Golden Filly Collection One (15 page)

Trish and Rhonda stood still and let the foal come to them. One tentative step at a time, all the while poised to dart back behind the safety of her mother’s tail, the filly approached the two girls.

Trish sneezed.

The foal wheeled on spindly legs and disappeared behind the mare.

“She’s just perfect.” Rhonda wiped the moisture from her face.

“Yup. At least something’s perfect in my life right now.” Trish grasped the mare’s halter. “Come on, old girl. Let’s give you some exercise.” She snapped a lead shank on the halter, slid the bolt on the stall door, and led the mare out of the stall. The filly glued herself to her mother’s shoulder, trying to see everything but keeping herself hidden.

Rhonda opened the small paddock gate so Trish could lead the mare and foal through. The mare braced all four legs and shook herself as soon as the lead shank was unsnapped. The filly darted around the far side of her mother, tiny ears pricked and eyes wide.

Trish and Rhonda leaned against the fence, smiling at the colt’s antics.

“Well, I better get going with the others. You want to work Firefly?” Trish asked.

“Sure.” Rhonda glanced at her watch. “I’ve got time. I have to work out in the arena tonight. Dad doesn’t like me taking the high jumps without anyone there. Besides, it takes too long to set the poles again by myself.”

“Don’t knock ’em down and you won’t have to get off so often,” Tricia teased.

“Thanks for the advice.” Rhonda punched her friend on the shoulder. “At least they haven’t had to call the paramedics for me.”

“Don’t be jealous.” Trish stroked first Spitfire and then Dan’l after all the chores were done that evening and she’d led the mare and foal back into their stall. “I haven’t been ignoring you. Miss Tee’s just a baby and babies need lots of attention.” She dug in her pocket for a piece of carrot for each of them.

Morning workouts with Spitfire were spent in long conditioning gallops with a final breeze around the track. He fought to go all out, but Trish kept him to the schedule her father had set. Unless he sweated up because he was hyper, the black colt was in superb condition, rarely lathering by the end of the run.

On Friday night, Trish’s father knocked on her door. “Trish, I think it’s time we had a talk.”

Bent over her chemistry book, she answered, “Sorry, Dad, but I’ve got to finish this assignment.”

Opening her door slowly, her father spoke softly, “I know you’ve been angry with me.”

“Dad, it’s not you.” Trish turned to face him. “It’s this whole…” She searched for a good word.

“Mess?”

She nodded. “But please, I can’t talk tonight.”

“Okay,” he agreed. “But I’ve missed you these last couple of days.”

Trish chewed her lip. “I’m sorry.” The words didn’t come easily.

“Well…how about we move the Anderson horses to the track tomorrow? Gatesby’s race is only a week away. I ordered the supplies in today.”

“Hope he loads okay.” Trish perked up now that the discussion was on the horses.

“We’ll hood him if we have to. Get to bed early tonight.” He pressed her shoulder with a comforting hand.

Trish leaned her cheek on the back of his hand. “I’ll try.”

That night Trish managed to stay awake for more than a short sentence-prayer. She thought about the good things that were happening: Miss Tee, the workouts, her dad at home, and all the friends who helped out and cheered them on. “Thank you, heavenly Father,” she said and named each one. “Thanks, too, for loving me. I’m sorry I’ve been so angry. Please forgive me? I don’t know how to deal with all this. And sometimes I’m so scared. Please make my dad all right again. Amen.” She punched her pillow into the right shape, then added, “I almost forgot. Please, God, help Spitfire and me to win the race.”

The morning fog rolled back as Trish trotted Gatesby out on the track for his early workout. He snorted and slashed at fog tendrils with his front feet.

“Feeling your oats, aren’t’cha.” She laughed as he leaped sideways at something only he sensed. After a couple of laps, he settled down for the long gallop, repeatedly tugging at the bit whenever he thought Trish might not be paying full attention.

Spitfire gave her the same kind of ride. “What’s with you guys today?” She smoothed his mane as they trotted the cooling circle. “David feed you dynamite or something?” Spitfire jigged sideways for a furlong before he settled back to an easy trot. Flecks of lather flew back from where he kept working the bit.

By the time she’d finished Firefly and the three-year-old, Trish felt like she’d done fifty push-ups a hundred chin-ups. She rubbed her arms as she shucked her jacket at the kitchen door.

“Hard workout?” her father asked as she slid into her seat at the table.

“Yeah. They’re all really feisty today.” She rubbed a particularly tender spot on one shoulder. “And that clown Gatesby snuck by my guard. He wasn’t just nipping either.”

“He got me when I was cleaning his hooves.” David joined them. “And it wasn’t my shoulder.”

The laughter felt like a little piece of heaven to Trish, and the French toast her mother set in front of her tasted as good.

The comforting scene ended too soon with her father’s “Well, let’s load ’em up. That way you can work them both real easy on an empty track this afternoon.”

“They’re all taped and ready.” David shoved back his chair. “You coming with, Dad?”

“Yes. If I get too tired, I can sleep in the truck.”

The loading went amazingly well. When Gatesby saw his stablemate walk right up the ramp and into the double-wide horse trailer, he followed with only a rolling of his eyes. The shallow pan of grain Brad held out might have contributed to the success.

“You want me to stay here and muck out stalls?” Brad asked as they slammed the tailgate shut.

“Of course not. That’s why we have a king cab, to take all of us.” Hal waved toward the pickup. “You deserve a break with the rest of us.”

“Trish, run in and tell your mother we’re leaving,” her father said as they stopped at the house.

Why me?
Trish thought as she stepped from the vehicle.
This’ll give her another chance to worry at me.
She slid the glass door open and leaned inside. “We’re leaving, Mom. See you later.”

Her mother wiped her hands on a towel and joined her at the door. “Trish, please watch out for your father.” The two of them descended the stairs together. “He gets so tired and I—”

“I know.” It felt strange to be on the comforting side for once. “I’ll try.” Trish climbed back into the truck relieved.

“You all be careful,” Marge cautioned when she shut the truck door.

“We will,” the three chorused as David shifted into low gear and eased the rig down the drive.

A thrill of excitement, pleasure, and suspense rippled up Trish’s spine as they entered the bustling stable area of Portland Meadows Racetrack. When they stopped in front of their five designated stalls, she felt like she’d come home.
My second home, that is,
she hastily amended the thought.

Gatesby backed out of the trailer with his ears flat against his head and hooves thundering on the ramp. Trish handed one lead shank to David and kept up her low murmur, soothing the high-strung animal. Between the two of them, they worked him into his stall. They left him cross-tied in the box, but he let them know his displeasure by a tattoo of hooves on the back wall.

“We’ll let him settle while we go do the paper work.” Hal joined Trish after they moved the three-year-old in next door. “John Anderson will be here about two o’clock to watch you work out.”

“You mean he’s finally back in the country?” She kept her voice light in spite of the knot that tightened her stomach. Riding in front of an owner for the first time was as bad as giving a speech in front of a room full of classmates.

“Right. I know he’s gone a lot. But an absentee owner makes it easier for the trainer. You haven’t had him trying to tell you how to train his horses.”

“True.” Trish drew in a deep breath. The mixture of horse, shavings, straw with an overlay of hay, and grain dust smelled better than any perfume to her. She stuck her hands in her back pockets. They were here, and her race was only two weeks away. Right about now she and Spitfire would be riding to the post. She studied a circle she’d drawn in the shavings with her booted toe.

“Scared?” Her father’s gentle question penetrated her reverie.

“No. Yes.” She grinned up at the smile she saw on his face. “Can I be both at once?”

Hal nodded understandingly. “Let’s go up to the office and then grab some lunch. Come on, you two.”

David and Brad finished moving the tack into the spare stall where their feed and hay had been delivered. Lawn chairs joined buckets along the wall and their two wardrobe-style tack boxes took up another. They hung the Runnin’ On Farm sign on the door and joined Hal and Trish.

Back at the barn after a satisfying lunch and with their passes in their pockets, Trish felt pure relief at the sight of a note taped on their door that read Anderson wouldn’t make it today.

“That’s fine with me too.” Hal smiled at Trish. “I’m going to rest in the truck for a while. Why don’t you start with the three-year-old and come get me when you’re ready to work Gatesby.” He glanced over at the bay. “Looks like he’s calmed down some.”

Much to Trish’s surprise, the gallops for both animals went smoothly. Gatesby checked out every strange sight, smell, and sound, but once he’d been around the track a couple of times, he acted like an old hand. Trish breathed a sigh of relief as she kicked free of her stirrups and slid to the ground.

Several trainer friends of Hal’s had gathered around the box. While the boys groomed the horses, Trish eased over to stand by her father’s shoulder.
You’re so tired you can hardly spit,
she thought of her dad.
How are you going to get strong enough to get through a race day even as a spectator?
She glanced down the aisle to where David and Brad worked like two arms of the same man.
Guess it’s going to be the three of us.
Her jaw tightened.
But we can do it—can’t we?