Saving Baby (5 page)

CHAPTER THREE

The barn in which the trainer housed Baby was fancier than mine, with sliding doors and cement walkways. But Baby couldn't hang his head out of his stall because the doors had bars on the top that went almost all the way to the ceiling, like a jail. So he wasn't able to see the comings and goings of the other horses or, literally, get much of a whiff of any of the action. He couldn't poke his head right or left over into the next stall, either. There were no distractions to buoy his spirits or keep his mind occupied in the absence of his family.

I understood the reason for the barn's set-up. This was a huge commercial facility, with horses making their way in and out all the time. And owners don't want their animals to pick up any communicable diseases. Horses do a lot of sniffing in each other's noses, so it's particularly easy for them to end up with another horse's respiratory condition.

The boarding facility also did not want to be responsible for any horse getting hurt. Sometimes horses who are strangers to each other can become dangerously aggressive if they don't get a good feeling. One might take a swipe at a horse in a stall as it is being led to its own.

It was so different from the situation at home. There, where we built the stalls ourselves with the horses' needs in mind, every wall in each stall except the one at the back went only half way up, about as high as a person's armpits. It was sufficient for keeping a more dominant horse from getting into another stall to bully one lower on the totem pole, yet it let each horse see all the others and communicate with them. Thus, at night, when Baby, Pat, Scarlett, Beauty, and Pumpkin were all in the barn, they were still a herd, taking comfort in each other's presence. But Pumpkin, for instance, wouldn't have to worry that Beauty would come and take her food. It made her feel safe rather than cooped up. Each horse could also walk over to the side of its stall and groom the neck of the horse next to it. Baby and Scarlett's stalls were together, and the two of them would groom each other shoulder to shoulder. They also liked to play, nipping at each other before bedtime in something reminiscent of a pillow fight.

I could feed each horse what it needed, too. At the boarding facility, a kind of institutionalized setting, all the horses were given the same amount of food. But just like people, horses are different. Some are easy keepers, needing much less food to maintain their weight, while some have high metabolisms, requiring more hay, more grain, even a supplement.

At home, my horses could graze to their hearts' content out in the pasture all day, and then at night, I could give each one just the right amount of grain and hay to accommodate their body styles. Fortunately, while most Thoroughbreds have high metabolisms and require more food than the average horse, Baby's metabolism hovered around the middle ground, so the amount of food they gave him at the facility was enough.

But there was no grazing for him. It soon became clear that even though horses naturally graze for a good sixteen hours daily, Baby was being kept in that stall almost all day except for the hour or so when he was being trained to walk, trot, and canter in a dusty indoor arena. He was not allowed out in the pasture with the other horses, instead getting only a little free time outdoors in a tight round pen with dirt but no grass to munch. He couldn't even see the other horses from there, or let out a whinny to greet them.

“Why,” I asked his trainer, a tall, thick man in his late twenties named Lyle Coburn, “can't he ever be turned out?”

“Because he's a stallion,” Coburn answered me. The owners of the farm were afraid Baby would try to mount females.

I understood the rule that stallions couldn't be turned out with mares, but at the same time, I knew horses that haven't been gelded don't tend to start showing signs of testosterone until they're about two years old. Baby, at barely one and a half, certainly hadn't been showing any. He was still acting like a young weanling, not studdish. I never had concerns about his being together with Beauty in the pasture. Even with Scarlett, all he wanted to do was play. I thought at the very least, since this was such a large farm, he could be put into a pasture by himself or with other young horses not yet exhibiting signs of sexual maturity.

Baby looked so forlorn. I felt like I had taken my young child from his neighborhood, away from all his friends, and plopped him into a different neighborhood where all the other children were strangers and said, “Okay, you're not allowed out of the yard. You can't play with or even say ‘Hi' to the other children.”

“Baby!” I'd call out every day when I came to see him. I'd try to brighten his spirits and my own by bringing him treats—cut-up carrots and apples. Some trainers tell you not to feed horses treats, especially horses who have not been gelded, because it makes them nippy. But I've always fed my horses treats, and I've never had a nippy one. Yes, they always search my pockets for more, but when the treats are finished, all I ever have to do is hold up my palms and say, “All gone.” And they quit searching. A horse can be taught by degrees to walk, trot, and canter solely by voice command. So why wouldn't a horse understand “All gone”?

Baby would return my “hello” with a hearty “Hooonkk!” But he always looked so pitiful as I walked down the barn aisle toward him and his nose showed through the bars. He couldn't get his nose out past his eyes, so he wasn't able to see me until I came close, although I'd glimpse his nostrils go in and his mouth open as he whinnied back to me. The sight of him like that made me miserable.

Sometimes I would take one of the brushes from home that I used to groom Pat or Scarlett and let him smell it before I used it on him. I was trying to let him know, you're not alone, Baby. Your mother and sister are waiting for you. Then I'd bring it home and let Pat and Scarlett sniff. The three of them had a communication this way; it was my system for letting them know they were still all together. And because the scent of Baby was always still fresh on the brush, it was like showing Pat and Scarlett a picture of Baby I had taken that very day.

Leaving Baby each morning before I headed for my court reporting duties was the hardest. The look on his face was so plainly puzzled. Normally his demeanor was alert and perky. I could see he expected me to take him away from there, back to the field where he could run with his herd. Sometimes I'd get three or four stalls from his, and he'd whinny or nicker. “You're not leaving, are you? I'm still here. You're walking out without me.” I'd go back two or three times, brush him some more, talk to him some more. “Big things are going to come, Baby,” I'd tell him. “You're not going to be here very long.” Finally I'd have to force myself all the way back down the aisle and out the barn door. I'd turn around, take one last look back and see that nose sticking out. He couldn't see me, but he was still trying to get that last sense of me.

Often I thought I should press harder that Baby needed some pasture time, some fresh air and ability to cavort with other horses. But I didn't want to make waves—I was new to this—and I took comfort in the fact that it was only going to be for a couple of months before he came home for the winter.

And while I wasn't happy about what I thought of as Baby's prison, I did like that Coburn was soft-spoken and patient, teaching Baby very slowly. His manner was methodical, not quick and jerky. Still, it bothered me that Baby bolted whenever he heard the whip behind him. I knew the long lunge whip was part of training and that he'd never be struck with it. And I comforted myself with the fact that he'd figure that out soon enough. But I was very much looking forward to December, when he'd be back with me.

The time couldn't have passed quickly enough. One night, around 10:30, a feeling grew in me that something was not right. I had left my horses in the barn at last check a half hour earlier, and I was ready to go to sleep with their rhythmic munch, munch, munching in my head. But I couldn't relax. Maybe one of the horses has colic, I thought, and I missed it. That's one of the reasons last check is so important. If there's colic at bedtime, it could become a surgery case by morning if you don't intervene.

Baby in his “prison” at his first training facility.

I'm not a believer in psychic ability—it's completely out of character for me—but I climbed out of bed, ran down to the barn, and flipped on the lights. The horses all started blinking—what's going on?

I saw manure in all the stalls—nobody had a blockage. Everybody was still munching or just standing there peacefully. I thought, gee, this is really strange. What's got into me?

Then I had a flash. Oh my God, it's Baby. Maybe
he's
colicking. Maybe he scratched his eye on something rough. Maybe there's a fire in the barn. My mind was racing. I don't believe in premonitions, but how was I going to handle this? If I went out there and started poking around with a flashlight, the farm owners were going to call the police. It was a half hour away. Should I go? Shouldn't I go?

Because I never had that type of feeling before in my life, I went. It was about 11:30 by the time I arrived.

Baby was fine—surprised to see me, but fine. I gave him some treats, followed by an extra flake of hay just to make sure he had an appetite and no colic, and he broke right into it.

Then up and down the stalls the other horses started whinnying because they thought it must be feeding time. Of course I couldn't leave them like that, so I spent some time putting a flake of hay into each one's stall. I felt foolish that I had driven all that way—and glad no one woke, even though I had the flashlight shining—but what did it cost me to put my mind at rest? I would have done anything for Baby.

Finally, it was December and time for him to come home. It was part of the traditional route for a Thoroughbred. You take them for training in the fall after their first birthday, when they're still juveniles but no longer babies, then return them to your own pasture for three or four months, then bring them back to the trainer in the spring to start serious training at the track.

But Coburn said to me, “I have to keep him over the winter. He's really stubborn, the type of horse that will forget everything he's learned. We've come too far, and I don't want him to regress.”

I felt suspicious. I was paying Coburn almost $1,000 a month. And Baby was his first and at that point only Thoroughbred—Coburn was trying to grow his business. And it was early December, so if Baby stayed, it was time to write another check.

At the same time, Baby did have a stubborn streak. He knew he was powerful. And he could be pushy, albeit in an adorable way. When you walk a horse on a lead line, he's supposed to respect your space, but Baby was always moving closer, brushing against us. It didn't bother me, but I knew it wasn't proper training, and I didn't want to be this person who knew nothing about racing telling the trainer what to do—that wouldn't allow for a good working relationship. And yet, all in all, Baby was such an agreeable horse. My doubt tugged at me.

Against my better judgment, I wrote Coburn another check. So we had Christmas without Baby. And January. And February. And March. And through all those dark months, I didn't see Baby do any progressing from the point he had reached. He had learned to walk, trot, and canter, and that's what he did every single day in that little training arena, never being allowed out into the pasture with the other horses.

At the end of March, Coburn told me he was going to be moving Baby to a training facility with a track on the grounds. Baby would be learning to gallop. My doubts had intensified, but I still thought perhaps Coburn knew something I didn't. And in certain ways I was more than happy for the switch. Baby would have fresh air, which horses need. They stay healthiest when most of their time is spent outside, whether in sunshine or rain. Baby would also be able to expend some real energy if he wanted rather than just go through a structured canter indoors.

The facility itself wasn't in the pristine condition of the previous one, but Baby could hang his head out of his stall if he felt like it. He could see up and down the aisle. He seemed much happier there, which left me feeling much more relaxed. I was also happy because this new facility was only twenty minutes away instead of thirty. Baby and I would be closer to each other.

While the place was a bit ramshackle, Coburn bedded Baby's stall well. He also always made sure Baby had clean water. There were a couple of little turn-out areas with grass in them, too, and while Coburn still didn't let Baby play with other horses, he did turn him out into these areas for an hour or so here and there when they were unoccupied.

At those times that Baby actually trained, it was exciting to watch. At first he would try to scoot toward the gap—a spot on the track with no railing that opened to a path leading back to the barn. Still a youngster, he wanted the comfort of his stall over the rigors of running, and his discomfort and uncertainty would pull at me. The newness of things sometimes unnerved him, too. One day he saw, for the first time, a white-colored horse—called grey among equestrians—and planted his feet squarely. You could see the “What do I do about this?” in his face. He had to be coaxed past the “apparition.”