Man O'War (36 page)

Man o' War went forward, his eyes becoming suddenly alert when he saw the webbing in front of him. Kummer kept him in position, all the while glancing at Keogh up on the smaller horse. He mustn't underestimate this rider. Keogh would be out to win every way he could. Being up on Sir Barton was his big chance, and he wouldn't miss a trick.

Man o' War tried to bolt through the barrier, but an assistant starter held on to his bridle. For a moment Man o' War was still, and so was Sir Barton. Kummer knew the break would come any second.

The barrier went up, and there was nothing but empty track before them! The roar from the stands momentarily drowned out the pounding of their hoofs. The Match of the Ages had begun!

Kummer felt the great lurch as Man o' War bounded out from behind the barrier. He glanced at Sir Barton, who was head for head with Man o' War. The strides of both horses came faster. Sir Barton had a choppy way of going, but he didn't drop back as Kummer had hoped. Keogh was hurling his mount forward.

Kummer sat down to ride. The furious battle the crowd had expected was under way!

Man o' War dug into the loose dirt of the track, his strides devouring it in great leaps. Suddenly he surged to the front and began drawing away from Sir Barton! Kummer hadn't expected the dizzy burst of speed so soon. He took advantage of it by moving his colt over to the rail before passing the furlong pole. They swept by the stands for the first time with open daylight between Man o' War and Sir Barton. Was this race
over, too, before it had hardly begun? Kummer wondered, along with everybody else.

He steadied Man o' War as they went into the first turn and, glancing back, saw that Sir Barton was already under Keogh's whip! They were trying to come on and collar Man o' War in the backstretch. But entering the long straightaway, Kummer glanced back again to find Sir Barton falling still farther behind! It looked as though the older champion could not stand the pressure of Man o' War's blinding pace.

Kummer took up the reins another notch, trying to ease up his mount still more. Man o' War was making a mockery of the race that had been billed the greatest of all time! It was just another horse race to this colt, and he was winning as he always did!

Kummer's only duel now was with Man o' War. His colt was full of run and fighting for his head. The jockey didn't want him to get hurt by running himself out over the loose footing or by fighting for more rein. So Kummer gave way a little. Man o' War took the extra rein greedily, increasing his speed as they swept into the final turn. Kummer took him wide, careful to see to it that he did not slip or pull his flying feet out of the deep track too quickly.

Entering the homestretch, he glanced back once more. Sir Barton was vanquished but still trying hard. Kummer wrapped the reins around his hands for a better hold and slowed down Man o' War. They were seven lengths ahead of Sir Barton, far enough to win this final race without disgracing the game horse any further. The crowd cheered them all the way through the stretch and under the wire. The match race and Man o' War's turf campaign were over.

Kummer slowed Man o' War and, rising in his stirrups, took him into the first turn again. Suddenly the right stirrup gave
way and dropped to the track! Luckily Kummer had Man o' War almost to a walk and had no trouble stopping him. Lifting his leg, he saw where the stirrup leather had parted.

If Man o' War had given him any trouble at the barrier
, Kummer thought … 
if it had been a hard race, calling for quick movements in the saddle … if the stirrup had given way any other time but now, he would have been on the ground and, perhaps, under flying hoofs.

Turning Man o' War around, Kummer rode slowly back toward the winner's circle, where a jammed throng was awaiting them. He saw Sir Barton, exhausted and staggering, leave the track. Someone shouted that Man o' War had run the race in 2:03 flat, lowering the track record by six full seconds! He couldn't have been less interested. How fast might Man o' War have run had he let him? The police kept the huge crowd back. Everybody in the Riddle stable was going to be very happy tonight, Kummer thought. Everybody … including himself. He was very happy just to be getting back alive.

Man o' War returned to Belmont Park in a special railway car, and everywhere the train stopped, crowds gathered to look at him. They peered into the car, bug-eyed at the sight of the famous horse. He appeared every bit of what he was, the ruling monarch of the turf.

Danny was very proud to be part of the champion's entourage. There was no harm in letting the crowds look at Man o' War during his triumphal journey home, but Danny and the other grooms kept them from entering the car.

Although Man o' War was a super horse, there was no haughtiness in his manner. He accepted the adulation of all who gazed upon him in a friendly, good-natured way. It was as if he knew he had attained his speed and greatness through the careful, thoughtful planning of others. He could have acted no other way, any more than he could have ignored the power in his smoothly functioning body. Man o' War had taken his rightful place in the world of racing, and about his gleaming bronze body was an aura of greatness perhaps never to be seen again.

The train rumbled on, carrying him ever closer to Belmont Park, where he would carefully be taken out of training. Soon it would be over for keeps. The crowds would leave. The newsmen and photographers would be a thing of the past. The last race had ended and was recorded in the books. Only silent homage, if anything, would be paid to the great champion. Man o' War, only three years old, had become history, his track career finished.

Danny kneeled in the freshly made and clean-smelling straw bedding. He ran a hand down the colt's right foreleg, which had been injured at Havre de Grace. There was no filling from yesterday's match race. But with further racing the tendon might easily bow. That was another reason for Mr. Riddle's deciding to retire Man o' War. There was no sense in taking the risk of hurting so valuable a stud prospect.

Danny got up from the straw and sat on a low, flat tack trunk.
It doesn't mean that it's the end for him or me
, he thought.
I can get a job with Mr. Riddle at the stud farm. In time there'll be his colts and fillies to watch, all just as spindle-legged and starry-eyed as he was.

Man o' War had his head raised and turned toward Danny. His eyes were large and lustrous, burning with a fiery energy none of his races had ever diminished. His silky foretop hung low between his eyes, and his nostrils were dilated as he breathed in the cool air of the coming night. He was on his way to complete retirement and yet he was still far from having reached his full growth or greatness.

“Try to think of it as the beginning of something else for him and for you,” Danny told himself, half aloud. “Try it that way.” Maybe they had
both
reached a turning point in their lives. Maybe they had.

From the far end of the car, the other grooms looked up
from their card game to glance in Danny's direction. One aged black man called, “What you all mutterin' to yo'self about, Danny-boy?”

“Nothing,” Danny answered. “Nothing at all.”

He listened to the click of the iron wheels on iron rails and was grateful for the coming darkness that would soon envelop him and his horse. Man o' War was taking the long trip in stride, just as he did everything else.

How many horses of his temperament would ship as quietly as this? Danny wondered. You asked him to load and he loaded without fuss. It always came as a surprise to those who only knew him on the track. But then it was different. Every horse needed to be on his toes at race time.

Man o' War knew when it was time to rest, and perhaps that was one of the reasons he had become so great. He saved all his nervous energy for the racetrack. He was a true campaigner, not a man-eater, as some reporters had led their readers to believe. But the long trail was fast coming to an end. Man o' War stood quietly in his stall while the train clanked along the tracks at ever-increasing speed.

The voices of the other grooms reached Danny.

“First comes Man o' War, then all the other horses we've ever known,” Frank said.

“You're sho right, man,” Buck answered.

Danny glanced up at the old groom, who had known more great horses than any of them.

A wide grin was on Buck's toothless mouth as he went on, “I know'd Domino, Sysonby, Sweep, Ben Brush, an' a few others like 'em. But like you say, this Man o' War comes first.”

“We'll never know how fast he could really run,” Frank said. “Feustel was always afraid to let him out. I guess he thought he'd go so fast he might hurt himself.”

“He sho might have, at that.”

Frank shifted his weight on the overturned bale of hay. “What do you think, Danny?” he called loudly. “You ain't said hardly a word.”

“I think he could have gone lots faster, all right,” Danny said. “But he did everything that was asked of him and that's what counts. He sprinted when they asked him to sprint, and went a distance when they asked for that. He carried as much weight as they could put on his back, and it didn't stop him one bit. He ran on all kinds of tracks, slow and deep and muddy, or fast and hard-packed that were torture to any hoofs not as perfect as his. He did everything, Frank, and it's hardly right to think of how much faster he might have run. What he did was enough.”

For a moment the others were silent after Danny's long response. Then Frank asked, “You mean you don't think we should even
discuss
it?”

“Have it any way you like,” Danny answered.

“Well, he taught me something, that horse did,” Frank went on. “You see, I always thought a horse traveled fastest by moving close to the ground, covering a lot of track without wasting too much motion. But he didn't run that way. He ran long and
up.
I never seen a horse bound along like he did.”

“He sho did,” Buck agreed, nodding his gray close-cropped head. “But fo' all his racin', man, he'll be know'd as the hoss that beat the clock, not his rivals.”

“Except for John P. Grier,” Frank reminded him. “Don't ever forget the Dwyer race, Buck.”

“Jus' that one little ol' brush,” and the old man grinned. “He was extended, sho, but still not enough to make him go all-out. No, suh, man.”

“And don't think for a minute he didn't have horses of real
class to beat,” Frank persisted. “Many of them would have been tops in any year but his. He made them look like cart horses, all of them, even Sir Barton.”

“He sho did, man.”

Danny couldn't sit still any longer, so he went to Man o' War again, pulling the black and yellow blanket up on the colt's neck. The night was getting chilly.

How could such a horse as this ever take to settling down on a stud farm? he wondered. The confined paddocks could never take the place of the racetrack; the whinnies of mares and foals could never replace the roar from the stands. Or could they? In time Man o' War might forget all the excitement he had left behind.

Danny stroked the colt's head. Was it himself that he was really wondering about? Would it be enough for him to stand around and watch and wait?

The others must have been watching him, for suddenly Frank called, “You'll miss him, won't you, Danny-boy?”

“Miss him?” Danny turned to them, his lips open in a half-smile. “I'm not going to leave him, Frank. I'm going along.”

Frank studied the boy's face a moment, then he turned to Buck and said solemnly, “You hear that, Buck? Danny's going to retire too.”

The old groom grinned. “He sho is mighty young to be turned out to pasture, man. He sho is.”

Danny laughed at the men's reference to his age. “I've got a lot of years on this fellow,” he said jokingly. “If he's ready for retirement so am I.”

They laughed, too. But there was no levity in Frank's voice when he said, “There's a difference you're forgettin', Danny, a
big
difference. Man o' War has broken all the records, and broken down all his competition. There's nothin' left for him
to do
but
retire. You now …” He hesitated, studying the boy's face again before going on. “Well, you're a handy fellow with a horse and I guess you know this one as well as any man … but you still ain't made no mark yet in life. I suspect you got a long way to go yet before you think of quitting.”

Danny's face flamed with his mounting anger. “I'm not quitting, Frank, or retiring either. I'm going with him, that's all. I'm going to work.”

Frank turned to Buck, and the two men exchanged knowing glances.

“Son,” the old man said, “you ain't goin' to make no stud groom for this heah hoss. Frank knows that, an' so do I. No, suh.”

“But I …”

“Hold on, Danny,” Frank said quietly. “It's not that maybe you
couldn't
be his stud groom someday, if that's what you really want to do. But look at it this way for a minute.”

He rose from the tack trunk and went over to stand beside the boy. “Things are goin' to be pretty quiet for a while, maybe a long while. Mr. Riddle's never bred racehorses before, so he has to start at the beginning. First, he's got to buy a good band of broodmares. That ain't going to be easy, even with all his money. Most people who have well-bred mares would rather keep them than sell 'em. I hear that he's thinkin' of buying some in Europe. But he can't do it by himself. He's got to look around and get someone who knows more about breeding stock than he does to help him. That'll take time, and buying the mares and gettin' them over here will take still longer. So what are you goin' to do, just sit around and wait?”

“I'll be with
him
,” Danny said adamantly.