Chapter 12: CHAPTER NINE

He stepped up Dawny Lee’s training over the next three weeks. While she still had a tendency to do most of her running at the start she managed on several occasions to run six furlongs without tiring in the final few yards. Unimpressive fractions at the start of her training sessions but they improved the more she trained.

“Do you think she’s ready?” Tony asked at the end of the third week.

“Six furlongs,” he grumbled, ready to wave farewell to hope.

“Not good enough,” Tony agreed.

He sensed dejection in the young man’s voice. How could a horse whose sire and dam had both run the distance perform so badly when asked to run more than seven furlongs? How far back before another sprinter showed up on the family tree?

He tried the filly at various distances, including a mile and an eighth, always with the same results. Six furlongs, a super filly, capable of beating the artificial horses, seven furlongs, hanging in there, maybe a win, maybe a share of the purse, a mile, fading, a mile and an eighth, out of the picture.

When early August rolled in warm and cloudless Dawny Lee had successfully run seven furlongs on three occasions. That didn’t make him any happier. The filly tried her best, but she still let him down by not venturing beyond seven.

“I wish Janine was here,” Tony said as they watched Dawny Lee in the paddock.

He wanted to tell him what had happened to Janine but decided to let the young man on what he had just said.

“You haven’t heard from her lately?” he asked.

“Not for a while. She told me she’s taking a few months off in England. I know she was working on Reynolds’s horses, but when I called Equine Electronics they said she went to visit some relatives in England.”

“Have you tried to get in touch with her?”

“Tried.” Tony shrugged. “I got no answer except that one time when a man came on the line and told me she had gone to England, and wouldn’t be back until October.”

“Does she have a Facebook account?”

“Facebook... Twitter... Instagram... I checked all those. Nothing.”

“She’s not in England.”

“What?”

“Reynolds has her... on his farm. He wants this match race, but he wants Dawny Lee to lose by at least thirty lengths. If she doesn’t, Janine is dead.”

Tony took a long breath, held it briefly before expelling it. “I have my phone charging in the tack room.”

“Don’t do anything to endanger Janine’s life.”

“Shouldn’t we call the police?”

“Don’t.”

“Do you think Reynolds will kill her?”

“Right now, I’d say yes.”

A couple of weeks later he received a call from Reynolds. Is your horse ready? Sure, she’s ready, six furlongs ready. When he told Reynolds the filly was ready to run that distance he had to hold the phone away from his ear to lessen the impact of Reynolds’s laughter.

“Six furlongs is for claimers, cheap horses. Your horse isn’t cheap, is she? Our horses are going to run a mile and an eighth.”

“There’s not way I’ll agree to that. My horse is a sprinter. Seven furlongs is the farthest she can run.”

“Miss McNally is as good as dead.”

“All right, a mile. She might be able to last a mile.”

“A mile and an eighth.”

“You’ve got your thirty lengths,” he grumbled.

“How about this coming Saturday? It’ll be a special race between the seventh and the eighth at Westover. Just your horse and my horse, and may the best horse win.”

“That doesn’t give me much time to get her acclimatized to the track.”

“I’ve taken the liberty of telling Chapman and the folks at Westover that you’ll run the filly on the track a couple of days before the race. Get her warmed up, so to speak. Bring her here on... Tuesday, I guess.”

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“You’re holding all the cards, aren’t you?” He severed the connection.

Outside, he looked at the filly for a long time, wondering if anything was wrong with her. No, according to Doc Landon. She was healthy, her feet were sound, her conformation spelled distance runner, and yet... and yet... “I wish you could run a mile and an eighth. Sire, dam, grand sire... all distance runners. What is it with you? Lazy? Why do you stop after six, seven furlongs?”

Two days later he took Dawny Lee to the track for an official workout. He didn’t see Duncan Reynolds but he was sure the man was lurking somewhere nearby watching the filly run under the guidance of her potential jockey, Lorenzo Tavela. He had spoken with Tavela’s agent first, listening to the man laugh like a hyena, telling him to take a hike to the nearest woods, preferably to get lost. An hour later he called back, told him Lorenzo never did like Reynolds, and yes, he definitely wanted to ride the filly. If it meant getting back at Reynolds by riding a real horse he’d be glad to do it.

Lorenzo Tavela was, if not the best jockey, one of the better jockeys in terms of winning percentage and money earned. As a regular rider at Westover he finished second in wins, and fourth in money earned the previous year. He could possibly have the ability to push Dawny Lee a mile and an eighth. Push, coax, cajole, beg... anything to get her to that unreachable distance.

“Does she have a chance?” he asked when Tavela sprang off the filly after her official workout. A jockey like Tavela was more experienced than his exercise rider, and he’d value his opinion.

“You want my honest opinion, Señor?”

“You’re the pro, Lorenzo.”

“I think she can go a mile and some. She just need a good hand to get her there. You know what I mean, Señor Gilbert?”

A mile and some. Sure. Was that the same as a mile and an eighth? Maybe he should beg Reynolds for a mile and a sixteenth, as if that would do any good.

Where was Janine? He had no idea why he was thinking about her right now. Somewhere on Reynolds’s farm, a huge place, half a dozen buildings, one of which could, at this moment, be her temporary home.

Was she still alive? Of course she was. Anything else, and Reynolds wouldn’t have anything to bargain with.

He’d arrange her death after the race, make her disappear. She decided to stay in England.

“Lorenzo?”

“Yes, Señor?

“I’d like to talk to you in private.”

“Give me ten minutes.”

Fifteen minutes later owner and jockey were sitting in a dimly-lit restaurant a couple of miles from the track. A cup of coffee sat in front of each man.

“Lorenzo...” He hesitated, not sure what he wanted to say. Should he tell the jockey to lose in order to save a young woman from certain death, or should he tell him to try his best to win, despite Janine’s predicament? He didn’t even know the girl that well. She was Tony’s girl... good friend.

“You have special instructions, Señor Gilbert?”

“What?” His mind wandered to happier times when his farm was filled with horses, and while his success at the track wasn’t spectacular his horses did win races that counted.

“Anything I should know about your horse?”

“She’s a sprinter.”

“Why you do this? You cannot draw blood from a stone.”

“I want to see her on the track. She’s a thoroughbred, a real thoroughbred. She belongs on the track.”

Lorenzo pushed back his unruly black hair. “Please forgive me for saying this, Señor Gilbert, but you are a foolish old man.”

He smiled. “I guess you could say I have something to prove.”

“And if she lose?” The jockey wrapped his hands around the cup, shifted it left and right. “What if I try my best... You know something? I don’t even know who she is running against. What is this, a surprise? I have a right to know who her competition is, who is riding the other horse?”

“I’m in the same boat. All I know is that it will be one of Duncan Reynolds’s three-year-old fillies.”

“Three-year-old filly, bah. They stick a pussy in her rear end, and they call her a filly.” His eyes rolled up to the soft lighting above them.

He picked up his cup. “She might win.” Did he really believe that?

“I don’t know.” Lorenzo shrugged.

“I’ve given this a lot of thought,” he said softly. He laid a hand on Lorenzo’s arm, leaned closer. “Lorenzo, there is something I want you to do for me.”

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