The Black Stallion Challenged (8 page)

The rain stopped during the night but the following morning the wind was blowing stiffly out of the north and the temperature was down in the forties. Henry arrived late again, wearing his borrowed topcoat and still complaining of the “unseasonable” weather.

“At least,” Alec said, “the track will dry out fast with this wind.”

“Nothing could be as bad as yesterday,” Henry grunted. “Never have I seen weather like it.”

Alec nodded. For him there was more than weather to remember from the day before. A filly with great speed and promise might never race again, and Manizales was in the hospital with a fractured jaw, broken teeth, a concussion and a neck injury. Fortunately, none of the others who had gone down during the running of the first race had been seriously injured.

Henry searched Alec’s eyes for any sign of fear. “Did you hear anything new about Manny?” he asked finally.

“Only that they’re having a hard time convincing him that he has to stay in the hospital,” Alec answered. “With all his injuries he still wants to get back to work.”

“Like I said, he’s hungry. He’ll be back riding before you know it.” The trainer paused. “And the filly?”

“She’s out for the rest of the year, anyway. Doc’s operating on her this morning. She has a slight fracture of the right foreleg. Maybe she’ll be able to race again.”

“Maybe,” Henry repeated doubtfully. “She comes equipped with fragile legs. Gets it from her sire Polynesian, just as she does his speed. If it didn’t happen now, it would’ve later.”

Alec said, “Perhaps so. But you don’t get a series of spills like yesterday’s very often. She might have splashed home in front if she hadn’t collided with Moonshot.”

“She ran a game race, all right,” Henry agreed. “She was blocked and forced to check sharply several times, but she still came on and tried to bore a hole through the leaders. Yeah, she might have won at that.

“Manny made a lot of trouble for himself and her,” Henry went on. “I don’t think he needed to ride such a rudderless course. He could have kept her back going into the far turn, then he would have had more left for the stretch run.”

“That’s hard to say,” Alec argued in the other rider’s behalf. “Sometimes you get a horse into trouble because you don’t know where a traffic tie-up is going to happen. Then when you get in tight quarters and come close to running up on the heels of a horse in front it means you have to check fast. A lot of times your horse won’t run again after being stopped.”

“You don’t get into that kind of a jam if you have enough experience and sense,” Henry said. “You know a jam is coming and you stay clear of it … or if you stay inside you know you got enough horse under you to take you through a hole before it closes. Manny didn’t have that kind of horse under him, so he should’ve stayed back and waited for the stretch to put her in a drive. That’s why I say he asked for what he got.”

“What
she
got, too?” Alec asked, his eyes troubled.

“She was in Manny’s hands,” Henry muttered. “She was just beginning to learn what it was all about. She had enough speed to get a good position and stay out of trouble. That was enough to have going for Manny, more than most riders can figure on. He let her down.”

“And he almost got killed doing it,” Alec said. “If he hadn’t been wearing a skull cap, he’d never be riding again.”

“I’m sure of that, too,” Henry said quietly. He paused, studied Alec, then added, “That don’t need to scare you none.”

“I’m always scared,” Alec said. “You know me, I never feel confident.”

Alec was smiling, so Henry didn’t know whether or not to take him seriously. “You shouldn’t talk like that, Alec. You settle a horse nice, even a sensitive one like the Black. Everyone knows it.”

“That’s become a kind of fable now,” Alec answered. “You’ve said it so often people are starting to believe you. I make plenty of mistakes and you know it.”

“Maybe so,” Henry answered. “But you mostly always rise to the occasion and that’s what wins races.”

“Horses win races,” Alec said quietly. “You trainers
make the horses. If we win, you should get the credit. The riders are made by the horses.”

Henry studied Alec’s face, puzzled by the youth’s attitude. “It’s funny to hear you talkin’ that way, Alec. You’ve seen plenty of horses that wouldn’t put out unless they were forced to turn on speed by their riders. There are plenty of cases where a horse and his trainer would be nothing without the right boy on his back.”

“I’ve heard you say otherwise,” Alec reminded his old friend. “You’ve said often that there really wasn’t much difference in top riders.”

“No, I only said there was less difference now than when I was riding,” Henry said. “A jock could get away with a lot more at the old barrier than in today’s starting gate. We had no film patrol in those days, either. Sometimes, in fact most times, it got pretty rough out there. Take a look at some of the old pictures and you’ll find most jocks riding with sharp spurs and carryin’ big whips which we used plenty any way we could to win a race. Yeah, horses and riders really went through a drilling in those days.”

“We’re not exactly being coddled today,” Alec said quietly, and that ended the subject.

Later in the morning, Alec opened the tackroom trunk and removed a white envelope. Inside were several small wads of cotton, adhered to which were tiny granular bits of dirt and dried blood. This was what Doc Palmer had cut out of the Black’s injured hoof several months ago. It had been the source of all the horse’s trouble; once it was out and the cut healed everything had been fine.

Alec put the wads back in the envelope. He
couldn’t have said exactly why he was saving them, except, perhaps, as a reminder to himself and particularly to Henry that everything was in good shape and they could race the Black. As he left the room he ran into Henry. “Come on,” he said. “We ought to watch the operation on Bitter Sweet.”

“Why?” the trainer asked uneasily.

“It’s something we should know about,” Alec said. “Part of our job, like you’re always telling me.”

“I don’t like to watch operations, even on a horse.”

“I didn’t know you were sensitive about them,” Alec said. He tried not to smile. “What about the tough old days you were telling me about, when a horse with a fractured leg was destroyed right on the track? Was that easier to watch?”

“That was different. Some people just don’t like to watch operations. I happen to be one of ’em.”

“It’s not as bad as you make it sound. I think you ought to come along with me. You’re never too old to learn something new. That’s what you’ve always said.”

Henry fidgeted, and there was a strained, uneasy silence between them. Finally, the old man said, “Okay, I’ll go if that’s the way you want it.”

They left Hialeah Park through the Barn Gate, waited for the traffic light to change, then hurriedly crossed the street. Walking beside Alec, Henry straightened his blocklike figure and made a gallant attempt to look unconcerned about the whole thing. He would have preferred turning down Alec’s invitation to witness the operation on Bitter Sweet. It was one thing to know that veterinary surgery had progressed to the
point where a horse’s broken bones could be mended, and quite another thing to watch it being done. Still, as Alec had said, whatever he witnessed should be easier to take than watching a horse destroyed on the track.

“Race horses were lots tougher in the old days,” he said suddenly in an attempt to regain his position of authority. “Their legs held up even though they raced much more often. I’ve seen ’em race twice in one day with only a half-hour rest in between. They don’t come like that any more. They’re too coddled.”

Alec smiled, thinking of the tender way in which Henry had been treating the Black during the past few months. He believed, too, that today’s race horses were much improved over the old-time runners Henry was always talking about. They were better trained, faster, and more efficient, just as the sport itself was better. There were automatic starting gates to get the horses away in a line and without delay, film patrols to prevent rough, unscrupulous riding tactics, and safety helmets, to say nothing of modern veterinary surgery, which they were about to witness.

They came to a stop before a one-story concrete block building which was the veterinary hospital. Henry led the way inside but, Alec noted, his face couldn’t have been paler if he’d been going to his own operation.

The outer office was heated and a young woman was the only occupant. She glanced up from her typewriter, smiled at Alec and said, “You’re a little late. They’ve already put her up on the operating table. You’d better hurry.”

“Thanks, Miss Clay. I tried to get here sooner,
but …” He paused, glancing at Henry. “This is Henry Dailey,” he added. “Henry, Miss Clay, Dr. Palmer’s secretary.”

“I know,” she said. “The trainer of the Black couldn’t possibly be a stranger to anyone. You’ve got yourself a wonderful horse, Mr. Dailey.” Her pale blue eyes studied the old man.

“He’s made up for a lot of disappointments during my life,” Henry returned quietly. He didn’t like the way she seemed to be sizing him up. She was too composed while he was squirming inwardly. He was certain she knew how he felt about being there.

She smiled, trying to make it easier for him. “Racing is a great game. I meet so many interesting people, each so different in his own way.”

“I’m sure you do,” Henry said, following Alec toward another door. He tried to return her smile and to appear as casual as she seemed to be about this business of operating on horses. “Having a great horse like the Black makes me really appreciate racing,” he added. “And believe me, Miss, I’m going to do all I can to keep him out of this place.”

“I hope so,” Miss Clay said quickly. “I do hope you will, Mr. Dailey.”

The next room was a laboratory, at the moment unoccupied, filled with cases of shining instruments. Alec strode through toward a door leading to a room beyond but Henry held back, his eyes on the instrument cases.

“Come on,” Alec said impatiently. “Miss Clay said we’re late already.”

“It must be like operating on a human being,” the old man said uneasily, his face ashen-white. “Maybe we ought not, Alec … I mean, I never did like surgery.”

Henry tried to meet Alec’s gaze and failed miserably. How could he explain to him that he was plain scared? To him surgery meant these gleaming, sharp instruments and an amphitheater tense with the drama of life and death. It meant a hushed, ominous silence and rubber gloves on a surgeon’s skilled hands. It meant a shining scalpel and spurting blood. He was scared because it was all too easy, at his age, to see himself on an operating table.

Alec said quietly, “There’s nothing to be frightened about. You’ve been watching too many TV medic shows.”

“It’s not that,” the old man said. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, ill at ease. “It’s just that I don’t like the atmosphere,” he added a little defiantly.

“I don’t either, not especially,” Alec said.

“I’m not so sure about that. You’ve been over here before.” Henry tried to grin and almost succeeded. “You know,” he continued, bidding for more time, “you’re something like another rider I once knew. He’d been in and out of hospitals so often with race injuries that he got to liking the atmosphere and he began going there on his days off. He enjoyed watching the surgeons at work. Finally, they let him put on a white robe and he did everything but operate.”

“Maybe he missed his calling,” Alec said. “Maybe he’d rather have been a surgeon than a rider. But that’s
not why I’m here,” he added, slightly irritated by Henry’s squeamishness. “I’m going inside. You do what you like.”

When Alec had gone, Henry quietly faced the closed door separating them. For several minutes he didn’t move, fighting the panic within him. Then, furious with himself for what he knew
had
to be needless fear, he wrenched the door open and strode inside the operating room.

He saw the filly, Bitter Sweet, prone on the operating table, arc lights blazing above her and white-robed men standing around the table. A small group of spectators hovered nearby. His nerves tingling, he nodded to some of the horsemen he knew. They paid little attention to him, all being interested in the work of the veterinary surgeon, and for this he was grateful.

For a while Henry kept his eyes on Dr. Palmer’s tall, round-shouldered figure, hoping thus to reassure himself, even though the man was well known to be competent and skillful. But finally his gaze shifted to the curving line of faces just beyond the operating table. He picked out Alec’s and moved over to stand beside him.

Alec hoped that within a few minutes Henry would see this operation for what it really was—no curtain raiser, no impending TV drama but a quick, efficient, skillful job of mending a horse’s broken bone. The large doors at the far end of the room were slightly open and some neighborhood kids were peeking inside. Perhaps one of them would be a veterinary surgeon himself one day, Alec thought.

He knew that the filly had come through those
doors a short time ago, quietly and without pain. She had been given a sedative, nothing more than a tranquilizer that a human being would have taken under the same circumstances. Once she was inside the room, the anesthesia had been injected intravenously, and as it began to take effect she had been carefully lowered to the operating table which lay flush with the floor. She had been secured, then the hydraulic lift had elevated the table so that the surgeon could go to work.

She was resting comfortably now, and the anesthesia was being maintained by a closed-circuit, circle-type machine. She breathed easily through the mask about her nose, the tubes of the mask leading through a vaporizer and into a large rubber bag that contained a mixture of gas and oxygen. It moved like a living thing as she inhaled and exhaled.

An operating sheet, draped over the filly’s injured leg, had a rectangular, open window which exposed the area ready for incision. Her leg had been shaved and painted with an antiseptic.

Dr. Palmer finished drying his hands on a sterile towel; he glanced at his assistant standing alongside and nodded. They were masked and gowned and scrubbed, ready to begin. The surgeon’s eyes swept over the table and he made a swift, meticulous inventory of his instruments.