The Black Stallion's Sulky Colt (12 page)

“One day I knew I had my colt ready to race, but in order to do it I had to get him to a New York track. Jimmy loaned me the money to get us there and feed us for a couple of weeks. I knew that after that time my colt would be payin' our own way along. He did all right, and I paid Jimmy back. But I never went home.”

Alec said, “Then if Jimmy hadn't loaned you that money you might not be what you are.”

“That's right, Alec. Or here tonight,
feelin'
the way I do.”

Nothing more was said and finally a restless sleep came to them.

In the morning Alec took Bonfire for a long walk to get rid of any stiffness in him, and then he let him graze. He watched his colt for any sign of lameness but Bonfire was sound and ready to go. Alec wondered how long they'd remain at Roosevelt Raceway. There was no reason for staying. Only Goshen was ahead of them, Goshen and its prized Hambletonian Stake to be raced a week from the following day.

Later, when Alec returned Bonfire to his stall, Henry said, “I'll tell you one thing about last night,
Alec. With all those horses passin' Bonfire he should have learned that he's not goin' to be knocked down every time one goes by. It could have been the best thing that happened to him. It could have been better'n winning.”

Alec said, “At least I got plenty of chances to open and close the eyecup. He's certainly used to that by now.”

Henry studied Alec a long while. He wondered how much self-confidence Alec had regained from the previous night's race. “I guess we might as well pull out of here,” he said a little later.

“You mean this afternoon?”

“I mean
now
 … or just as long as it takes us to pack and load,” Henry answered. “He's had a good walk and some grass. I'll take it slow with him.”

“What about your car?”

“I'll come back for it later. No one will take it if I leave it here. Not unless they're pretty desperate.”

“Okay,” Alec said. And then he added lightly, “Goshen, here we come!”

A little over an hour later they were on their way in the light truck that was newly painted in Jimmy's red-and-white racing colors. The lettering on the sides read,
THE JIMMY CREECH STABLES, CORONET, PA
.” And below that,
BONFIRE, TWO-YEAR-OLD WORLD CHAMPION HARNESS COLT
.”

Alec sat beside Henry where he could watch Bonfire through the open window at the back of the cab. The colt was blanketed and had loaded easily. He was used to traveling from one county fair to another, and was taking this present trip with the ease and nonchalance
of an experienced trouper. Alec watched him pull the hay from the sling in front of him and chew quietly while the truck picked up speed on the highway.

Alec glanced back at the high wire fence of Roosevelt Raceway and the looming stands beyond. He knew that this would be his last look, for he wouldn't be coming here again—not as a competitor, anyway.

Soon the track was left behind, and Alec watched the mounting traffic as they approached the city limits of New York. In the distance, across from Long Island, he could see the towering skyline. They wouldn't have to go through the heart of the city. Henry had decided to cross the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge, avoiding much of the city's traffic. All the same, the trip wasn't going to be an easy one until they reached the rural country north of New York.

Henry grunted as he put on the brakes to avoid hitting a car in front of them. Alec glanced back at Bonfire. The colt was all right.

Finally Henry turned off the highway, taking little-used back roads that he knew from other years. Alec said, “Bonfire must have been quite an attraction at the county fairs.”

Henry nodded. “I guess so. That's what Jimmy wanted. It's not often that folks on the small circuits get a chance to see a champion colt.”

“That was nice of him,” Alec said.

“Nice but not very smart,” Henry answered. “Not when he expected so much from Bonfire in the Hambletonian.”

Alec waited until a car had passed them before asking, “How ‘short' do you think our colt is, Henry?”

“Plenty. He could use at least a month's more work before tacklin' a race like the Hambletonian.” Henry paused, and then added, “If he was mine he wouldn't be goin' to the post. It's like tryin' to win the Kentucky Derby with a colt that can't go the full distance. This is worse, maybe, since he'll have to go at least
two
separate mile heats to win.”

Alec looked straight ahead as they approached the bridge, noting the long span across the water to the Bronx, and the boats beneath. But his thoughts were on Bonfire and Jimmy Creech. He knew how Tom had felt. Jimmy couldn't afford to wait for another colt, another Hambletonian. It had to be this year or not at all for him.

Traffic was light on the bridge and the truck rolled along smoothly. Alec looked at the colt again and then said, “You seem to know a lot about the Hambletonian.”

Henry said, “It's my business to know any kind of racing.”

“You said he'll have to go at least two separate mile heats.”

Henry nodded. “It's not like the night raceways, where you go a mile dash and you're done. The Hambletonian is a gruelin' race against top colts. To win it a colt must win two heats out of three. If there are two different heat winners, they have to go a third mile. That's what makes it the classic it is … that and the hundred-thousand-dollar purse they're racin' for.”

For a moment Alec was quiet. “He'll be able to go two fast miles, Henry. He went them last night before the race, you'll remember.”

Henry glanced at him. “He'll need to go a lot faster than he did then and he won't be racin' alone. He can't make a slip and expect to beat those other colts.”

“He won't make any slip,” Alec said.

“I hope not. If he's goin' to win, he'll have to take those first two heats. I don't believe he'd be able to go a third mile, not at the speed at which it'll be raced.”

“We'll make sure a third heat isn't necessary,” Alec promised. They were at the highest point of the bridge, and beyond the teeming city Alec could see wooded hills. He wished that he felt the same confidence he had put into his words.

It was mid-afternoon when they neared the small village of Goshen, New York. Alec looked away from the rolling farmland and turned toward Bonfire. The colt had had an easy trip once they'd left the city behind. There'd been no traffic at all and Henry hadn't driven over thirty miles an hour at any time.

Alec looked out again at the fields of high corn and baled hay. It was a hot, sleepy afternoon but not a quiet one. The noise of tractors and mowers shattered the sun-drenched air. It was perfect hay-making weather with no sign of rain, and the farmers were taking advantage of it.

As his gaze traveled upward to the clear blue of the sky, Alec remembered his one other visit to Goshen. It had been Hambletonian Day of the only year his father had been able to get away from work and take him. Alec figured he must have been about nine years old. He remembered their sitting in the great stands, awaiting the Hambletonian. And then the black clouds had come, moving over the track and
finally drenching it in a downpour. It had rained so hard the Hambletonian had been postponed until the following day.

After the announcement his father had opened the wicker picnic basket, offering him the chicken sandwiches Mom had packed. But he'd been too disappointed to eat, knowing his father's work made it impossible for them to return to Goshen the next day.

It had been his first truly great disappointment. He hadn't said a word all during the long drive home. He'd realized his silence was making his father, who'd tried so hard to please him, more miserable than ever.
How cruel can kids get?
Alec wondered now. Why hadn't he said, “It's all right, Dad. It was fun having the day off with you anyway.” He'd been too young to have sense enough for that.

Alec glanced at the colt to make certain he wasn't in any trouble and then looked out at the passing scenery again. Well, he was returning to Goshen in a big kind of way, the like of which he'd never dreamed as a kid, even in his wildest dreams.

The truck turned off the highway, and Alec saw the huge outdoor poster with the picture of the old-timer leading a great, black horse. The man was small and bearded. He wore a floppy, wide-brimmed hat and a flowing black suit. Below the picture was printed: “
HAMBLETONIAN STAKE—
August 7–$100,000 Race.”

They went down Goshen's narrow, tree-lined main street. Directly behind the old homes with their spacious lawns Alec could see the kite-shaped mile track of Good Time Park. No half-mile oval for Bonfire
here but a track with three long straightaways. Alec was anxious to find out how his colt would take to this famed mile track. He was glad they were a week early for the big race.

Good Time Park was so much a part of this tiny village. There was no traffic on the street. Except for the children who watched them as they went by, Goshen was as quiet as that nearby stretch of track—and just as empty.

“Not much doing, is there?” he commented to Henry.

The old trainer grunted. “Plenty in the mornings,” he answered. “Too hot to do anything now.”

But at Roosevelt Raceway they'd be working, getting ready for the night's program, Alec remembered. The clock had turned around for them, and it seemed more right this way.

There were a few cars parked near the village square, where people sat drowsily on tree-shaded benches. For most of the year this was what Goshen was like. Only on Hambletonian Day would the village rock from the vibrations of many thousands of people descending upon it.

Henry turned the truck down a side street and approached the track gate. Stabled in the long sheds beyond were some of the world's most prized and valuable horses. Alec looked back at the village square. It seemed so right that in the sport of harness racing its most famous and richest classic should be held each year at Goshen. It was over this country-side that men had raced their horses long before the American Revolution, and only a few miles away was buried
Hambletonian, the foundation sire of the harness-racing horse.

Henry stopped the truck just inside the track gate. “I'll find out where we're stabled,” he said, opening the door.

Horses were being walked about the grounds, and some of them nickered. Bonfire answered, and his hoofs pounded the wooden floor beneath his straw bedding.

“Easy, Mister,” Alec told him. “In a few minutes we'll have you out of there.” He waited for Henry, wondering what was ahead of them in the days to come—
here
where everything would be decided for Bonfire and himself, for Jimmy and Tom and George and Henry. Five men and a colt—and a Hambletonian.

The following morning Alec jogged Bonfire for the first time at Good Time Park. The sky was cloudy with rain forecast within a few hours. It seemed to Alec that almost all of the Hambletonian colts were working, their trainers taking advantage of the dry and fast track.

“But not Henry,” Alec thought. “Bonfire and I are just out for a nice long jog.” Henry had ordered five miles for them this morning, with no turning the right way of the track.

Alec didn't have much to do except to remember to close the eyecup whenever another jogging horse passed on Bonfire's right. But even that came instinctively now, so he spent most of his time humming to the colt and watching the other Hambletonian eligibles work their fast miles.

Lively Man was there with Fred Ringo driving him. So were Silver Knight and Victory Boy and Chief Express, all from Roosevelt Raceway. Their drivers were almost as young as Fred Ringo and looked just as
tired. They had every right to be tired, Alec decided, knowing they'd flown from Roosevelt Raceway that morning to work their colts and would return to Roosevelt to race that night.

It was no life for an old man.

But there were old men here, lots of them, and some were driving top colts such as High Noon, Fibber and Bear Cat. They were men who had known and raced many a Hambletonian. Alec thought of Jimmy Creech and for a moment wished that Jimmy were sitting behind Bonfire. It was Jimmy's rightful place.

Bonfire seemed to like the wide, sweeping turns of the track and the three long straightaways. He was very alert this morning and most eager to be turned around when he saw the sweated working colts whip by. Alec kept telling him that he wasn't to be turned today. Maybe tomorrow. They'd have to wait for Henry to tell them. “He's running things, Bonfire.”

But the blood bay colt didn't understand, especially when horse after horse passed, going the right way of the track.

Alec too watched them go, counting at least twenty Hambletonian colts on the track. If they all went in the big race next Wednesday there'd be a traffic jam all the way around. He hoped that he and Bonfire would be clear of it.

They passed the grandstand and bleachers that stretched the whole length of the home straightaway. Carpenters were mending broken chairs and boxes. “Railbirds” stood beneath the tall trees near the paddock gate, watching the horses. Alec saw these men turn and look at Bonfire because of the colt's red
hood. They'd seen the eyecup close when a jogging horse had passed Bonfire directly opposite them a little while before.

“What you got on that colt?” one man called as Alec went by. Alec didn't answer. They'd find out soon enough. He saw Henry standing nearby, and the trainer yelled to him to move Bonfire a little faster.

Alec clucked to his colt and gave him more line. Bonfire took it readily and asked for more. He didn't get it and was furious with Alec all the way around.

Later back at the stables they washed Bonfire and Henry said, “He kind of lost his eagerness to go durin' that last mile, didn't he?”