The Black Stallion's Courage (20 page)

Stride for stride raced the two horses, the Black snorting in frustration at the tight grip on his mouth and the long stretch run still before him. Alec managed to hold Billy on Gunfire and still keep his own seat. Suddenly they were surrounded on all sides by the jam-packed field! For a flashing second Alec thought he saw
Mike Costello riding alongside, keeping the others away from them. If there was any bumping now, the Black would go down too. Alec wasn't sure it was Mike who was running interference for them. He was too busy trying to keep his balance and Billy's.

Nor did Alec hear the tremendous roar from the stands when the danger of being bumped was over. The applause was for Casey as he unleashed his explosive “kick” during the last quarter of a mile and worked his way through the pack like a broken field runner in full touchdown flight.

Later, newsmen likened Casey's victory charge to the boom of a Fourth of July cannon whose firing would be heard around the racing world. Their unbelieving eyes and the click of their stopwatches told them so.

Alec heard only the click of eternity, which wasn't difficult to do when a rider leans from one horse to another at racing speed. At the moment he didn't care who won the race. He was lucky to be getting back in one piece, and so was Billy Watts.

That evening the jockeys had a party and Alec Ramsay was the guest of honor. They gave him a handsome gold wrist watch for preventing an accident which easily could have been fatal.

Later Alec joined Henry back at Belmont Park. He found the trainer sitting alone on the porch steps. It was late and the only noise to be heard was the occasional nicker of a stabled horse.

“How'd it go?” the trainer asked.

Alec raised his hand so Henry could see the luminous dial. “It was nice of them,” he said.

Henry grunted. “The watch is nothing,” he said. “They meant a lot more than that.”

“Any one of them would have done the same thing,” Alec said.

“I hope so. I'm not so old that I've forgotten what all of you got in common out there. You've got to stick together while you're tryin' to beat each other.”

Alec sat down beside Henry. “One thing certain,”
he said, “is that you can't walk out on somebody in trouble. Not for any kind of money.”

“Forget the purse,” Henry said. “I told you we'd make it up.”

“We have a long way to go to a hundred thousand.”

“Not so long if he stays sound.”

“He cooled off all right,” Alec said. “There's nothing wrong with him.”

“The left foreleg,” Henry said with concern. “I'm worried. He skipped again goin' into his stall.”

“He plays,” Alec answered. “Sometimes during a race he'll strike out and scarcely break stride.”

“I hope you're right.”

“I'm right, all right.”

“Anyway, if the handicapper just leaves him alone now,” Henry said. “If he just don't put any more weight on him.”

“After today's race Casey will be the one who gets top weight,” Alec said.

“Sure,” Henry agreed. “At the end he was just playin' with the others. I never saw such a finish as he put on.”

Alec glanced at his watch. “They should have given this to Mike for keeping the pack clear of us.”

Henry nodded. “He sure acted as a blocking back for you. But don't go givin' him your watch. That's all you got out of the race. He got forty-five thousand dollars.”

“His stable did, you mean.”

“Well, four thousand five hundred for Mike, then. That still beats a gold watch.”

“You said yourself it was more than a watch.” Alec smiled.

“Sure. And I meant it. So did they, even old Mike.”

“What's next?” Alec asked, wanting to change the subject.

“The Brooklyn Handicap on Saturday,” Henry said. “We can't let any fifty-thousand-dollar races go beggin'.”

“Casey again?”

“Of course,” Henry answered. “It's the big one for him. He's won the Metropolitan and the Suburban so only the Brooklyn is missing to complete the ‘Triple.' Only two horses in well over fifty years have won all three races, and I suspect Casey'll be sent out to make it three for three and go down in racing history. That's the way I figure it, anyway.”

“The handicap horse's Triple Crown,” Alec mused.

“That's what it is, all right. Most horses who have won the Metropolitan Mile get beaten when the distance goes up to a mile and a quarter in the Suburban and the Brooklyn.”

“It seems Casey can go up or down,” Alec said. “He can sprint with the sprinters and stay with the stayers.”

“So can we,” Henry said emphatically. “The Black was sprinting before Billy Watts fouled us up.”

Alec lapsed into silence a moment and then said thoughtfully, “Billy was trying to prove something.”

“To whom, the stands?” Henry asked. “He knew darn well that opening on the rail was too small to use.”

“No, it wasn't,” Alec corrected. “He could have squeezed through if it hadn't closed on him. But I imagine it looked pretty small to him at that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Feeling the way Billy did, a ‘hole' can look even smaller than it is.”

“Oh,” Henry said. “You mean he was tryin' to prove something to himself?”

Alec nodded. “And he did, I believe. He didn't go around the horses as he might have done.”

Henry said thoughtfully, “I guess so, Alec. I guess you're right at that. Now Billy can quit, knowin' he's licked what bothered him. When's he going to the farm?”

“Tomorrow morning,” Alec answered.

“Good,” Henry said. “We can use him up there.”

“Guess we'd better quit ourselves,” Alec said, getting to his feet.

Henry rose too. “I hope you mean just for the night.” He put an arm around the boy's shoulders as they went up the steps.

“Sure.” Alec smiled. “Just for the night. I'm tired. It's been a long day.”

“And not an easy one,” Henry agreed soberly, his arm still around the boy. “But you made it all the way around and considering everything—” His voice lingered in the still night air while he and Alec Ramsay went inside.

We'll get them in the Brooklyn, Alec. That race will separate the men from the boys, all right. Mark my words, Casey will know he's been in a ding-dong of a fight
.

But the next morning Henry decided there'd be no Brooklyn Handicap for the Black. It took him one second to change his mind, just long enough to read the published weights for the horses entered in the big race.
He looked at the 146 pounds opposite the Black's name, mumbled something violently to himself, and then said clearly to Alec, “He's out!”

Alec didn't ask any questions. He just looked at Henry's face, which had flushed deep red in anger. He waited a long while before Henry's face was its normal color again. Even then he waited for the trainer to break the fierce silence.

Finally Henry shook his head vigorously. “I can't believe it, Alec. I just can't believe it, much less try to understand it. No track handicapper in the world—” His words came faster, tumbling over each other in still another incoherent burst of anger.

Alec managed to get the list from Henry's hand. He noted the 146 pounds assigned to the Black and just below it the 136 pounds for Casey. Only then did he understand completely the fury that possessed Henry, for it filled him too.

“I've always supported and been proud of New York racing but I'm through now, Alec,” Henry shouted. “I tell you I'm through!”

“It's a lot of weight, all right,” Alec agreed with feeling.

“A lot of weight?” Henry repeated as if aghast at the mildness of Alec's words. “Why, I've never heard of any horse carryin' that much weight in the Brooklyn or any other race of this kind!”

“He's got Casey down at one hundred and thirty-six,” Alec said, nodding his head soberly.

“Are we supposed to feel
flattered
because the Black gets ten pounds more than the horse that walloped him yesterday?” Henry asked incredulously. “Is that it?”

Alec attempted to calm Henry down. “We sure must have impressed somebody in those first few furlongs,” he said with feigned lightness. “I'm afraid it was the track handicapper.”

“That's all he's goin' to see of us!” Henry bellowed, tearing up the weight sheets. “We're movin' out of here, Alec. We're goin' where we won't be humiliated any longer. I'd be crazy to start him again in New York.”

Alec waited a few minutes and then said, “It's going to cost money to move, Henry, and we don't have much left. Maybe he can carry the weight. It's only six pounds more than he had yesterday.”

“Alec!” Henry shouted. “Only six pounds more but over a mile and a quarter route. He couldn't handle it and still spot Casey ten pounds! It would be disgraceful and humiliating to ask him to try.”

Alec studied Henry's set face. This was no tirade put on to impress anyone. Henry was deadly serious. Alec had no doubt that he wouldn't start the Black in the Brooklyn Handicap under such a weight assignment.

Henry said more quietly, “Look at it this way, Alec. Using most handicappers' rule-of-thumb methods in translatin' pounds to lengths at a mile and a quarter, we'd be spottin' Casey
five
lengths by giving 'im ten pounds.”

“You mean it figures that two pounds represents a length of a horse at the finish wire over that distance?” Alec asked.

Henry nodded. “And we're not givin' the great Casey that kind of a handicap here or any place else.
When we find a handicapper that treats us fair and square we'll race the Black again but not before!”

The press were waiting at the barn for Henry. He told them just what he'd told Alec. And like Alec they believed him this time. They knew Henry's moods and this was one with which they could not fool or change.

A noted sports columnist said finally, “That knocks the wind right out of our buildup for Saturday's ‘Race of the Century.' ”

“You've still got Casey,” Henry replied brusquely. “He wants the Brooklyn so bad he'll probably go to the post even at the top weight he's been assigned. Only two others have carried a hundred and thirty-six in the whole history of the race. You might tell your readers that,” he added sarcastically.

“Oh, we've got Eclipse too,” the columnist said. “We just came from his barn.”

“
You got what …?
” Henry asked incredulously.

“Eclipse,” the columnist repeated. “He's going in the Brooklyn at a hundred and sixteen pounds. Haven't you read the complete list yet?”

Henry took the paper handed to him. Far down the list of fifty-five horses who'd been nominated May 15 for the Brooklyn Handicap was Eclipse. And he was assigned only 116 pounds!

“Now I
know
everybody's crazy,” Henry said.

A few of the reporters laughed but most of them remained solemnly quiet. One of the latter said, “He's stepping out of his age division again, Henry, and over a route this time, not a sprint like before. I guess he's serious about meeting the Black and Casey.”

“He won't get to meet the Black ever,” Henry said emphatically. “Not carryin' such a ridiculous weight assignment.”

A young reporter said, almost too courteously to be friendly, “Mr. Dailey, I'm rather new in racing but as I understand it there's a traditional weight-for-age scale, made by the Jockey Club, which most track handicappers use in arriving at their weight assignments for a race. Is that correct?”

“You'd have to ask a handicapper,” Henry replied curtly. “But I imagine he'd start off from the scale anyway.”

“Well then,” the reporter went on, “you claim that Eclipse's one-hundred-and-sixteen-pound assignment is ridiculous. Yet according to the official scale that's exactly what a three-year-old should carry at a mile and a quarter during the month of July when racing older horses.”

Henry grimaced. “It's still ridiculous,” he said patiently. “I've said it before and I'll say it again. Eclipse is no ordinary three-year-old and should not be weighted as such. You don't have to listen to me.
Look at the record, three new track marks in his last three times out!
Assigning Eclipse weight according to the traditional scale is unfair to those racin' against 'im! I won't have any part of it!”

The young reporter smiled. He had Henry Dailey going, and it would make good copy. He didn't stop to wonder why all the others in the group were very still and solemn.

“Unfair, you say?” he prodded Henry. “Don't you think it more unfair to ask a young horse to race an older one at equal weights?”

“I didn't say equal weights,” Henry retorted, losing his patience with the man. “I said
fair
weights. Eclipse is going much too light and the Black much too heavy.”

“Oh, then the Black
is
going in the Brooklyn?” the reporter asked naively.

“No, he
isn't
!” Henry exploded.

“Tell me,” the young man went on hurriedly, not wanting to lose his newly won advantage over the trainer, “don't you think, too, that it's unfair to ask a young horse to knock himself out, probably even break his heart, racing against two older stars like the Black and Casey?”

Henry could feel the blood rushing to his face and he shook his head angrily. He caught his lower lip between his teeth and waited a moment before answering. When he spoke his voice was trembling but coherent.

“You mean like Eclipse broke the heart of those two horses
his own age
in the Dwyer a couple of Saturdays ago? Is that what you mean? Do you think they'll ever race again? Do you?”

The young reporter didn't answer and those about him began moving for the barn door.