtful, kindly, thoughtful, generous, thoughtful, and thoughtful. It was Helen, who had been keeping Deirdre’s books since she had her first jumper barn when she was twenty-four, who had once pointed out to Deirdre that she had this alternative personality, and she often urged her to trot it out in company, but Deirdre kept it under wraps. To Helen, she said, “The men around here wouldn’t recognize it if they saw it,” and Helen had to admit this was true.

It was George who had all the Irish charm and all the Irish looks and all the Irish capacity for a wee drop, but at twenty-four himself, he had only risen about fifteen degrees on his alcoholic trajectory, and had many useful years left in him before he had to be shipped back to the old sod. The other thing about him was that, even though Deirdre’s owners’ wives didn’t know it, it was George who was gay. That was why he had been shipped over in the first place.

They were a pretty good close knot of a threesome, and as a result, Deirdre was in a better mood than she had been in years. Life with horses had taught her to accept, expect, and even to enjoy the temporary quality of all good things. She, George, and Helen were a good thing. At the moment, she was sitting with one of her owning couples. Deirdre never made the mistake that some trainers did, which was talking to the man and ignoring the woman. In the first place, she would never do that, and in the second place, most owners came as a couple, and whoever had first accrued the money didn’t matter, and neither did whoever first got interested in horses. In most, though not all, cases, horses seemed eventually to suck them in equally. Now she was listening intently to the Hollisters and making faces. She knew that Helen, who kept glancing in the window, was trying to signal to her to stop making faces, but she couldn’t help it. What the Hollisters were saying was pushing every button she had.

Daniel Hollister said, “He’s a good trainer. I asked around.”

“You asked around?” exclaimed Mary Lynn Hollister. “Why in the world would you ask around?”

“It’s called research.”

“It’s called gossip, Skippy.”

Deirdre was almost always able to suppress a bark of laughter when Mary Lynn called Daniel Hollister, who was an anti-trust lawyer and Washington power-broker of nearly stratospheric importance, “Skippy.”

“He said the horse could have won. I mean, everyone always says that, but he came right up to me and said, ‘That horse won, didn’t he?,’ like there was a rumor that the horse won.” He stuck in a note of petulance. “Like everyone around expected the horse to win.”

“Not me,” said Deirdre.

“Well, then,” said Skippy Hollister.

Quod erat demonstrandum. Deirdre had had an excellent Catholic education that had left her with a whole collection of Latin phrases that no one else but George understood. “Speed kills,” said Deirdre.

“What does that mean?” said Skippy.

“It means that the horse wasn’t ready,” said Mary Lynn. “It means he would have maybe thrown himself out of whack with a race like that and had a big bounce or worse. Why don’t you ever listen to anyone, Skippy?”

“I listened to a good trainer who thought the horse was ready.”

“Skippy, when you go into discovery, do you take the advice of the opposing team about what you should pay attention to and what you shouldn’t?”

“I don’t consider Harry Jacobson to be on the opposing team. He’s a disinterested outsider.
And
he has a good reputation.”

“He’s on the opposing team to Deirdre here, right?” She cast a look at Deirdre.

“I would say so, yes,” said Deirdre, as always beginning reasonably, “He’s trying to steal the fucking horse,” and then ending offensively.

“Oh, please,” said Skippy Hollister. “When I asked him if he could do better with the horse, he said he didn’t think so, that Deirdre is one of the best trainers around, and whatever the horse has, Deirdre will eventually find it.”

“Mother of God,” said Deirdre.

“Skippy, I wonder that you are my life’s companion. I wonder that I allowed that to happen.” Then Mary Lynn said to Deirdre, “Honey, I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t use vulgarities in my presence. Thank you.” She smiled autocratically.

“Max Weber uses the guy. He’s won and won and won.”

“Skippy,” said Mary Lynn. “Has he
profited?
”

“Well, I suppose. How could he not?”

“Well, he has not. Jolene Weber told me they’ve spent millions on yearlings and two-year-olds in training and broodmares. They’ve won millions,
too, but not as many millions as they’ve spent!” When Skippy looked at his wife, Deirdre had the distinct impression that she was going to slap him upside the head a couple of times. You could call her abusive in her way, but Deirdre found it rather satisfying. Other than horses, Mary Lynn Hollister did an incredible amount of volunteer work. She was a classic dragon of benevolence, and with luck Deirdre herself would end up in some care institution that Mary Lynn Hollister oversaw.

“You, Skippy, have profited,” said Mary Lynn. “Thanks to Deirdre, you are in the one percent that has profited.”

“These are horses here,” said Deirdre. “I don’t like to run them out unless they are at a fu—that is, at a hundred percent. Sometimes you use races to prepare for races. We’ve talked about this before.” She heard her voice rise irritably as she mentioned this last. Harry Jacobsons voice was ever and anon respectful with every owner or potential owner, and since every person in the world, through the striking of lightning or an Act of God, was a potential owner, Harry Jacobson was uniformly respectful
to
them, if not
about
them.

“I want to move the horse. Just that horse. Just to try it. We’ve profited, but we haven’t won a big race.” Now the note of petulance in Skippy Hollister’s voice was distinct. Deirdre wondered if maybe Mary Lynn had taken the wrong tack, treating Skippy like a child. She said, “I certainly respect your wishes, Mr. Hollister. If you wish to move the horse, you may. My bookkeeper will work up your final bill.”

“It’s an experiment, that’s all. The horse can come back here after a few weeks. Or something. I think a change would be good for the horse, maybe.”

Deirdre just couldn’t keep it up. She knew that, theoretically, she had a choice, and that making the right choice was in her long-term best interest, but she said, anyway, “I don’t fucking think so.”

“What?” said Skippy.

“I said … Well, you heard me.”

Skippy looked offended and so did Mary Lynn, unfortunately. Just then, George breezed into the office without knocking.

“Lovely animal, that one,” he said.

“Which one?” said Daniel Hollister, grumpily.

“Why, that Cozzene colt you’ve got there. I’m telling you, when I first saw that one, I thought he was a weedy thing.”

“We were just talking about him—”

“For sure you were, Mr. Hollister. They’re talking about this lad all over the track now, with that last race he ran.”

“What do you mean?”

“Mother of God, man, he’s a corker. But you know, these Americans, they
don’t understand these Caro-line horses. Now, you know Caro, he was Irish to the core, that laddie was. You ever seen a picture of him? He looked like an Irish hunter, and he’s produced a few of them, too. Just the kindest young boyo in the world. Great sire, if you ask me. And he woulda been a great sire if some farmer had had him out in the back, the way they do in Ireland, you know. You finish your chores and get on the old man, and go out hunting for a bit, then you come home and let the lad chat up a few females, and pretty soon you’ve got a whole field of good hunters. Well. But he was something!”

“The colt was quite expensive,” said Daniel Hollister, stiffly.

“But, then, an expensive colt isn’t for someone who can’t afford it, is he?” said George. “Especially an expensive colt who takes some patience, some, let’s say, faith. Now, any of these boyos can be getting themselves a hot Storm Cat yearling and turning him around in a year, and then watching him break down after three or four races. But it takes a real horseman like yourself to develop a horse from a classic line like this Caro line.”

“I don’t think—”

“That’s what we say in Ireland—you can tell a horseman by his willingness to wait. A horse is no machine, is what we say, but a living, breathing, opinionated beast. You got to wait for them, and then wait some more. Isn’t it so, cousin?”

“Fucking right.”

“Listen to her! No manners, and a good education could do nothing for her.”

“Are you saying,” said Mary Lynn, “that another, less patient trainer might break down this extremely expensive colt that we paid, let’s see, $247,000 for?”

“Might well do that. You know what they say all over this track?”

“What?” said Mary Lynn.

“Well, you know, they’ll bet on anything.”

“I’m sure,” said Skippy Hollister.

“They’ve got odds on whether you’ll have the stomach to stay with the trainer you’ve got, or whether you’ll lose your courage and jump.”

“They do?”

Deirdre had her arms on the desk and her head down, she was so close to laughing out loud. She knew she looked, however, like she was stricken with dismay. That was fine.

George went on. “I put a bit of change down myself. You know, Mr. Hollister, I could lay out a tenner for you yourself on this side wager. You could make a bit of change, as only you know what you’re going to be doing.”

“What would I be doing with the horse? The horse is doing fine.”

Mary Lynn allowed herself one little smile, then there was a long pause,
and then Daniel Hollister said, “Well, I suppose we’ve got that all settled now, huh.”

Deirdre lifted herself up and shook herself out. “I guess so. And thank you.”

“There’s a girl,” said George. “I almost always have to remind her to say please and thank you. But she’s a sight better than her dad. Cousin Devlin never says a word.”

Mary Lynn now turned toward George and seemed to melt visibly, though only within the bounds of propriety. She said, “You’re a wonderful addition to the barn, George, and you make everyone’s lives around here much easier, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“You may say whatever you please, ma’am, as long as insincere flattery of myself is a part of it.” George gave her a dazzling smile and a full-bore Irish twinkle. And then he did the same with Skippy, and then they were out of there. George let them get a step down out of the door, then he gave Deirdre a pinch on the arm and whispered, “Now, Cousin, you’ve got to walk them out of the barn and see them off.”

“I do?”

“You do.”

When she got back to her office, George and Helen were having a regular laugh fest. Deirdre greeted it as usual: “What’s so funny? Are there really odds about this?”

“Not a bit of it,” said George. “But Helen put on the intercom, and I saw what was in the wind, so I came up with something.”

“If that horse went to Harry Jacobson, I hate to think.”

“
I
hate to think,” said Helen. Deirdre knew that Helen was considering the welfare of her fiscal condition, not that of the Cozzene colt, for her book-keeper had only yesterday managed to trap her in the office long enough to have some serious financial discussion with her. Fortunately, the gist of that discussion had now become hazy in her mind. Nevertheless, the Hollisters were good owners—they paid their bills on time, bought and sold their horses as per Deirdre’s instructions, and didn’t insist on expensive jaunts to tracks that Deirdre considered beyond her depth, like Santa Anita and Gulfstream and Keeneland. It was well not to offend them, both virtuous and wise. As George often said to her, “You can’t persuade owners to recognize your native charm if you are cursing at them all the time, Cousin.”