Horse Heaven by Jane Smiley
“You don’t want to get overextended.”
“Ah, this colt’s going to make a quick buck. He wins the Breeders’ Cup after the Arc and they’ll syndicate him for ten, fourteen million even if he doesn’t have a four-year-old season, and I said to Maybrick, A four-year-old season is a big risk at this point. You have to weight your economic interest against your fun.”
“How long did you talk to the guy?”
“Not long. But I gave him the benefit of my experience at the track. That’s all I could do, you know?”
“Yeah,” said Buddy.
All the other stuff they needed to do just fell right into place. Arrangements at Gulfstream, arrangements for shipping, Buddy’s own travel arrangements. Even his wife did the right thing and begged off going, because she hated Florida. He had a bunch of winners every week. Time flies, he thought, when you are having fun. Andrea Melanie called him and asked whether she should make arrangements for a big party. Buddy said yes. “Friday night or Saturday night?”
“Saturday night,” said Buddy.
“Oh,” said the owner. “I love you, Buddy. You are so perfect. Now, you tell Deedee and Leon that I got them a suite so the baby can have a room of her own. They are such a cute couple, and so nice. I will make all their arrangements, like for a babysitter for Saturday night. This is just the sort of thing I love to do best.”
“You’re good at it,” said Buddy.
“We all have our niche,” said the woman, “and yours is pure horse-training genius.”
The next morning, the filly was just a hair off. Curtis didn’t even notice it, and neither did Leon, but Buddy, cursed with an eagle eye, did. So he gave her a little bute on his own, a gram in her evening feed and a gram in her morning feed, and she was fine. The knee looked just like the other knee, almost.
Knowing what was yours and what wasn’t was what enabled you to sleep. Buddy was sleeping soundly every night, and taking a little nap every afternoon, during whatever race he didn’t have anyone running in. Sometimes he walked through the aisle of his barn at Hollywood Park and looked at his two-year-olds, wondering which one would win the Kentucky Derby. All he had to do was pick one, but he had to pick the right one. That had been the problem when he was having all those dealings with Jesus, he thought. He didn’t know what he wanted, and so he was tormenting himself all the time and not getting anywhere. If you wanted two things, then really you didn’t want either one. You were always turning this way and that way, trying to make up your mind. Well, those days were gone, and here he was, sleeping, winning, busy as a beaver. And anyway, the other thing about Jesus, according to everyone, was you always had another chance with him. And you didn’t always have another chance for the Breeders’ Cup.
The Breeders’ Cup! The Breeders’ Cup! The words themselves got him a little agitated, a little sick to his stomach. He started yelling more. After those two owners went to Jones, he saw that he had to spend time with all his owners, even though Andrea Melanie was calling him four times a day, and Jason once or twice. Sometimes when you got a big horse in the barn, and were dragging it around here and there, the owners of the other horses got a little miffed, and you got home from the big race, and there you were, barn empty. So he had to keep rolling the whole ball of string all at the same time, picking up this end and picking up that end and tying each little knot. He was on the phone a lot.
Ten days out from the race, Curtis showed up again, this time to give the filly the first of this series of Epogen injections. Buddy was a little nervous about shipping her around these injections, but, of course, you had to do what you had to do. Curtis wasn’t daunted. He said, “You got my plane ticket to Florida, didn’t you?”
“I don’t know,” said Buddy.
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“I mean, I wasn’t thinking about it. I don’t think—” He looked at Curtis, who did not look either happy or eager to please, and went on, “You know, I’m running around like crazy. You don’t want to get all the other owners comparing themselves to the one who’s got the big horse, so—”
“How the hell did you think this filly was going to get her injections, if there wasn’t any ticket for me? You got all the other tickets, and not mine? Let me tell you something, Buddy, I go in the first row. A jock you can find, an exercise rider you can find, an assistant trainer you don’t really even need, but me you need.”
“You’re right, Curtis—”
“I wouldn’t want to show you who you need and who you don’t need. You should be able to figure that out on your own.”
“It was an oversight—”
“You heard of Freud?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you know what a Freudian slip is?”
“I—”
“I’ll tell you. A Freudian slip is something that looks like a mistake, and everybody says it’s a mistake, but there isn’t such a thing as a mistake. My feelings are hurt, Buddy, and you know how I am these days. I’ve made up my mind that I deserve better.”
“What can I do? I’ll buy you a ticket.”
“You all going first-class? Lukas always goes first-class.”
“We were going to go first-class, yes.”
“Great!”
In fact, they had all been slated to go to Kentucky in Jason Clark Kingston’s personal jet, but Buddy so recoiled at the thought of Curtis and the Kingstons in close personal contact for two or three hours that he bought five first-class tickets and a seat for Alana Marie’s baby chair. That was something like ten thousand bucks, but his share of the pot for his Breeders’ Cup was something on the order of three hundred thousand dollars, so what the hell, he thought. Of course, four days later, when he was sitting next to Curtis and Curtis was leaning over him to get a look out the window, damp and panting and heaving around in his seat, he saw the downside to all of this, but then he made Leon change places with him. For the next two hours, he saw Curtis talk and Leon nod, and had more and more second thoughts. Booze was free in first class, Leon had no idea about the Epogen, and there was no guarantee that Curtis was sticking to his life story, or, rather, at any time he could go into that part of his life story that involved doping horses so they would run no matter what. Eventually Buddy could stand it no longer, and he traded places with Leon again. By this time, Curtis was stinking like a pig. Buddy felt like he was being crushed against the wall by some heavy horse, like a Percheron, the sort with a small brain and a big ass and no real connection in between the two.
In Florida, they waited a day for the horse, and she arrived in good enough shape for the most part. Her knee was a hair swollen and she was tired and annoyed. She tried to bite her groom and then kick him, but the reporters were all over the place, and so no one said anything, and Buddy told the Kingstons not to come out until the filly had rested and started eating again. Except she didn’t start eating again. This was not unusual. Horses ran the gamut, like people. He’d had this one horse, back in the seventies, who sometimes didn’t eat for days, and would drop a hundred pounds and put it right back on again. If you’d had enough horses over the years, you would have seen just about everything, so the filly’s not eating didn’t mean a damn thing, Buddy and Curtis agreed. She put in a good work, seemed to like the track, and that was all that mattered.
There were parties everywhere, and Buddy decided that the better part of wisdom was to keep Curtis with him as much as possible. He could introduce Curtis to the people he knew, or have Curtis introduce himself—those seemed to be the alternatives—so he made sure Curtis didn’t feel left out. The problem was, Curtis’ demands got bigger and bigger. At first an introduction was enough, but after that, he got so he wanted to be in the conversation, and then so he wanted to be doing all the talking, and then, when people started avoiding him (and why not, thought Buddy), he wanted to know why, and what Buddy was going to do about it. “I’m a friendly guy,” he kept saying. “I want only the best for these people. You know, when I’m talkin
“To the can.”
“Good idea.” And so Curtis followed Buddy into the men’s room, and kept talking even while they were taking a leak.
The very thought of all the time he was going to be spending with Curtis was so disheartening that Buddy decided to take it just one day, or even one moment, at a time. The moments did indeed crawl very slowly by, and Buddy was really glad that, back in southern California, Curtis at least had a place of residence that was nowhere near Buddy’s house. At the same time that the time was passing so slowly, though, it was flying by. They gave the filly her second Epogen injection, another injection into the joint capsule of her knee, and her third and last injection of Epogen, and that meant it was only forty-eight hours until the race. What with the press and the hoopla and the fraternizing and the deal-making and the constant chatter, it was very hard to remember what belonged to you. The press and the oddsmakers thought things were undecided, and it was an extraordinary temptation to fall into that trap, the trap of thinking the race was wide open, when in reality it had already happened, as it were, but this was another way that they tried to sway you and shake your certainty. The way Buddy knew they were wrong was the déjà vu. From the moment they gave the filly that injection, he knew he was only seeing what he had seen before—every stride of her gallop the day before the race, including her little tiff with Deedee, where Deedee had to smack her once with the whip to get her to go forward, including the sight of his own hands opening the filly’s mouth and pasting her with two grams of bute that afternoon, just for good measure, including the groom saying that once again she hadn’t cleaned up her feed, including himself saying, of all the horses who had shipped in, show him who had cleaned up, show him the fillies who had cleaned up, including himself ranting on about fillies, why would he do that, except that he had done it before, they were sensitive and picky and strange and they always had some deal, including Curtis standing here and standing there, always with an eager grimace on his face, always catching Buddy’s eye and giving him the high sign.
And at last, there they were in the gate, all closed up and quiet. What a relief that was, a moment of pure peace, and thank God it was the first race of the day, so still that Buddy nearly jumped out of his skin when the bell clanged and the gate opened, and, my God, horses were running down the track yet again. How many? It didn’t matter. Some. More than a few, fewer than a lot. It made Buddy’s head spin to see it happen again. It happened so many times it was hard to keep every time separate in your mind. They were bunching, and then they were expanding, and then they were bunching again, and the people next to him were leaning into him from both sides, pressing on him like a fever, until he started coughing. There was a lot of screaming all around him, and he had no idea what was going on, except that he was in hell and he wanted to get out, but some fat guy was leaning on him, holding his arm, and his own screams, which had nothing to do with the race—here he was, looking right at it but not seeing it—couldn’t even be heard, there was no one to save him now, it was terrifying, how did he get this small, and then he was running with the others down the steps and out onto the track, and the fat guy said, “I told you, no problem. What a team we are!,” and it was embarrassing for a winner like Buddy to be so out of it that he didn’t even know that he had won! So they led him into the winner’s circle, and they all lined up, and it was the Breeders’ Cup, and they took the win photo, and then the reporters were all around, and Buddy kept smiling, but all the time the only thing he could think about was the look on the filly’s face when they brought her back. She was beyond exhausted, beyond afraid. She was done for.
Seven more races; the day lasted forever. Buddy locked himself in his hotel room at six o’clock and went to sleep. At some point, the phone rang, and then a whining female voice said, “Oh, Buddy! I am giving such a fabulous party! Everybody’s here!,” and Buddy said, “I’ll be right over,” though he had no idea whom he was talking to. He slept the sleep of the dead until four, when the ringing of the phone awakened him again, and it was Residual’s groom and the vet, whom he had called. The groom said, “Boss, this filly was just standing here with her head down. When I put the feed in her tub, boss, she didn’t even look up, then she just lay down, boss, so I called the vet.”
Then the vet got on, and said, “Mr. Crawford, we’ve got a real problem here. Maybe you should come out here, because, as far as I can see, this filly’s got a raging case of pleuropneumonia, and I’m not sure I can save her.”
What had Buddy’s father always said to him? Oh, yeah. It was, Who do you think you are?
EPILOGUE
THE MORNING AFTER the Breeders’ Cup, it was training as usual in Chicago. The weather wasn’t any good, either. William Vance wasn’t feeling so terrific. He thought he was coming down with a cold, maybe. He went over to the hotplate and set on some water for tea, this herb tea that his girlfriend gave him. He sniffled experimentally, trying to decide if the tickle in his throat was worse than it had been five minutes before, and the phone rang. He picked it up, and said, “Yeah?”
“Mr. Vance?”
“Yeah?”
“My name is Angel Smith, down here in Texas. I had this heart attack about a month ago, but I’m okay now, as long as I stick with my diet and get a little exercise, and my wife stays on me about that. Anyway, I was going to tell you that, the day I had this heart attack, I was feeling really bad, and I sat down in my chair and I went out, you know, I think maybe I actually died, you never can tell, but at any rate, the horses started raising such a fuss—”
“Do you have a horse you’re interested in training, Mr. Smith?”
“Nah. I’m too old for that. Anyway, I got your number from track information, because I called the Jockey Club—a friend of mine told me how to do it, after I checked the tattoo on the horse’s lip, and you were—”
“Do you have Justa Bob?”
“Well, I call him Amigo, but yeah. I got him. He nearly went to the slaughter, but—”
“You know,” said William Vance, “if I hitch up the trailer right now, I can be down there sometime tomorrow I think. Tell me where you are?”
“The horse don’t look too good, Mr. Vance. I ain’t got much money to keep a Thoroughbred like that—”
“I don’t care. I got plenty of feed. You tell me where you are. I’ve been looking for that guy for months.”
———
IN CALIFORNIA, very early, still dark, Jesse woke up from a dream of Residual. It wasn’t like the race they had seen the day before on the simulcast at Hollywood Park, where she had been whipped, and stumbled at the end, and almost gotten beaten by that big filly, and then come back to win, and all the guys who had bet on her (and that was everyone, including his dad) were screaming and cursing. It was some other race, where she was just running, ears up, nose out, and her jockey wasn’t whipping her at all, but just giving her the reins and floating along the way she had done that time he picked her to win in her very first outing, when she was just a baby and Pincay had ridden her. In his dream, everything was quiet and he was standing there and the filly ran and Pincay turned his head and looked at him, Jesse, and smiled, and then the filly won, and even though she was the favorite, she was a long shot, and everyone in the stands went home with lots and lots of money, as if the bet pool never had to be shared, but was bottomless, and nothing about the racetrack was mysterious or dangerous. Jesse lay awake after that, while the room began to lighten, and he thought of the money he had made, seven dollars on a five-dollar bet, and he thought that he would just keep that, his Residual money, something to fall back on in case he ever needed it. And then he sighed and turned over and went back to sleep.
AL
Al repeated this into his cell phone. Farley was silent for a moment, then said, “I saw that place once. It’s unbelievable.”
Al said to Rosalind, “He’s been there.”
Rosalind put her hand over the mouthpiece. “Ask him if they take good care of the horses.”
Al put the question. Farley laughed. He said, “Not like anyplace you’ve ever seen, Coolmore, Gainesway, you name it. The Oku stallions get regular exercise, and their paddocks are scattered in with the mare pastures. It’s the closest thing I ever saw to a natural situation. Horses live forever there.”
Al nodded emphatically. Rosalind was still tickling his palm, which was making him forget that this was a business deal. Just to remind himself, he said, “They said seven million. What do you think?”
Farley said, “Well, Al, I know this sounds strange, given what we’ve just been through, but my instinct is to be realistic about this. His breeding was odd before the Arc, and it’s odd now, not something that appeals to the American bloodstock market. Breeders look at the animal’s broodmare sire, and though Independence was a great steeplechaser and the full brother to Bold Ruler, he ran in 1954. About six guys in the world even know who he was. You could run him for another year or two and make more money racing, but that’s always a risk, and could hurt his value rather than enhance it.”