CHAPTER 2

Tonya stood in front of the stall, her arms crossed on top of the wooden half-door, watching the chestnut colt munch the carrot she had just given him.

“Well, now, young lady, how’s the patient?”

Tonya turned to see the track veterinarian’s kind gray eyes gazing at her. No one ever called him “Doctor.” He was just “Doc” Frey on the backstretch. She especially loved his gentle and patient ways with the flighty racehorses. He fussed and worried over each of them like they were his own children.

“Ready to kick the barn down,” Tonya said as she pulled the sleeve of her jacket from between Gus’s teeth. She took down the lead rope hanging on the wall, clipped it to the colt’s leather halter, and led him into the aisle.

The vet bent down to unwind the colt’s red stall bandage and the white padding underneath it. His gentle hands probed every inch of the leg for heat or swelling. He pinched the tendon with some force and watched for the colt’s reaction. Gus didn’t respond, but stood watching the other horses as they headed for the track, his ears pricked up as he followed them with his gaze. Tonya could almost feel his desire to be out there with the others.

“That tendon has healed nicely, Tonya. Tell your father he can begin easy workouts right away.” He patted Gus’s neck. “He sure is a little guy, isn’t he?”

“Yeah. Dad calls him ‘the shrimp.’”

“Well, let’s hope he stays sound. He can race in a few months if all goes well.”

“Thanks a lot, Doc.” She stroked the colt’s neck absent-mindedly. “I’d sure love to be the one to ride him in a race. But I’d have to get my license first, and you know how Dad feels about that.”

“Yep. But you can hardly blame him after what happened to your mom.”

Tonya sighed. “I know.”

The vet cleared his throat. “Sorry to hear about your groom. Do the police have any idea who did it?”

“I don’t know. They don’t tell us much. Just asked a lot of questions and left. That was a week ago, and we haven’t heard anything since.”

She led Gus back into his stall and started down the shedrow. In the tack room, she took her helmet from its hook, put it on, and buckled the chin strap. The saddle cloths and other equipment hung neatly from pegs in the freshly-swept room, each cloth with a large red “RC” sewn on it. Royce Callahan. Tonya was proud of her father. He was a good trainer, fair and honest, unlike some who put winning ahead of everything. In their greed and desperation, they doped up sore horses with painkillers and ran them anyway, putting their jockeys’ lives in danger. But Royce kept injured horses in the barn where they belonged. “I’ll never get rich,” he said often, “but I’ll be able to sleep at night.”

Royce loved these brave animals as much as she did. To him, a horse was a magnificent creature, to be respected and cared for. “It’s as though God decided to create the perfect animal and out came the horse. Beautiful, noble, useful, willing to work hard. And they ask nothing in return but kindness. If you look out for them, they’ll look out for you.”

One day, she overheard Graham Lynde, a pugnacious rat-faced trainer on the circuit, ask Royce why he didn’t run a certain colt that had sore knees. “Just give him a shot of this stuff,” Lynde said, showing Royce a small bottle. “He won’t even know he has knees.” Royce shook his head. “Go on,” the other man needled. “Nobody’ll ever know.”

Royce looked the man square in the eye. “I would know,” he said quietly.

Lynde had walked away shaking his head. Like too many trainers, Lynde had a reputation for stooping to anything--legal or not--to win.

Her father appeared at the tack room door.

“Doc Frey says Gus can begin easy workouts,” Tonya said.

“Great. Let’s get him tacked up. Don’t forget your flak jacket.” He tossed the lightweight foam-filled vest to her. Royce watched her put it on, his arms crossed. He turned away suddenly and began rummaging through one of the tack boxes. “Where’s that set of blinkers the filly’s been wearing?”

Tonya picked up the blue nylon hood from the shelf and handed it to him. She wondered if this was the right time to bring up the subject again. She cleared her throat. “Uh, Dad,” she began, “I know you don’t want to talk about me getting my jockey’s license.” She hesitated, waiting for the usual reaction.

Royce’s gray-green eyes regarded her for a moment, a cloud crossing his face. He rubbed his hands through his red hair, now tinged with gray. “Tonya, you know how I feel about this. Race riding is a rough game. Jocks have to be strong, tough, and fearless. It’s no place for a girl.”

Tonya felt her jaw tighten. That old argument again. It seemed the idea of equality for women hadn’t quite filtered down to the racing world yet. “You don’t mind me riding in the morning,” she said, trying to remain calm.

“That’s different. No one’s trying to beat you in the morning. You’re mostly riding by yourself. That’s dangerous enough.”

Tonya loved her dad, and respected him, but sometimes he could be so bull-headed. She stared at the floor. “I’m almost twenty-one. I don’t need your permission to get my license.”

“No, you don’t,” he said through a clenched jaw. “But don’t come to me looking for mounts. You’ll have to break your neck on somebody else’s horses.” He stormed out and slammed the door.

Tonya took a deep breath and waited a few minutes then came out of the tack room to find Royce saddling Gus in the aisle.

He finished adjusting the girth on the small exercise saddle. “Just walk him a half mile and jog a quarter. And take a good hold of him. He’ll be feeling good.”

Tonya nodded, searching her father’s face. He met her eyes for a moment and then bent over and held out his cupped hands. She gathered up the reins and put her left foot into his hands.

Royce boosted her easily into the saddle and patted her knee. “Be careful, kiddo,” he said. That was Royce’s way of saying, “I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

“I’m always careful, Dad.” As she started the colt down the shedrow, she looked back over her shoulder at her father. “Love you.”

Royce smiled at her and turned away to get another horse saddled.

Tonya guided Gus past the long barns and onto the path that led to the track. She took a snug hold on the reins, but the colt danced sideways, snorting and shaking his head. He had been in a stall for weeks, except for walks around the barn, and now he wanted his freedom. The last few days he had been bucking and rearing in his stall, and his banging on the door with his front hooves could be heard well into the night. Like a little boy confined to his small bedroom, he was aching to get out and play. But Tonya held him in, trying to force him to walk.

Along the pathway, they passed other horses, sweaty from their workouts with their sides heaving, on their way back to the barns. There they would receive their baths and be walked by the grooms or tied to the electric horse walker, walking around and around until they were completely cooled out. Tonya nodded to the other riders, most of whom she knew. About half the exercise riders were girls. There were older men too, some of them ex-jockeys who had lost the battle of the scale. Not able to keep their weight down to the minimum required, they gave up racing and prowled the backstretch looking for horses to exercise.

At the gate separating the barn area from the track, Gus stopped. His ears pricked up and his body began to quiver. Tonya could feel his heart pounding through the leather of the small saddle beneath her. You could always tell a real racehorse by the way he acted when he saw the track. This was the place a racehorse got to do what he loved and what he was bred to do.

The early morning fog gave the track an eerie look. Tonya could see only a little way in either direction before the mist closed in. When the sun rose higher in the sky, the fog would burn off. But for now, Tonya couldn’t see other horses. She could only hear their hoofbeats, like those of ghost horses, in the distance. The sound would get louder and louder until a horse burst out of the mist with a rider crouching low on its back. They would fly past her, only to disappear into the fog again. Then the hoof beats would die away, leaving Tonya alone with only the sound of Gus’s breathing.

She eased the colt onto the soft dirt track, staying near the outside rail where the horses working slowly had to stay. She tried to keep him at a walk, as Royce had ordered, but Gus danced sideways, pulling on the bit and shaking his head in his eagerness to be turned loose. She tightened her grip on the reins, but he arched his neck, trying to free himself from her hands.

Gus continued to fight her, dragging her closer to the inner rail. Suddenly, she heard hoof beats behind her. Then a shout. “Hey, watch out!” From out of the fog behind her burst a horse and rider, coming straight at her. Tonya pulled Gus’s head toward the outer rail and tapped him sharply with her whip. He bucked and jumped forward just as the other horse passed within inches of them. Tonya saw the rider standing his irons, trying to slow his horse. They continued down the track then stopped and turned back toward her. Tonya recognized Mike Torres as the rider. Mike was the leading jockey at the track that season, winning more races and earning more money than anyone else. He was a good rider, but his viciously competitive spirit and moodiness had turned off a lot of people. Even though he was wearing goggles, Tonya could see his face twisted with anger. “Ay! You trying to kill somebody?” he yelled.

Tonya started to explain, but he yelled at her again.

“If you can’t handle horses, stay off the track!” He looked down at Gus and sneered. “And what’s that little runt doing out here anyway? He belongs in the circus with the other ponies.” By now both horses were prancing around in circles, and Tonya had her hands full controlling Gus, as well as her temper. As usual, when she was frustrated, she couldn’t think of anything to say. She felt like taking her whip and giving Torres a good whack. But all she could do was glare at him. “Just stay out of my way, girl,” he said, his dark eyes blazing. Then he jerked his horse’s head around and galloped off.

Tonya fought back the hot tears. She let Gus jog slowly down the track along the outside rail. It seemed that little tap with the whip had straightened up his attitude, and he was quieter now. She was startled to see another horse jog alongside her. She glanced over to see Chris Sommers smiling at her from the back of a gray colt from Royce’s stable. Chris was a newly-licensed jockey just starting his career, but his steady hand with the younger, more nervous colts had already made him a favorite with the trainers.

“Oh, hey,” she said glumly.

“Don’t let Torres get to you, Tonya. He’s just a big mouth who doesn’t like girls on the track. Ignore him. You did a great job handling Gus.”

“Thanks,” she said.

She had always liked Chris and admired his way of coaxing the best out of his mounts, unlike Torres, whose riding method seemed to be to bully them by using the whip as much as possible. Torres was known for bullying the other riders as well. More than once, he had been fined by the stewards for crowding other horses into the rail or cutting them off on the turns, both very dangerous acts. But he didn’t seem to care. Winning at any cost appeared to be his motto. Just how far, she wondered, would he go to eliminate the competition?

Tonya jogged Gus to the end of the backstretch and back toward the gate. Chris’s colt trotted easily alongside. The sunrise had begun to burn off the fog, painting pink and blue streaks across the sky. The radiance of the summer morning washing over her, golden and soft, soothed her and made the unpleasant events seem unimportant. She glanced at Chris, and he smiled back at her. But her uneasiness over the confrontation with Torres left a bitter taste in her mouth.