Man O'War (39 page)

But the older woman held on to him, and not by voice
alone, for her hand was on his arm. “So you see, Cynthia,” she said, “it must not be too difficult a profession for a woman.”

“You have to grow into it naturally, as Miss Daingerfield did,” he said quickly, a little coldly.

“I suppose so. But another thing, Mr. Ryan, wasn't it she, too, who selected the broodmares that made his sire career such a great success?”

He nodded again. “With the help of a
man
,” he said, surprised at the sudden defiance in his voice. “An Englishman named William Allison. He was a writer.”

“A
writer?
” the older woman repeated puzzledly.

“Who knew the pedigrees of horses as well as anyone in the world,” he finished.

“Oh,” she said quietly, as if a little frightened by the defiance in his voice. “Well, anyway, it took a woman.”

He smiled. “It always does,” he said. This was no day to be angered by anyone's questions, foolish though they might be. Besides, these women were interested in Man o' War as a
sire
and not simply as a legendary racehorse. In a way, it was refreshing.

“Even Man o' War couldn't have done it alone,” he went on. “He needed Lady Comfey, Colette, Star Fancy, The Nurse, Christmas Star, Understudy, Thrasher, Batanoea, Shady, Florence Webber, Blue Grass, Earine, Fairy Wand, Escuina, and Uncle's Lassie … to name just a few. They were the mares who helped make his first five years at stud the dramatic success they were.”

His voice had risen and the two women were listening intently, nodding their heads as if in full agreement with everything he had to say.

“He sired twenty-six stakes winners during those years,” Danny concluded. “Four were $100,000 winners and one of
them, Clyde Van Dusen, copped the Kentucky Derby, the only big race that Man o' War missed.”

For a few seconds more the two women were thoughtfully silent. Then the older one said, “So you see, Cynthia, I was right. The distaff side is most important.”

“Of course,” he said, shrugging his shoulders and taking a step away from the table. “Isn't it always?”

The younger woman was still watching him closely. “Did you work for Miss Daingerfield?” she asked. “You seem to know so much …”

“No, I went back to school,” he said, “then, later, I got a job on a Lexington horse journal as sort of a copy boy. That way it was easy for me to keep track of what went on at the farms.”

It was very easy, he thought. Just as it was easy now to recall everything that had happened.

The fifteen mares had romped across the winter fields at Hinata with everybody watching them. Six had come from England, the rest from America. Some had never seen a racetrack. All were of the best of bloodlines and of the finest type to make good broodmares. Upon them depended the success of Man o' War as a sire, and only time would tell what strains combined best with his own. Luck would play an important part in the matings, of course, but skill and knowledge, too, had taken a hand in the careful selection of these mares.

The new stallion barn had been ready for Man o' War when he arrived in late January. He was a hundred pounds heavier than when Danny had last seen him. He stood in the cold of that winter day looking every inch the emperor he was. Man o' War had come home to Kentucky, and Danny was one of those who had lined the long fences at Hinata, calling out his name and waving to him.

“He must have been bored,” the young woman said, interrupting
his reverie, “really bored after all the excitement of the racecourse.” She paused, smiling. “I mean, even with his big harem it must have been pretty dull compared to the clamor and the glamor of the life he had known while racing.”

Danny Ryan smiled back. “No, I don't really think he was bored,” he answered. “Red … I mean Man o' War … had more brains than most horses. He adjusted quickly to the new life set out for him. Of course, he was restive at first, as any fine stallion would be. But soon he took it all in stride.”

Nothing ever seemed to be hurried in those days
, he recalled.
Man o' War had seemed to know he was back in Kentucky. Maybe he even recognized some of the hills and barns and fences of that countryside. He'd been cantered each day, going down the back roads and lanes around Lexington. First Clyde Gordon had ridden him, then John Buckner, Miss Daingerfield's stud groom. Danny had seen them often on the wintry roads.

“No,” he said aloud, turning back to the young woman. “They never gave him a chance to be bored that first year. They made everything interesting for him. He never got lazy and fat. He'd run like a colt when they turned him loose in the paddocks, and I think he looked forward to seeing his foals as much as anyone else.”

“Did you see them, the first foals, I mean?” she asked.

“I saw them,” he answered.

In the very first crop had been American Flag and By Hisself, Gun Boat and First Mate, Florence Nightingale and Maid at Arms, Flagship and Lightship, Flotilla and … heavens, he couldn't remember the other names anymore. His memory wasn't what it used to be. He was getting old. But there had been thirteen foals, nine of them chestnuts like Man o' War. He remembered their colors because he'd been one of
those looking at the muzzle hairs to determine true color. Masquerade's filly had died soon after birth, so that had made a total of twelve in the first crop, and all had been given names as dramatic as their sire's.

“Were they like him?” the young woman asked, interrupting his thoughts again.

“How do you mean? Speed?”

“Well, yes,” she said.

“Some were very fast and became champions,” he said. “But none were as fast as he was. Not any of them or any in all of his other great crops that followed. There never was
another
Man o' War.”

His eyes shifted to the older woman, and he found her listening intently, too. Strange, he thought, that these two women so far removed from the track as he knew it should be so keenly interested in the breeding of racehorses. Maybe beneath all this modern sophistication and concern for one's appearance and self …

“Another thing,” he went on. “While Man o' War was a very successful sire, he never got colts with the early speed he'd shown himself. They didn't do too much as two-year-olds, but matured slowly. They raced best at three or later. American Flag was the best of his first crop, then came Crusader and Mars and Edith Cavell the next year. Scapa Flow and Genie and Bateau and Clyde Van Dusen followed. Those were his outstanding runners but he had other colts winning, too, lots of them, all from his first five crops.”

“And after that?” the young woman asked. “Did he continue being so successful?”

He studied her face a long while, his own eyes clouding. “Not quite,” he admitted. “War Hero and Boatswain came along in the 1929 crop and War Glory in 1930, all pretty good
horses. But we had to wait until 1934 before he struck it rich again with the champion War Admiral and the excellent filly Wand. And after them came War Relic …”

“But what caused his decline after such a brilliant beginning during those first five years?” the young woman persisted.

Danny Ryan glanced at his watch. It was almost time for the big race. “I have to go,” he said abruptly, his gaze shifting to the television screen a short distance from the table. “This is no place to watch the running of the first Man o' War Handicap.”

He hurried across the room, rousing himself from the past as he went along. Leaving the restaurant, he entered the vast, open level of the third floor. There were thousands of people milling about but no one was being mobbed or trampled. New Aqueduct was so spacious in every respect that everyone had room to breathe. He wasn't certain at all that he liked so much comfort.

Despite all the room, a man with his head down bumped into him. “Sorry,” the jostler said.

“Quite all right,” Danny Ryan answered politely. The collision had made him feel better. Some things at a track would never change.

As he neared the escalator someone else bumped into him. This man, too, had his head down, reading his program. There was no apology and the man beat him to the moving stairs.

Reaching the lower lobby, he noted that the track police were everywhere, not so much to keep order as to direct people to proper gates and answer questions. New Aqueduct was still a little confusing to New Yorkers not used to such lavishness.

He moved slowly through the throng, almost feeling his way toward the one special gate he was aiming for. It made him think, somehow, that he was at the bottom of a vast, spectacular
monument, and he became very eager to reach the top. He tried to move faster, his general mood of gaiety darkening despite the lobby's bright panels of orange, yellow, green, and red.

Reaching his gate, he nodded to a track policeman, showed his pass, and stepped through the double doors. Once within the structure's vast confines, he breathed easier and walked more freely down a long corridor. On either side of him were many rooms and offices. He passed them quickly. Only those who “belonged” were allowed in this section. It was quiet, almost peaceful compared to what was going on in the four tiers of stands overhead. But it was still like groping one's way through the catacombs of another world.

A man standing at the door of an office marked
PLACING
AND
PATROL
JUDGES
waved and said, “Hello, Danny. You're late today.”

“Not late. Just been looking around,” he answered, almost defensively.

“Tell me, Danny, was he as really, truly great as they say he was?”

“He broke all the records. He broke down all the horses that ran against him. What more do you want?” Once again, Danny was surprised at the defiance in his voice. What was wrong with him today? People were just interested in Man o' War and wanted to know more about him, that was all. It was natural, today of all days.

He turned around and went back to the man at the door. “Maybe you'd understand better if I reminded you he was the odds-on favorite in every race he ever started, all twenty-one of them. You ever heard anything like that before … or since?”

“No, I never have, Danny. As you say, I understand better when you put it that way … in facts and figures, I mean, not legends or saga. They're for the people up in the stands.”

Danny was glowering in the other's face. “And after he was retired he had at least one offspring win a race each year from 1924 through 1953. That's a span of thirty years, Clem. Ever hear of any other sire matching it?”

“No, Danny, I never did,” the man said, backing off. “Like you say …”

Danny Ryan didn't wait to hear any more. He continued down the corridor of concrete, wanting very much to be alone, if only for a moment.

“
Speed an' mo' speed, dot's what makes a good hoss
,” he had heard a groom say in a slow, quiet drawl long ago. But there had been lots more to Man o' War than sheer speed. He had stamina, courage, and heart. And, fortunately, he'd been able to pass much of it on to his colts and fillies. His record as a sire was a great one, but it might have been still greater if Mr. Riddle had not been so adamant about restricting most of Man o' War's services to his own collection of broodmares. No one person, even a very wealthy man, could maintain the quality of mares so necessary for a great sire.

As he had told that young woman back in the restaurant, those first five crops by Man o' War were his banner years. After that … well, as she so quickly observed his reluctance to discuss it, there was a decline in Man o' War's record as a sire. Not that he didn't get race winners and a few great ones like War Hero and Boatswain, War Admiral and Wand. But never again was the proportion of exceptional horses the same as it had been during those first five years.

Danny scuffed his way along the corridor. He knew from having been there that it hadn't been due to the decline of Man o' War himself, for he had remained a vigorous, healthy stallion. Instead it had been the lack of distinguished mares with which the farm had been restocked after Miss Daingerfield's retirement in 1930. The mares that had been purchased
by Mr. Riddle after that had, for the most part, been inferior to those in the first band. And, of course, Mr. Riddle would allow very few mares not his own to be bred to Man o' War.

Had that been a selfish decision? Danny shrugged his big shoulders. Who was he to judge Mr. Riddle's actions? Hadn't he been as selfish as anyone else in his hunger to call Man o' War
his very own?
Didn't he, even now—some forty years later—still feel a certain resentment when anyone questioned the record and legend of
his
colt? What Man o' War might have done had he been retired to an established, successful stud farm with many
proven
mares was not for him to say.

Men waved to Danny as he passed the Film Patrol Room and the Barber Shop, but, lost in thought, he ignored them all and plodded deeper into the confines under the stands.

“There goes Danny,” one of them said. “It must be getting time for the feature.”

“You'd never know it to look at him,” another answered. “He looks lost.”

“No, he ain't lost. He's thinkin'. Danny's a walkin' record book.”

Danny Ryan came to a sudden stop before one of the rooms and peered inside. It was such a huge room that it made the little men occupying it seem smaller than they actually were,

“Hi, Bill,” he said to a jockey sitting close to the door. “You've got a good horse going for you in the feature.”

The young jockey smiled. “We're goin' light, if that's what you mean, Danny. Just 108 pounds.”

“That's light,” Danny agreed, and for a moment he shifted uneasily on his big feet. “You ought to make it real tough for Bald Eagle.”