The Black Stallion's Blood Bay Colt

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  THE BLACK STALLION SERIES BY WALTER FARLEY

  THE BLACK STALLION

  THE BLACK STALLION RETURNS

  SON OF THE BLACK STALLION

  THE ISLAND STALLION

  THE BLACK STALLION AND SATAN

  THE BLACK STALLION’S BLOOD BAY COLT

  THE ISLAND STALLION’S FURY

  THE BLACK STALLION’S FILLY

  THE BLACK STALLION REVOLTS

  THE BLACK STALLION’S SULKY COLT

  THE ISLAND STALLION RACES

  THE BLACK STALLION’S COURAGE

  THE BLACK STALLION MYSTERY

  THE HORSE-TAMER

  THE BLACK STALLION AND FLAME

  MAN O’ WAR

  THE BLACK STALLION CHALLENGED!

  THE BLACK STALLION’S GHOST

  THE BLACK STALLION AND THE GIRL

  THE BLACK STALLION LEGEND

  THE YOUNG BLACK STALLION (with Steven Farley)

  Published by Yearling, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books

  a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published by Random House, Inc., in 1950 under the title The Blood Bay Colt.

  Text copyright © 1950 by Walter Farley

  Text copyright renewed 1978 by Walter Farley

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  eISBN: 978-0-307-80496-9

  v3.1

  For

  Frank Lutz, Dave Ford, and George Milhimes,

  who remembered the way it was

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  1. The Queen

  2. The Foal to Come

  3. Troubled Days

  4. Wipe the Foal Dry!

  5. Hard Hands

  6. Setback!

  7. Light Hands

  8. The Fair

  9. Racing Wheels

  10. The Weanling

  11. First Bridle

  12. Tom Messenger, Trainer

  13. Dizzy Speed Ahead!

  14. Hard Fists

  15. Let the Speed Come!

  16. Bonfire’s First Race

  17. Racing the Fair Circuit

  18. Reading Fair and Princess Guy

  19. Luck of the Draw

  20. The Two-Year-Old Championship

  21. Back at Coronet

  About the Author

  THE QUEEN

  1

  Although the early June morning was unusually cool and the sky overcast, the boy’s body perspired freely beneath his thin sweater. For this morning, as on every Saturday morning, he had walked the five miles from his home to the training track just outside the town limits of Coronet, Pennsylvania. And now he stood beneath a tall elm tree, his eyes upon the drab gray sheds before him. Grim-faced, he walked toward them, his gaze never leaving the sheds—not even for the horses, who trotted about the half-mile track to his left. He heard neither the rhythmic beat of hoofs over hard-packed clay nor the clucking of the drivers to their colts as they sat in their two-wheeled training carts. And this was very unusual for Tom Messenger.

  He walked down the road until he came to the last shed in the row, and there he hesitated, his long, thin face grave with concern, his arms hanging loosely beside his big-boned but gaunt frame. It was many moments before he moved to the closed door of the shed, his steps noticeably shorter and slower.

  Looking through the window, he saw the two old men working over Symbol. Jimmy Creech stood before the horse’s big black head. As always, Jimmy’s muffler was wrapped snugly about his scrawny neck, and his cap was pulled far down over his ears. The tip of Jimmy’s prominent nose held the only color in his pale face. George Snedecker stooped to the other side of the horse, his hands feeling about Symbol’s hoofs.

  Slowly the boy slid the door open, and he heard George Snedecker say, “Pains in my legs again this morning, Jimmy. Makes a man wish he were dead, that’s what it does.”

  “We ain’t so young any more,” Jimmy Creech grumbled; then he saw the boy standing in the doorway. He nodded to him but said nothing, and turned back to Symbol.

  With great effort George rose to a standing position. “ ’Morning, Tom,” he said. The chaw of tobacco in his mouth was passed from one side to the other as his gaze shifted uneasily between the boy and Jimmy Creech; then he took a cloth from the pocket of his overalls and brushed it over Symbol’s neck. He said with attempted lightness, “No need to work over Symbol, heh, Jimmy? He’ll stir up enough wind to wipe him clean.”

  Jimmy Creech looked sullenly into George’s grinning, tobacco-stained mouth. “Sure” he said. “Let’s get the stuff on him now.”

  The boy stood there while they slid the light racing harness on Symbol and tightened the leather about the shafts of the training cart. Jimmy Creech had taken hold of the long reins when the boy said, “You’re really going to sell her, Jimmy? You haven’t changed your mind since last Saturday?” His voice was low and heavy with concern.

  Jimmy Creech turned to George, motioning him to open the shed doors. “I’m selling her,” he said quickly, without looking at the boy. “This morning … the guy’s coming this morning, just as I told you last Saturday.”

  “But Jimmy—” The boy was close beside Jimmy Creech now, his hands on the man’s arm, his words coming fast. “Her colt may be everything you ever hoped to own. You figured it that way. You said—”

  Jimmy Creech had slid into the cart seat. “I know what I said, what I figured,” he interrupted, turning away. “You don’t have to tell me, Tom.”

  “Then why do you want to sell the Queen at this late stage of the game?” the boy asked with sudden anger. “She’ll have her foal in another three weeks. Why don’t you do as we planned?”

  Jimmy Creech drew his muffler tighter about his neck, and his eyes were upon Symbol’s black haunches as he said bitterly, “I figured out one night that it was a pretty late stage in the game for me, too. I figured up how old I was and I got sixty-two. I figured that it’s no time for me to be looking ahead a couple of years, and I’d have to wait that long before I could race this colt of the Queen’s. So I figured two years is much too long for me to wait. That’s the score, Tom. I’m sorry.”

  “But, Jimmy. You’re being silly. You’re not old. You’re—”

  But Jimmy Creech was taking Symbol from the shed.

  The boy watched Jimmy until he had driven Symbol around the corner of the shed; then he turned to George, now seated heavily in his chair beside the door. “What’s gotten into Jimmy?” the boy asked. “Why’s he talking like that?”
>
  “He ain’t been feeling good again,” George said. “And sixty-two’s not so young any more, like Jimmy says. Age is like that, Tom. For years you go along thinking you’re a young bunny, then one morning you wake up and it’s hit you right smack in every bone and muscle in your body. Like it did with me some years ago. And like it’s doing to Jimmy now. And when that happens you find you don’t start figuring too far ahead any longer.” George leaned back in his chair. “Yep, I know what Jimmy means when he says he don’t want to wait two years for the Queen’s colt to come along.”

  Shaking his head, the boy said, “But all winter long Jimmy felt good. I know he did. He’d talk about this foal of the Queen’s for hours at a time, telling me the colt was going to be the one he’d always wanted. You heard him, George. And you know our plans. He was going to send the Queen up to my uncle’s farm, where she was going to have her foal. And I was going to take care of them both this summer while you and Jimmy were at the fair tracks racing Symbol. It was just the setup he wanted for them. Uncle Wilmer has plenty of pasture; everything the Queen and her foal could want during the summer. I don’t understand why—”

  “You got to be older to understand, Tom,” George said slowly. “And Jimmy started changing last summer at the races. He started feeling old then, but he never admitted it. But I saw he was more careful in his driving, never taking any chances of a spill. And before that they never came any nervier, any better than Jimmy Creech. He became very critical of the driving of other men, too. And he got crabby and, I thought, a little bitter. It was old age creeping up, but Jimmy didn’t know it. He’s stuck to harness racing for near forty years because he loves the sport and the horses. And that’s what made him great. But it’s different with him now. It’s like he’s sore because he’s suddenly discovered he’s getting old and he wants to take it out on everybody.”

  George paused and took off his soiled cap, exposing his bald head to the rays of the sun that had broken through the overcast sky. “When you came along this last winter,” he went on, “and Jimmy took such a liking to you, I thought maybe he was coming out of it. He liked the interest you took in the horses, although you didn’t know a trot from a pace at the time. But you asked a lot of questions, and Jimmy liked that. He enjoyed talking to you and you were a good listener. Maybe he saw himself as a kid in you. I don’t know. But he lived in Coronet, too, when he was about your age, an’ he used to come out here on Saturdays, just hanging around, same as you do.”

  George stopped again, chewing his tobacco thoughtfully. “I heard Jimmy talk about sending the Queen to your uncle’s farm when you told him you were going to be there for the summer. I knew then how much Jimmy liked you or he wouldn’t be trusting you with the Queen like that. An’ I liked the way you had perked Jimmy up and I thought everything was going to be all right again. But week before last Jimmy had a couple of bad nights. I guess he must have been really sick, because he showed up here looking pretty awful. I guess I knew then that this was the beginning of the end for Jimmy Creech, professional reinsman.

  “A few days later this guy from Hanover Farms comes around looking for broodmares and he sees the Queen. And he asks Jimmy how about selling her. He’d asked Jimmy that same question for the last three years, but Jimmy never even listened to him. But this time it was different. I hear Jimmy say quick-like, ‘Sure, if you give me my price.’ And that wasn’t like Jimmy. Not in the ’most fifty years I’ve known him has he ever put a price on any horse he loves—and he sure loves the Queen. He lost mighty few races with the Queen.”

  “If he really loved her he wouldn’t sell her,” the boy said bitterly. “Why’s he doing it, George?”

  “He’s asked a good stiff price, Tom. And with the money he can buy another horse to race this summer—maybe even two or three more.”

  “He’s got Symbol to race,” the boy said quickly.

  “Symbol is too old jus’ like Jimmy and me,” George muttered. “He oughtn’t to be racing any more. Jimmy picked him up at the sales a couple of years ago. He was the only horse Jimmy could afford to buy. Jimmy doesn’t have much money any more. He’s just hanging on … that’s all Jimmy’s doin’.” The old man paused to spit tobacco juice in the pail which he used as a spittoon. “So I guess Jimmy wants enough money to buy a good racehorse now. It’s like he wasn’t figuring on having many more years and he wants to do this one up big.”

  “I still don’t understand,” the boy said.

  “I do,” George returned slowly. “I guess I understand pretty well how Jimmy Creech feels.”

  The boy shifted uneasily upon his feet, his eyes leaving George for the semi-darkness of the shed’s interior. Finally he walked inside, coming to a stop directly beneath the bared light bulb just within the door. He twisted the bulb almost savagely, extinguishing the light; then, turning, he slid the shed doors wide open, allowing the sun to penetrate the gloom. “It’s like a morgue in here,” he shouted angrily to George Snedecker. “It’s almost summer. Remember?”

  “Sure,” George mumbled. “It’s almost summer.”

  The boy walked into the tack room, his eyes gleaming, his steps hurried. He took a quick look at the worn harness, then went to the two windows, opening them wide. Leaving the room, he hurried down the shed, passing the empty box stalls. When he came to the door at the opposite end he pushed heavily against it until, creaking, it too slid open, and the morning light flooded the shed.

  For a moment the boy stood in the doorway, staring at the track before him. Two trotters swept by, the wheels of their training carts gleaming in the sun. Then Jimmy Creech went by with Symbol, and tears welled in the boy’s eyes at the sight of Jimmy’s thin huddled figure in the seat. “Why don’t you take off that muffler and that silly cap, Jimmy?” he muttered angrily. “Why don’t you look up at the sun? Let it get at you, Jimmy. That’s what you need.”

  Then abruptly, Tom turned and walked toward a box stall on his left. Opening the door, he went inside, and his eyes and voice were soft as he said, “Hello, Beautiful.”

  The heavy-bellied bay mare came to him, shoving her soft muzzle against his chest. And as his hand followed the white blaze that ran from her forehead to her nostrils, she sought the pockets of his sweater for what she knew would be there. He let her pull the carrot from his pocket, then took it from her again, breaking it into small pieces and feeding them to her one at a time. “And chew them well, Queen,” he said. “You have to be careful about everything you eat and everything you do now. It won’t be so very long before your foal comes.”

  Then the boy stopped talking and looked at the docile head before him. He raised his hand to touch her again, hesitated, then threw his arms about her neck, burying his head in her long black mane.

  When Jimmy Creech brought Symbol back from his workout, he found Tom in the Queen’s stall. For several minutes he stared at Tom’s turned back without the boy’s knowing it, then moved on.

  George Snedecker had the cooling blanket on Symbol and was walking him alongside the shed when Jimmy joined him.

  “Tom’s taking it pretty hard,” Jimmy said quietly.

  George nodded but continued walking Symbol.

  Jimmy fell in beside him. “I never should have let him hang around so much,” Jimmy said. “That’s what I get for taking an interest in the kid.”

  George looked at him but still said nothing.

  “Have you seen that guy from Hanover Farms yet?” Jimmy asked. “He said he’d be around at eight o’clock.”

  “I saw his car up the row. He might be in one of the other sheds.” George paused. “Why don’t you go up and see? Let’s sell the mare if we’re going to,” he added sullenly.

  Jimmy looked at him. “What’s ailing you?”

  George Snedecker made no reply.

  “Has the kid got to you, too?” Jimmy asked bitterly. “I suppose you think I’m a heel too. Whose mare is she, anyway? And who has to foot the bills around here?”

  “Your mare. You f
oot the bills,” George said brusquely.

  They walked for a while before Jimmy spoke again. “That’s what I get for playing nursemaid to a kid. I should have sent him on his way when he first came around.”

  “But you didn’t,” George said quietly, turning Symbol around. “You let him stay and you talked horse to him by the hour. You wanted it that way. For some reason you wanted it that way.”

  Jimmy Creech said nothing, but George heard his footsteps and knew he was following him.

  “Find that guy from Butler and sell the mare,” George said again. “They don’t get a chance every day to buy a broodmare like the Queen. An’ like you said, she’s yours. I don’t care what you do with her. I only work for you. And what do you care how the kid feels? He’s nothing but one of the hundreds running around towns like Coronet. He’ll forget all about the Queen in a week. Maybe he’ll forget all about horses, too—forget everything you ever told him. He’s nothing but a skinny, overgrown high-school kid who ought to be running around with fellows his own age anyway, instead of hanging out with us old fogies.”

  The footsteps behind him had stopped, but Jimmy’s tense voice came easily to George. “He’ll never forget the Queen—or horses. It’s in him deep, just as it was in me.”

  The footsteps came again, but this time they were retreating and George knew that Jimmy Creech had gone to find the buyer from Hanover Farms.

  George was still walking Symbol when he saw Jimmy Creech returning. Jimmy’s head was burrowed deep in his brown muffler, but his skinny legs moved quickly over the road. George stopped walking Symbol.

  “Shall I get the mare out?” George asked when Jimmy was within hearing distance. “Does he want to take her now?”

  Jimmy raised his thin face, and the only thing about him that seemed alive were his hazel eyes flecked with tiny pinpoints of brown. “No,” he said. “He didn’t buy her.” His gaze dropped as he added. “He wouldn’t give me my price.”

  “Uh-huh,” George said.