Horse Heaven, Page 2

  Bay colt, by Lake of the Woods, out of Wayward, by Independence, May 5, 1996. This is the commonest color in Thoroughbreds. He has a tiny star on his forehead, symmetrical cowlicks on either side of his neck, and a little white triangle on the inside of his right hind fetlock. Maryland-bred.

  All their markings are described on their registration papers, and all have numbers and files. Their live births have been noted, their blood has been taken and tested to be sure they descend from whom their owners say they descend, their births have been recorded under the names of their sires in a number of documents, and published in the Thoroughbred Times. Already they are successful, having gotten conceived, gestated, born, nursed, weaned, halter-broken, shod, transported, and taught some basic manners with some misadventure but nothing fatal.

  They are all related to one another. Every one of them carries the blood of the Darley Arabian, and Eclipse. You could hardly have a Thoroughbred who did not. Every one of them, too, carries the blood of Stockwell and of Nearco. Three of them carry the blood of Rock Sand. Two descend from the great female progenitor Pocahontas. Two are more American than English, going back to Lexington. The lucky ones carry St. Simon. Hyperion appears here and there, a dot of sunlight in any pedigree. The four great broodmare sires—War Admiral, Princequillo, Mahmoud, Blue Larkspur—appear, too, even though no one around any of these foals is old enough to have actually seen them race.

  As Thoroughbreds, Residual, Epic Steam, Froney’s Sis, and the as-yet-unnamed bay colt share some characteristics. They are active and inquisitive. They would rather move than not. Easing into a gallop is as natural to all of them as breathing. When they run, they look ahead, about four strides, and their tails stream out straight behind them. They are born to go forward, nose aligned with neck aligned with back aligned with tail, as a border collie is born to follow the heels of sheep, or a cat is born to toy with a mouse. All are evidently intelligent and inquisitive. They will follow after anything that wanders through the pasture, noses down, investigating. They are exuberant. They are sensitive. They have opinions. They in general have too much of every lively quality rather than too little. On average, they are more closely related to one another than cheetahs.

  Nevertheless, even if they were all the same color, you could readily tell them apart. They say of Epic Steam, Well, he knows who he is! Yeah, he knows he’s a son of a bitch, or, rather, the son of a son of a bitch! He’s a big burly colt. The farrier doesn’t like to trim him and no one else likes to do much with him, either. He’s resisted haltering, resisted grooming, resisted worming and shots. He always gets saved for last, even though last is when everyone is tired and irritable. It just puts you in such a bad mood to deal with him that it’s bad for the other horses if he goes first, that’s the justification. You can’t approach him with affection, kindness, gentleness, but, then, neither can you approach him with firmness, dominance, aggression.

  He is worth a lot of money: his dam cost her owner $567,000 (though she has amortized that expenditure with the three of her seven foals who sold as yearlings for two to five hundred thousand dollars). Land of Magic’s stud fee was sixty thousand dollars. Epic Steam himself brought $450,000 at the yearling sale in Keeneland last July. Epic Steam is easily offended. He has high standards of behavior with regard to his own person, and every human he has met so far has offended them. Other horses aren’t so bad—they have been capable of learning, and so they don’t offend him, and he isn’t mean with them, only bossy. It’s the people who are blind and stubborn. Epic Steam would like to see a person, just one, who can pay attention and meet his standard. Almost two now, he is frequently termed “a monster,” sixteen hands, with a great arching neck and ribs that spring away from his lungs and his oversized heart. His haunches are a county of their own; his tail streams like a black banner almost to the ground.

  Residual knows who she is, too. She is the one who is always walking around the pasture, stopping, lifting her head, having a look, walking on. She is the one with the meditative air. When they handle her, they’ve learned from her to wait just a second. The farrier asks her to lift her foot—there’s a momentary pause, and then it’s clear that she has decided, and she lifts her foot. They say that she is easy to get along with, and so she is. When she runs around with the other fillies, she doesn’t barge to the front, but instead hangs back for a second and waits for an opening, then flows into it. She is fifteen hands two inches, well developed and nicely built for two-year-old racing. She has big haunches, a graceful neck, and an attractive head that is short but beautifully molded. She has pretty, mobile ears. Her chestnut coat is richly colored, preternaturally fine. Her right knee turns out, like her sire’s. At the Saratoga sale, she brought a disappointing twenty-four thousand dollars.

  The bay colt knows who he is, too, and so does his breeder, who simply calls him “Wow.” The youngest of the four, he has not left home yet, so every day his handlers see that he has inherited from his grandsire, Independence, a gallop that is easier for him than standing still. His idea of relaxing is galloping around the pasture, speeding up, slowing down, turning, sweeping around a large curve. He works on his stride and pacing every day while others are sleeping, play-fighting each other, eating, except that it isn’t work, it is his natural activity, his default option. He gallops in response to every stimulus. He isn’t as big or as pretty as some other yearlings, and his conformation isn’t perfect, either. He has a long back, slightly swayed, and long hind legs. His neck is skinny. His head is a bit common, until you look at his eyes, soulful, long-lashed. He is pleasant to handle but distracted, half ignoring you, waiting, always, to go back outside. He was too young and undeveloped in the summer to go to a sale, and his owner is thinking of racing him.

  Froney’s Sis is the only one who isn’t sure who she is. Orphaned at a month old, when her dam colicked in the night and died, she was put in with a mini-horse for companionship, and fed milk from a bucket, because she was too old to go to a nurse mare. The mini-horse was a patient fellow. He stood quietly near her, moved away from the feed bucket when she wanted to eat, grazed almost underneath her, even trotted around companionably while she romped and kicked up and galloped, but he wasn’t matter-of-fact about things, the way a mare would be. He didn’t nuzzle her much, and he wasn’t possessed of that throaty, loving nicker that is a specialty of mares. Most of all, his interest in her wasn’t the compelling element of his existence, as a mare’s interest in her foal would be. A mare would be pushy and interfering and attentive. A mare would call out and trot over; a mare’s body language would be telling the filly what to think and how to behave twenty-four hours a day. But the mini-horse didn’t have a mare’s body language. Already culture has interfered with nature in the case of Froney’s Sis—the twigs of her personality are like the shoots of an espaliered apricot tree; however nice she becomes, she may never know who she is.

  Her owner, Mr. Kyle Tompkins, seems to own everything else in central California, too. On a hot, sunny piece of land so vast and featureless that it offers no limits or resistance, Mr. Tompkins grows cattle, apricots, grapes, cotton, wheat, rice, and alfalfa, manufactures cosmetics, runs restaurants, a resort, a horse-training center, a horse-breeding center, a trucking company, a holding company, an asset-management company, an insurance company, and a company that underwrites insurance companies, but he takes a personal interest in the racehorses. Froney’s Sis he has named after Bob Froney’s sister. Bob Froney is the guy down the road who developed the special formula for Tompkins Perfection Almond and Aloe Skin Revitalizer, Tompkins Perfection Skin Nurturing Kindness Cosmetics’ best seller. Bob has recently mentioned to Mr. Tompkins that his sister Dorcas was the first tester of the formula and guided them toward the greaseless product that Bob finally came up with in his kitchen. In a fit of gratitude Mr. Tompkins spent a day trying to decide between “Dorcas,” “Bob’s Baby Sister,” and “Froney’s Sis.” One year, he named a filly “Chemolita” and a colt “Radiation Baby,” be
cause his mother was undergoing chemotherapy. His names are so odd that no one else ever wants them, and the Jockey Club seems always to give him what he wants. He names nearly a hundred foals a year, and races mostly his own stock.

  The filly has not been easy to train, and Jack Perkins, who manages the training farm, is thinking of throwing her out in the pasture for another six months. Tompkins Worldwide Thoroughbred Breeding and Racing—Only the Best has plenty of pasture and plenty of water to keep it green.

  Everything about them now is speculative, mysterious, potential. On the first of January, when they all turn two simultaneously, who they are, who they will become, how they will be known and remembered, or not, will begin to take form. In a couple more years, everything will have been revealed—how they raced as two-year-olds, how they raced as three-year-olds, whether they manifested the hidden bonuses in their DNA or the hidden deficits, whether they deserve to reproduce or not, what they made of those who trained them and cared for them and rode them and owned them, and what those trainers, grooms, jockeys, and owners made of them. They are about to enter upon lives as public as any human life, lives as active and maybe as profitable, lives about which they will certainly have opinions, though they will never speak to the press, even off the record.

  Jack decides, as he always does, that there’s plenty of time.

  NOVEMBER

  1 / JACK RUSSELL

  ON THE SECOND Sunday morning in November, the day after the Breeders’ Cup at Hollywood Park (which he did not get to this year, because the trek to the West Coast seemed a long one from Westchester County and he didn’t have a runner, had never had a runner, how could this possibly be his fault, hadn’t he spent millions breeding, training, and running horses? Wasn’t it time he had a runner in the Breeders’ Cup or got out of the game altogether, one or the other?), Alexander P. Maybrick arose from his marriage bed at 6:00 a.m., put on his robe and slippers, and exited the master suite he shared with his wife, Rosalind. On the way to the kitchen, he passed the library, his office that adjoined the library, the weight room, the guest bathroom, the living room, and the dining room. In every room his wife had laid a Persian carpet of exceptional quality—his wife had an eye for quality in all things—and it seemed like every Persian carpet in every room every morning was adorned with tiny dark, dense turds deposited there by Eileen, the Jack Russell terrier. Eileen herself was nestled up in bed with his wife, apparently sleeping, since she didn’t raise even her head when Mr. Maybrick arose, but Mr. Maybrick knew she was faking. No Jack Russell sleeps though movement of any kind except as a ruse.

  Mr. Maybrick had discussed this issue with Rosalind on many levels. It was not as though he didn’t know what a Jack Russell was all about when Rosalind brought the dog home. A Jack Russell was about making noise, killing small animals and dragging their carcasses into the house, attacking much larger dogs, refusing to be house-trained, and in all other ways living a primitive life. Rosalind had promised to start the puppy off properly, with a kennel and a trainer and a strict routine and a book about Jack Russells, and every other thing that worked with golden retrievers and great Danes and mastiffs, and dogs in general. But Eileen wasn’t a dog, she was a beast, and the trainer had been able to do only one thing with her, which was stop her from barking. And thank God for that, because if the trainer had not stopped Eileen from barking Mr. Maybrick would have had to strangle her. Rosalind, who sent her underwear to the cleaners and had the windows washed every two weeks and kept the oven spotless enough to sterilize surgical instruments, tried to take the position that the turds were small and harmless, and that the carpets could handle them, but really she just thought the dog was cute, even after Eileen learned to jump from the floor to the kitchen counters, and then walked around on them with her primevally dirty feet, click click click, right in front of Mr. Maybrick, even after Eileen began to sleep under the covers, pushing her wiry, unsoft coat right into Mr. Maybrick’s nose in the middle of the night. “Do you know where this dog has been?” Mr. Maybrick would say to Rosalind, and Rosalind would reply, “I don’t want to think about that.”

  Mr. Maybrick was a wealthy and powerful man, and in the end, that was what stopped him. He knew that, in the larger scheme of things, he had been so successful, and, in many ways, so unpleasant about it all (he was a screamer and a bully, tough on everyone), that Eileen had come into his life as a corrective. She weighed one-twentieth of what he did. He could crush her between his two fists. He could also get rid of her, either by yelling at his wife or by sending her off to the SPCA on his own, but he dared not. There was some abyss of megalomania that Eileen guarded the edge of for Mr. Maybrick, and in the mornings, when he walked to the kitchen to get his coffee, he tried to remember that.

  The first thing Mr. Maybrick did after he poured his coffee was to call his horse-trainer. When the trainer answered with his usual “Hey, there!,” Mr. Maybrick said, “Dick!,” and then Dick said, “Oh. Al.” He always said it just like that, as if he were expecting something good to happen, and Mr. Maybrick had happened instead. Mr. Maybrick ignored this and sipped his coffee while Dick punched up his response. “Can I do something for you, Al?”

  “Yeah. You can put that Laurita filly in the allowance race on Thursday.”

  “You’ve got a condition book, then.”

  “Oh, sure. I want to know what races are being run. You trainers keep everything so dark—”

  “Well, sure. Al, listen—”

  “Dick, Frank Henderson thinks it’s the perfect race for her. A little step up in class, but not too much competi—”

  “I’ll see.”

  “I want to do it. Henderson said—”

  “Mr. Henderson—”

  “Frank Henderson knows horses and racing, right? His filly won the Kentucky Oaks last year, right? He would have had that other horse in the sprint yesterday if it hadn’t broken down. Listen to me, Dick. I shouldn’t have to beg you.” This was more or less a threat, and as he said it, not having actually intended to, Mr. Maybrick reflected upon how true it was. He was the owner. Dick Winterson was the trainer. The relationship was a simple one. Henderson was always telling him not to be intimidated by trainers.

  “We’ll see.”

  “You always say that. Look, I don’t want to watch the Breeders’ Cup on TV again next year. Henderson thinks this filly’s got class.”

  “She does, but I want to go slow with her. We have to see how the filly—”

  Mr. Maybrick hung up. He didn’t slam down the phone—he no longer did that—he simply hung up. If Dick had known him as long as Mr. Maybrick had known himself, he would have realized what a good thing it was, simply hanging up. And here was another thing he could use with his wife. He could say that if he didn’t have to pass all those turds in the morning he could start off calmer and his capacity for accepting frustration would last a little longer. It was scientific. When they didn’t have the dog, he had gotten practically to the fourth phone call without offending anyone. Now he got maybe to the second. He took another sip of his coffee, and called his broker, then his partner, then his general manager, then his other partner, then his secretary, then his broker again, then his AA sponsor (who was still in bed). This guy’s name was Harold W., and he was a proctologist as well as an alcoholic. Mr. Maybrick had chosen him because he was a man of infinite patience and because he knew everything there was to know about prostate glands.

  “I want a drink,” said Mr. Maybrick. “There’s turds all over the house. I bet you can understand that one.”

  “Good morning, Al. What’s really up? You haven’t had a drink in two years.”

  “But I’m always on the verge. It’s a real struggle with me.”

  “Say your serenity prayer.”

  “God—”

  “God—”

  They said the serenity prayer together.

  “Look,” said Al, “I got this pain in my groin—”

  “No freebies. That’s the rule. My partner wil
l be happy to—”

  “It’s like water trickling out of a hose. I can’t—”

  “You need to be working on your fourth step.”

  “What’s that one again?”

  “Taking a fearless inventory of your character defects.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Trying to get something for nothing is one of your character defects.”

  “I never pay retail.”

  “Then you need to work on your third step, Al.”

  “What’s that one?”

  “Turning your life over to your higher power.”

  Mr. Maybrick cleared his throat, as he always did when someone said those higher-power words. Those words always made an image of Ralph Peters come into his head, the guy who used to be head of the Mercantile Exchange in Chicago, and who foiled the Hunt brothers when they tried to corner the silver market back in ’80. Peters was an Austrian guy. He had “higher power” written all over him, and he was the last guy Mr. Maybrick had ever feared. He would never turn his life over to Peters.

  Harold went on, “Let’s think a little more about the last day. What about rage? Have you been raging?”

  “Well, sure. A guy in my posi—”

  “Should be filled with gratitude. Your position is a gratitude position. Thank you, God, for every frustration, every bad deal, every monetary loss, every balk and obstacle and resistance.”

  Harold often teased him in this way. Mr. Maybrick felt better for it, because it made him think Harold W. liked him after all, and it reminded him, too, of when his old man had been in a good mood. Joshing him.

  “Every non-cooperator, every son of a bitch, every idiot who gets in my way, every slow driver, every—”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ve got to go to the hospital.”