The Black Stallion's Courage (14 page)

“She's well seasoned with gallops,” Henry had said in giving his instructions, “so don't snug her up too slow. Break her off sharp and let her go against the bit. On the other hand don't let her go faster than fifty-two. I don't want to ask too much of her today. I just want to see how she goes. Don't pull her up too sharp when you're done. Ease her off easy, nice and easy.”

“Come, Baby,” Alec repeated, clucking. To himself he said,
Sure, Henry, it's a cinch doing exactly what you ask. I can turn her off and on just like I was driving a car. Sure, Henry, sure. You know better. So do I. We talk just to hear ourselves talk sometimes
.

She was almost falling asleep on him. Couldn't she hear the noises of the crowd across the infield? They were yelling for her—or at least she ought to think so.

Slipping a heel across her girth, Alec said, “Come on, get on with you! If we're not careful we'll hold up the next race. The judges won't like that.”

But Black Minx moved no faster for him, although her head was up and her ears were pricked. Alec wondered if her lack of interest and response was due to his not wearing silks. He had on boots and breeches but not his silk blouse or cap. It was too hot to wear those. Besides, both he and Henry had decided they weren't fooling Black Minx. She knew the difference between a workout and a race. She just liked the crowd, any crowd.

“So get along with you,” Alec pleaded more sharply. “What's ailing you today? They're all watching from the stands. So is Henry. It's not going to be nice when we get back if you don't show a little more go than this.”

They were approaching the eight-furlong pole. Here he was supposed to “
Break her off sharp and let her go against the bit
” for the rest of the distance. All the way home, a half-mile in fifty-two seconds. Even old Napoleon could make it in that time.

“Come on, Baby. Come on.”

But she wouldn't even take the bit, much less go against it as Henry had ordered. Alec swung his whip, slapping it hard against his riding boot. It made a lot of noise but it didn't wake the filly up. And that was the only reason he'd carried the whip. She would have stopped completely if it had accidentally touched her.

Actually she was wide awake. The trouble with her today, Alec concluded, was that she didn't
care
. Even the crowd, this record-breaking, shattering, tremendous
holiday crowd held no interest for her. It was embarrassing, rounding the far turn and coming down the homestretch in such a slow and easy gallop—especially when the newspapers had announced, “Black Minx will work a half-mile between races, showing Suburban Day patrons some of the speed that won her the Kentucky Derby!”

The spectators didn't exactly boo when the filly galloped past the stands but they didn't applaud either. They were pretty quiet except for a ripple of laughter near the end. Alec thought he heard someone shout, “Get a horse, Ramsay!” But he wasn't sure.

He didn't have any trouble complying with Henry's final order, “
Don't pull her up too sharp.… Ease her off easy, nice and easy.
”

The big job was to keep her going until they'd reached the barn gate. She hadn't gone faster than the fifty-two seconds Henry had stipulated either. Her time was probably closer to one hundred and two. Well, Henry hadn't set any limit on how slow they could go, had he?

At the barn gate Alec slipped off the filly and looked at her for many long seconds before taking her down the dirt lane. It wasn't the first time he'd seen a horse go “track sour” but never had he seen one sour as completely as this. She was so disinterested in everything about her that she actually
looked
bored. They'd better send her home to get over it.

Later Henry agreed with Alec about sending Black Minx back to the farm but he said it in a few thousand words. It was only in the cool of the night while they sat with Don Conover in his living room that Alec
suggested an alternative before putting Black Minx in the van.

“Don,” he said, “the way Wintertime's acting you're in the same fix we are. You'll never have him ready for the Belmont.”

“Not if I can't work him,” Conover agreed. “And I don't believe in working a horse when he leaves grain in his box. Something's wrong but the vet can't find out what it is. He needs to be turned out, I guess. Let him chew on some grass a month or so, then maybe—Say, how about boarding him at your place?”

“Why not?” Henry asked. “We got the room, and the way things seem to be goin' we'll need the money we get for it.”

Alec said, “Neither of you have let me finish.”

“Go ahead then,” Conover said jokingly, “Dr. Ramsay.”

“I've had an idea right along that your colt and our filly—”

“Oh,
no
, Alec,” Henry interrupted, rising from the couch. He went to the door but didn't leave the room. He just stood there, waiting and shaking his head.

Alec's gaze returned to Don Conover, who was closer to his age than Henry's. “I'm not going to ask much,” he said, “—only that we stable the colt and filly next to each other. Also, I'd like to see them worked
together
again.”

“Y'mean like we did down at Pimlico?” Conover asked.

“Yes.”

“Aren't you afraid she'll quit on you like she did then?” the young trainer asked.

“She won't if your colt keeps going,” Alec answered without looking at Henry.

Don Conover shrugged his shoulders. “I don't get you, Alec, but I'm sure willing to try it. I'd try anything to get my colt back on his feed in time for the Belmont.”

There was a loud snort as the door opened and closed behind Henry.

Early the next morning Black Minx was moved to the other side of the barn and by nightfall Wintertime had cleaned up all the grain in his three feedings. The filly had always eaten well but now there was a marked change in her in other ways. She suddenly began taking an interest in the activity going on outside her stall instead of sulking in back as she'd done. She whinnied at the stablemen all day long and once grabbed Billy Watts's arm. She nipped him, giving him a scare, but didn't take hold.

That night Henry decided it had been too quiet for her on the other side of the barn. She liked having people around. Maybe Alec had something, at that. Moving her over where more fuss was going on might renew her interest in racing again. It might at that. At least it was worth a try.

Alec decided that the difference in Black Minx was not due just to a change in her surroundings. It was not as simple as that by any means. Actually they were practicing an amateurish form of psychological therapy on Black Minx. If being where she could see Wintertime was going to make her into a racehorse again, he was all for it. But what they were getting into he didn't know. He was no doctor.

“Go ahead and laugh,” he told Henry, “but you've
always maintained that a contented mind in a healthy body is just as applicable to horses as to humans. So it's not very funny when we happen to own a horse with a mental quirk, even if you don't want to label it ‘love.' ”

Don Conover decided that he didn't care what was responsible for his colt's improvement. It was enough that he could get him onto the track again and have him ready for the Belmont.

But none of the three expected the sensational workouts of the following week when they put the two horses on the track together.

In the gray early light of dawn Black Minx gave Alec Ramsay rides such as few jockeys were privileged to take at that hour of the day. Billy Watts was one of the “privileged few,” for morning after morning Wintertime bobbed head to head, eye to eye with the black filly.

Trainer Don Conover, of Parkslope Stables, remarked to trainer Henry Dailey, of Hopeful Farm, while sitting high in the vast empty stands the morning before the running of the historic Belmont Stakes, “It's hard to believe even when I see them go.” He glanced at his stopwatch. “And I can't even believe this. If you tell anyone what they just worked that half-mile in, I'll say it's a lie.”

Trainer Henry Dailey answered, “One thing sure is that their two heads will be bobbin' as one again tomorrow. Whatever we get out of this race, we'll get together.”

Trainer Don Conover shrugged his big shoulders. He didn't undestand that part of it. He just knew that he had Wintertime as sharp as he could get him and that
was razor sharp. He figured, too, that over the Belmont distance of a mile and a half his colt had the stamina to pull ahead of the filly. Actually he wasn't worried about beating
her
. There was only one horse to beat in the stretch run and that was Eclipse. Everybody knew that—
everybody
.

There were two television sets upstairs in the jockey's room at Belmont Park, and they were usually on at the same time. One was a closed-circuit set showing only the races as they were run on the track below. The other was a standard set carrying, among other things, baseball.

For the jockeys who did not have mounts in the sixth race, Saturday afternoon, June 12, was no different from any other day. The larger group was watching the Mets play the Phillies at Shea Stadium. Then someone at the closed-circuit set said, “It's on. Pick it up on yours and we'll get the whole works, even the commercials.”

Michael Costello, who had ridden in the fifth race and was done for the day, switched channels and there were no dissenters among the baseball fans. Instead everyone moved closer to the set to make room for others and there was a colorful merging of rich silks.

The picture on the screen showed the track below
and the infield. “Welcome, ladies and gentlemen,” the announcer said, “to Belmont Park where within a few minutes we'll witness the running of the historic Belmont Stakes, the third leg of America's Triple Crown for three-year-old colts and fillies.”

A valet watching said, “At least it ain't so awful hot like it was Memorial Day. At least it ain't that bad.” He was stripped to the waist and wore a canvas apron. Perspiration rolled from his naked chest while he polished a shining black boot.

“What's the heat got to do with it, anyway?” another valet asked. “They run the same, hot or cold.”

“I wasn't thinkin' of them,” the first valet answered. “It was
those
poor guys I was thinkin' about, that's all.”

The picture showed the flat, uncovered roof of the long stands where people sat exposed to a glowing sun. Then the cameras swept down to the packed crowd standing between the track and grandstand.

“They knew what kind of a mob would be here today,” the second valet said unkindly. “I don't feel sorry for them one bit. I'm just glad I don't have to be out there.”

“Quit arguin',” a jockey said, “or we'll
put
you there.”

The picture shifted to Belmont's soft green lawns behind the stands where some fans sat on benches under old and towering shade trees while others could be seen walking about.

“There,” a jockey said to the chastened valet. “Does that make you feel better? Plenty of room. Good ol' Belmont, spacious Belmont. Plenty of room for everybody, on the track and off.”

“At least it ain't a madhouse like Churchill Downs on Derby Day!” someone said defiantly.

“Heaven forbid!” another answered mockingly. “Our checkered waistcoat boys wouldn't allow anything like that, not
at dear old Belmont
!”

“But we got a band to class up the big one today. They went that far anyway,” a jockey in the back remarked.

“But it's not like Pimlico's band,” another rider said. “Pimlico puts on the best show, all right. I mean it. You jus' shoulda heard that band play on Preakness Day. It would have torn your heart out. I'm tellin' you it would.”

“Stop crying,” a jockey on the outside of the group said, “and turn up the sound so we can hear something. Think we just want to stand around looking at pictures? We can go outside if we just want to
see
. Let's listen to what this guy has to say.”

They were suddenly quiet, not because of the jockey's request but because the horses had come onto the track.

“… and so, ladies and gentlemen, this is the Belmont,” the announcer said, “called by many horsemen ‘the test of the champion' and rightly so, for it is raced over the true English Derby distance of a mile and a half. Even more than the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness this historic race requires stamina as well as speed.”

The jockeys in the room listened in respectful silence, some with awe on their faces and others with sheer envy. Suddenly the quiet was broken as the screen showed a close-up of a horse wearing the number 1 saddle cloth.

“There's Pops!” several riders yelled together.

Big and brown and burly with splashes of white on his face and legs, Eclipse broke from the post parade and cantered past the stands. His stable pony had trouble keeping up with him even at that slow gait for his strides were enormous.

An apprentice jockey, moving closer to the screen, said, “The strip's dryin' out after last night's rain. It'll be good if not fast. Look at it.”

“Naw,” another said, “see those light brown patches? Well, they're just baked on top. It's wet underneath and bad goin'. This track's got too much top soil to dry out in anything less than days.”

“Hey! Don't I hear the band playin' ‘Sidewalks of New York'?” a valet asked. “Where they got them hid anyway?”

“Behind the stands,” and someone laughed, “so no one can see 'em! But let's listen to what this guy's sayin', huh?”

They knew Eclipse far better than the announcer did but they listened attentively. He made it real easy for folks to know what kind of horse they were looking at. They could just see the millions of people at home, sitting in their armchairs and listening to this guy talk about Pops. They just could.