Chapter 7: CHAPTER FIVE

He glared at Peter Chapman, owner, trainer, breeder, master of a 500-acre farm called Winchester Farms, president of the Jockey Club.

“You going to listen to me?” he asked. He was coming close to punching the man, but assault would lead him to court.

“You wasted your time coming here,” Chapman said. “There’s nothing I can do.”

“Has anyone ever told you what a first-class son of a bitch you are?” He tried to control his anger, opened his fist, stretched his fingers, kept his hands at his sides.

“There’s no need for name calling,” Chapman leaned forward, hands resting on the desk. “Why don’t you go back to the farm, raise your horse, ride her...”

“She’s a thoroughbred, damn it.” Voice rising. In a more subdued tone, the added, “She belongs on the track.”

“Lots of thoroughbreds never even make it to the track.”

“That's because they’re no good, Dawny Lee is. I’ve been training her. She’ll run any of your artificial horses into the ground.”

“She can’t run against them.”

“Why not? Six furlongs. Six goddamn lousy furlongs. Make it a special race. I’d like to see her run at Westover, but I don’t care. Aqueduct, Belmont... or any other track in North America that’s still open.”

“I can’t do that, Dave. It wouldn’t be fair to the horse.”

“I’m the one making the decisions.” Anger threatened to boil over again.

“I can’t give you the go ahead. The Jockey Club is run democratically.”

“It’s run by Equine Electronics.”

Chapman’s eyebrows arched up. “Why would you say that?”

“Horses are now built... built by Equine Electronics. They install the programming that tells the horse, for want of a better term, how his races should unfold. In other words, all the power in horse racing nowadays belongs to Equine Electronics.”

Chapman reached for a pen in the middle of the desk. “Equine Electronics has carte blanche when it comes to building horses, and programming them. That’s not our job.”

“According to the new rules, an owner must be notified before an inspector checks his horses. Why?”

“That’s one of the rules.” Chapman wiggled the pen between his index and middle fingers, tapped the end lightly on the desk.

“Whose idea was that? Reynolds?”

“Oh, come on, Dave.” Chapman tossed the pen on the desk, spread his arms, palms up. “Those rules were brought up, they were discussed, they were voted on...”

“It sure didn’t take you long to change the rules to exclude real horses. I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but focusing on artificial horses sure happened pretty fast.”

“It had to be done. The real horses, as you call them, couldn’t defeat the virus. The racing industry was going down the drain, and you know as well as I do that places like casinos and lottery kiosks have taken away a lot of our business. And then you get those so called horse lovers who think horse racing should be banned altogether, let ‘em run loose, maybe send ‘em all to the slaughterhouse, and we’ll live happily every after. What you see on the track now is the die hard racing fans, the ones that show up at the track every race day. When the... real horses began to die out there was only one solution: build artificial horses.”

He felt like a boy who had to stay after school and listen to the principal read the riot act. Or maybe in college, listening to Professor Chapman talk about the history of horse racing, the present situation, and the future. And the future meant nothing but artificial horses.

He wanted to ask Chapman what consideration he received from Equine Electronics, decided it would alienate the man sitting across from him even further.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said. “You set up a race... six furlongs, maybe seven, my filly against one of the top two-year-old artificial horses.”

“You sound desperate. I don’t think—”

He raised his hand. “Hear me out. You... the Jockey Club puts up five hundred thousand, I put up five hundred thousand. If Dawny Lee wins she gets a million dollars. If she loses, the winning owner gets all the money, and Dawny Lee gets nothing, and I’ll be out of your hair forever. Now, how can you say no to that?”

“If I hear you right, I think you’re talking about a match race.”

“I’ve been thinking about it. My horse against the best two-year-old... artificial filly running right now.”

Chapman’s lips curled at the corner. “You know she hasn’t got a chance.”

“She’s been training.”

“You don’t mind getting your ass whipped, and losing five hundred grand in the process.”

“She has to try.”

“If I had a nickel every time an owner or trainer was this confident I’d be a rich man.” Chapman leaned back, covered a yawn with the back of his hand. “This has been a long day, Dave, so I think we should cut it short.” He sighed. “All right, I’ll do it under two conditions. First, the race has to be a mile or more. Let’s say, a mile and an eighth later in the fall.”

He sat up as if struck. Hadn’t counted on this. “I can’t agree to that. I’d be willing to make it seven furlongs, but not a mile and an eighth.” With luck, Dawny Lee could hold on for seven furlongs if she was far enough ahead. A mile and an eighth would be disastrous.

“Take it or leave it.” Chapman looked at the computer screen, tapped a few keys.

“Why?”

“A special race.”

“What?”

“You want a special race, don’t you. Six furlongs... seven... won’t do for a special race. It has to be something worthwhile.”

“She’s a sprinter.”

“Her pedigree says route.”

“I know, but try telling her that.”

“Train her to go farther.”

“I tried. She falls apart after seven.”

“Who’s her exercise rider?”

“Tony Maitland.”

“Tony. Hm. You better teach your boy how to rate her. If he lets her go right at the start she won’t be able to get that extra burst after seven. Have him hold her back even if she has to... Does she have a soft mouth?”

“Not as far as I know.”

“What are the average fractions... if you know?”

He scratched the side of his head, tried to remember the numbers on the stopwatch. “Nineteen and change for the quarter, sometimes eighteen...”

“There you go. Too damn fast. Tell Tony to run the first quarter in twenty two... maybe even twenty three. Have him hold her steady at that pace. Seven furlongs, let the lead out. If we were talking about a real race, she’d be sitting in the middle, maybe a little further back. The way she is running now she’s taking the lead by a wide margin. No surprise there. Those who bet on her will find something to cheer about but...” He shrugged. “It’s all a matter of pace. Do it right, and you have a winning horse. Keep doing it the way she is running now, and she will never win.”

“Kind of dreaming, aren’t you, Chapman?”

“Yeah... well...Anyway, talk with your exercise rider. Find out everything you can about the filly. Better yet, ride her. You can find out more from the back of a horse than standing on the ground holding a stopwatch.”

“She needs more training. Maybe in the fall...”

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“A mile and an eighth or nothing,” Chapman said.

“Shit.” Not an appropriate word, but it was the only one he could think of right now.

Chapman said nothing, picked up the pen, tossed it into the center drawer, tapped a few keys on the keyboard.

Was Chapman setting up these conditions to get rid of him? If he backed down now Chapman will have won. If he agreed and Dawny Lee lost he’d be humiliated.

Unless...

“One mile,” he said, trying not to sound desperate. “Make it a one mile special race. A match race. Dawny Lee against the best two-year-old... filly.” He wanted to say ‘artificial,’ kept himself in check.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“The public wants special races to be over a mile.”

“She can’t handle a mile and an eighth.”

Chapman looked at the screen. “I’ve brought up Dawny Lee’s pedigree. Her sire and dam both won long distance races. Sire... a mile and a half... won four races at that distance. Her dam’s favorite distance was a mile and a quarter... five wins, two seconds, two thirds in twelve starts. Does your horse... did your horse have any siblings?”

“Half brothers and half sisters. As far as I know, they all succumbed to the virus.”

Chapman stood up. “I don’t know what else to tell you, Dave. Go back home. You’ve got a few months to get your horse in shape for a mile and an eighth. And you know what? As long as she puts in a good performance there’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

He pushed back his chair. “All right, I’ll consider it.”

“I thought...”

“A mile and an eighth, if that’s what you want. What’s the second condition?”

“The other members of the Jockey Club have to agree to it.”

“How long will that take?”

Chapman glanced at the small desk calendar. “There’s a meeting next Tuesday. I’ll give you a call... Wednesday... sometime in the afternoon.”

“I’ll be expecting that call.”

Chapman extended his hand but he ignored it. He turned, strode to the door. As he walked out of the office he wondered why he had agreed so readily to a mile and an eighth. Dawny Lee couldn’t handle it. She’d run like the wind for six furlongs, slow down to a snail’s pace, barely reaching seven. How could he possibly turn a great sprinter into a distance runner? If she ran a mile and an eighth and faded badly everyone would call him a fool for wasting his time trying to run against artificial horses.

He called Tony from the airport, told him to expect him by seven that evening. Something strange and quiet abut the voice on the other end bothered him. He asked what the matter was but Tony just said, “I’ll see you at seven.”

“On second thought,” he said, “can you pick me up when I arrive?”

Hesitation on the other end. Tony finally agreed, but Gilbert detected reluctance in the young man’s voice.

Gilbert flipped through a Reader’s Digest magazine, not really interested in any articles or regular features. His thoughts were on Dawny Lee. Why did Tony sound the way he did? Something was wrong with the horse, something... He didn’t want to think about it until he talked with Tony.

Tony didn’t show up until twenty after seven. “Your chauffeur has arrived.” The voice was cheerful, but a dark cloud hovered behind it. Like a weatherman who had predicted a day full of sun, but the possibility of rain was imminent.

He looked up. “What happened to Dawny Lee?” He feared Tony’s answer.

Tony’s eyes avoided his as he started to speak but the best he could do was mumble something Gilbert couldn’t understand.

“Don’t tell me she broke down.” He rose, faced Tony.

“All right, I won’t.”

“Jesus Christ on Secretariat.” He instantly regretted saying it, realized he couldn’t do anything about it.

“It’s just a small fracture,” Tony said. “Doc Landon took a look at her, says with the proper care she should be back to her old self in about six months.”

“Six months?” he yelled. “She’s supposed to run sometime... I don’t know... fall, maybe. Six months... What the hell happened?”

“I don’t know. I rode her earlier this afternoon, and I noticed right away something was wrong with her near foreleg. I called Doc Landon and he says it shouldn’t take that long to heal. Eight weeks, but he doesn’t want you to take any chances with her.”

“But six months? That sounds a little too much.”

“He says she’s lucky.”

“She’s lucky, I’m not,” he muttered as he followed Tony to the parking lot.

When they arrived at the farm he looked in on Dawny Lee. She stood in her spacious stall, wearing a small cast around her near foreleg.

“She’ll be fine,” a familiar voice said behind him.

He recognized the Scottish burr. “Evening, Doc.” He turned. “We don’t see much of you anymore.”

Dr. Angus Landon laughed, the corner of his eyes crinkling. “She’s healthy. There’s not much need for my services, unless something like this happens.”

“Six months? Is that what you told Tony?”

“I told Tony she should be healed in eight weeks, but just as a precaution I mentioned six months.” Landon scratched his forehead just below a thatch of pure white hair. “She’s what? Two? Fairly young. So she might heal faster.”

“I just came back from New York,” he said. “Had a talk with Peter Chapman of the Jockey Club. There’s a possibility Dawny Lee might run...”

“She won’t be doing much running for a while... maybe even the rest of the year.”

He couldn’t possibly run Dawny Lee in the fall. September... October... November... Not that late. And after that, December. Not a good month for a major race.

Wait till next year.

He walked with the vet to Landon’s red pickup. “What do you think of artificial horses?” he asked, and in his mind he knew what the vet’s answer would be.

“They don’t need a vet, they need a computer expert... or maybe a mechanic.”

“I hate Equine Electronics,” he said. Bitterness tasted like bile in his throat. “I hate the Jockey Club for giving up so readily. That’s why I want to run Dawny Lee against one of their phony horses.”

“I’d advise you wait until next year,” Landon said, echoing Gilbert’s thought. “She’ll be three... more mature... and who knows, you might be surprised.”

“I’ll do that. Next spring...”

“Good idea,” Landon said, opening the door of his truck. “Take it easy with her.”

The best-laid plans of horse and man...

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