Lady Lee and Wintertime, who ran second and third respectively to Eclipse in Experimental Number Two, arrived at Keeneland last week, and are ready to go in the Blue Grass Stakes.
Alec showed this story to Henry. After reading it the trainer said, “That’s the way I feel about Golden Vanity too. Wait until something looks him in the eye.”
Wednesday was busier than any other day, for early the following morning they’d be on the road, bound for Churchill Downs. Alec was thankful for everything that kept his hands and mind occupied. He had less time then to think of the Kentucky Derby.
In the morning he broke Black Minx from the gate. They had had very little trouble closing the doors on her. After he gave her the bit for seven-eighths of a mile, as Henry ordered, he galloped out a full mile and a half. As usual Henry said nothing about the filly’s clocking, and there was nothing in his face to show whether it had been good time or bad. Henry’s only remark was, “Well, that’s the last one for this track. I’ll cool her out now.”
During the afternoon and evening Alec had to do a countless number of jobs. For the last time he examined all the mares, foals and stallions; he went over everything again with his father, who would be in charge during his absence, and made certain there were no misunderstandings between them. He drove himself ruthlessly every minute and felt better for it.
Before going to bed he helped pack the tack trunks and put them into the van. He bedded down the van’s stalls for the filly and Napoleon. Henry had decided he wanted Napoleon along. He had announced that the old gray would provide companionship for Black Minx; but Alec knew that Napoleon was being taken along more as a companion for Henry than for the filly. Napoleon had been stabled with Satan and the Black during their racing days. Now it was only right, as Henry saw it, that the old gelding should go to the track with them on this new venture.
After breakfast the next morning, they loaded the filly and Napoleon into the van. The first streaks of light were showing in the sky when Henry climbed behind the wheel. Alec went to the back of the van, where he’d stay with the horses until they arrived safely at Churchill Downs. It would be a long drive—more than twenty-four hours—with stops along the way to rest and walk the horses.
As Henry started the van, Alec again called goodbye to his mother and father, who stood with the three hired men. His mother, so small and plump, yet so delicate in appearance, waved back and called after him, “Son, hold on to those reins and let that filly run. Show those hardboots!”
Alec smiled at his mother’s words. Only a short time ago she didn’t know what a “filly” was, much less that “hardboots” was a group name for Kentucky horsemen. As the van went down the driveway he turned to the stallion barn. “Here we go, Black,” he said. “Here you go again!”
The van turned onto the country road, and Alec remained at the side door until he could no longer see the rolling pastures and white fences of Hopeful Farm.
Late in the afternoon, they stopped at a gasoline station on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and there they heard the radio announcement of the results of the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland, Kentucky.
“Golden Vanity gave one of the greatest exhibitions of speed ever seen on a Kentucky track in defeating Wintertime and Lady Lee in new race record time of one minute forty-eight and three-fifths seconds for the mile and eighth. He swept under the wire three lengths in front of Wintertime and seven lengths ahead of Lady Lee. To lend added emphasis as the horse to beat in the Kentucky Derby, Golden Vanity’s head was pulled sideways by Nino Nella during the last eighth of a mile in the jockey’s efforts to slow down his mount. The California-bred colt is now the red-hot favorite to win.…”
Henry took Alec’s arm. “C’mon, we’ve heard all we need to. Let’s get goin’.”
Alec said, “It looks as if you and those Keeneland people will have to change your tune now about Golden Vanity.”
“Maybe so,” the trainer said, climbing into the van’s cab. “He’ll be out in front for the first mile, that’s a cinch.” Henry disappeared inside the cab. As Alec climbed through the side door, he heard Henry add, “Like I said before, it’s going to be a good show, all right.”
Alec sat down in his canvas chair, looking at Black Minx. It sure is, he thought, and I wonder if we’re going to be in it!
CHURCHILL DOWNS
16
Early the next morning, Alec and Henry were in southern Ohio. Behind them lay the mountainous mining country of Pennsylvania and West Virginia. No longer did the road twist and squirm its way past slag dumps, coal fields and gigantic mills with chimneys belching red-black smoke into the sky. Now in the gray light of dawn the road was level and straight, passing through the rich and newly plowed farmlands of the Ohio Valley.
They did not stop until they had crossed the Ohio River into Kentucky, and then they paused only long enough to eat and to care for the filly and Napoleon. Henry was anxious to reach Churchill Downs by early afternoon.
In northern Kentucky the land once more became almost mountainous, and then, as they drove on, gently rolling. Soon farms appeared along the road, but the fields were mostly unplowed, showing little spring planting. Instead acre after acre was in pasture, and the number of horses grazing in these fields grew as Alec and Henry neared the heart of the bluegrass country.
Finally they had to stop for gas. As Alec slipped down from the back of the van Henry said, “Just a few more hours now. How are they riding?”
“They’re all right. How about you?”
“I’m in good shape,” Henry replied. “The naps I got last night are holding me up okay. Are you going to get through the rest of the day all right?”
“Sure,” Alec said. “There’s nothing wrong with a straw bed. The horses and I had more rest than you did.”
They bought a morning newspaper at the gasoline station, and then started on their way once more. Alec moved the filly over and stood beside her as he talked to Henry through the small barred window between the cab and the back of the van. He held the newspaper.
“Did you see this story on Golden Vanity’s win yesterday?” he asked.
“Just the headline. It’s pretty much what we heard yesterday on the radio.”
“But the way he did it, Henry.”
“What about it?”
“Lady Lee got out ahead of him and led around the first turn,” Alec told his friend. “Then Nino Nella gave Golden Vanity the signal and the colt bore down, passing her and having his own way to the finish.”
“I still don’t get what you mean,” Henry said, without taking his eyes off the road.
“Well, it looks as though Lady Lee looked him in the eye, and you said—”
Henry interrupted. “We didn’t mean in the early part of the race. Wait until it happens at the head of the homestretch.”
“If it does,” Alec said, “it’s going to take something awfully fast to get up there with him.”
“Yeah, I know.”
They were traveling down the road from Paris to Lexington, the “Avenue of the Thoroughbred.” For miles on either side of them were endless wooden fences, some painted white, others brown and black with creosote. Still others were made of stone. All of them protected the thoroughbreds who grazed within the rolling pastures.
Henry said, “Don’t scratch Wintertime off your list of top-notch Derby horses just because he got beat again yesterday.”
“I’m not. But here’s a story that says Lady Lee is out of the Derby.”
“Yeah, I saw that.”
“Her owner says that he had to use good common sense in deciding to withdraw her from the Derby,” Alec told Henry. “He will concentrate on filly races instead. He had given her a couple of throws at the colts, but her defeats by Eclipse in Experimental Number Two and by Golden Vanity and Wintertime yesterday at Keeneland prove to him that the Derby is out of her reach. He claims she’s too fine a filly to be broken up trying to lick the colts. She’ll run in the Kentucky Oaks instead of in the D
erby.”
“He’s right, of course, but it’s too bad,” Henry said.
“Why? You mean you wanted to see her go into the Derby?”
Henry’s big shoulders moved beneath his jacket. “Then she wouldn’t have been in the Oaks,” he said.
Alec didn’t bother to ask Henry for an explanation of what he meant. He could guess. He realized that Henry was still trying to make up his mind whether it should be the Derby or the Oaks for their filly. And if Black Minx went into the Oaks she wouldn’t have things her own way, as she might have had without Lady Lee in it.
He put the newspaper aside, his hand thoughtfully stroking the filly’s back. She swished her new tail at him but otherwise remained quiet. He checked her shipping bandages to make certain they were secure, then resumed looking out the window. He didn’t talk to Henry while they drove through the light traffic in Lexington.
Soon they were on the outskirts of town, passing the Keeneland racetrack. The race meeting there had ended the day before, and many horse vans were rolling out of the beautiful park. Some, like their own, were carrying Derby hopefuls to Churchill Downs.
“Henry?”
“Yes, Alec?” Henry turned his head slightly. His face was bristling with more than a day’s growth of stiff gray hair.
“The Oaks is only a mile and a sixteenth. We know she could travel that at a good clip. Maybe she’d beat Lady Lee. There aren’t any other fillies in the race to worry about.”
Henry pushed back his worn hat. “I know all that, Alec.” He thrust out his square jaw. “But there’s only one Derby.”
Alec’s mouth got a little tight. “Yes, there’s only one,” he said quietly. “But it’s become a sprint of a full mile and a quarter. It requires not only speed but stamina and courage. If you ask me, that’s too much to ask of a colt so early in his three-year-old year, let alone a filly.”
Henry said nothing. His bowlegs swung a little as he lifted a foot from the accelerator, slowing down so as not to get too close to a horse van directly ahead of him. He regained speed before speaking again.
“A lot of horsemen like to accept the challenge the Derby offers us and our three-year-olds. We know how hard it is to get a young horse in hand to meet the exacting conditions of the Derby. We do it, or try to do it because, like I say, it’s a challenge … and if we lick it our horse usually goes on to still greater heights.”
Alec’s mouth had tightened again. “You’re getting away from what I meant, Henry. I was talking about fillies in the Derby … and there’s only been one who went to the winner’s circle. That was Regret, in 1915.”
“I wouldn’t have brought Black Minx along if I didn’t think she had a chance,” Henry returned quietly.
For another hour they rode, moving ever closer to Louisville and Churchill Downs. The feel of the Derby became stronger. It was in the air all about them. It came from pastures and barns, from the roaring wheels of other vans before and behind their own. It came from the eyes and voices of people lining the streets of small towns between Keeneland and Louisville.
On the outskirts of Louisville, Alec moved from his chair to the cab window again. “I’ve been wondering if there have ever been any Derby winners who made their first start of the year in the Derby,” he said.
Henry didn’t answer immediately, and Alec knew his friend was either thinking about the question put to him or wasn’t going to bother to reply. Perhaps Henry was fed up with his questions, but Alec was determined not to stop asking them. Not until the Derby was over.
Finally Henry said, “Way back in the teens and twenties three horses won the Derby the first time out, if I remember correctly. Exterminator did it in 1918, Sir Barton the following year, and then Morvich in 1922.”
“But none since then?”
“No,” Henry grunted. “Aren’t they enough?”
“Maybe it’s harder to do it these days.”
“Maybe.” Henry’s face lightened in a grin, his first grin in many miles. “I’m old enough to think it can still be done!” He paused while slowing down for a traffic light. “But if it’ll make you feel easier I’ll tell you that Jet Pilot won the Derby in 1947 with just a six-furlong race before the classic.”
“Will you give the filly a race before the Derby?”
“Maybe,” Henry said, starting up the van once more with the change of lights.
Going through Louisville, Henry took as many back streets as possible. But there was no way for him or the drivers of other vans to avoid the heavy traffic, for Churchill Downs was only ten minutes from the heart of the city. When the famous racecourse had been opened for the first Kentucky Derby in 1875 it was outside the city limits. Now the corporate limits of Louisville extended far beyond Churchill Downs.
All the way to the track the huge horse vans were given the courtesy of the road by city drivers, who were accustomed to the lumbering trucks moving cautiously through their crowded streets at this time of year. Many a resident driver looked out his car window, calling loudly, “You got a Derby colt in there?” And if he got an affirmative answer from a van’s cab, his eyes lighted. “Which one, Boss?”
Alec remained silent during the drive through the city. He sat in his chair, his eyes leaving the moving cars only to look at the black filly. Pressure and tension were mounting within him. And he knew there wouldn’t be any let-up during the days to come. Instead it would get worse. He tried to think of the calmness and tranquility of Hopeful Farm. But it didn’t help. It seemed that Hopeful Farm had never existed. He was being swept into the all-engulfing whirlpool of the Kentucky Derby, and there was nothing he could do about it.
Within a short time he saw the grandstand spires of Churchill Downs, reaching high above the homes adjacent to the race course. Then Henry was driving the van beside a wire fence and finally turning into the entrance to the stable area. Ahead of them were long sheds and barns, horses and vans, trainers and owners. Beyond was the brown ribbon of the track over which the great race had been run for more than three-quarters of a century. And still farther beyond loomed the gigantic grandstand, clubhouse and bleachers where more than a hundred thousand people would watch the Kentucky Derby, just one week from the following day.
This was Churchill Downs.
Henry stopped the van in line behind others. Pulling on the handbrake, he left the cab. “I’ll register at the Secretary’s office,” he told Alec. “Stick inside.”
As if I’d leave the filly now, Alec thought. He went to her, knowing that he wanted companionship more than she did. He was still with her when Henry returned a short while later.
The trainer looked through the small window. “All okay back there?”
Alec nodded and the van moved on again slowly, passing horses being unloaded, horses being walked by stable boys. The smell of wood smoke from small fires was strong in the air. Bandages, cloths, coolers and the countless items that make up a horse’s laundry were hanging on lines. Over the loud voices of people and even above the roar of motors came the shrill neighs and nickering of horses. Alec had been at Hopeful Farm so long he had forgotten the commotion, the excitement of a track. And this was no ordinary race meeting that would begin tomorrow afternoon. This was the setting for the swiftly approaching Derby!
“Henry, which colts are here?” he asked.
“Eclipse and Silver Jet are the big ones. There are a couple other Derby horses who’ll go only if it’s a muddy track. That’s all the information I had time to get in the Secretary’s office, except that Golden Vanity and Wintertime are now on their way over from Keeneland. We beat them in.” He smiled. “That’s one race we’ve won, anyway.”
“How many horses do they expect to start in the Derby?”
“There’s no way of telling how many will be shipped in,” Henry said. “They were surprised to see me here. Maybe more trainers will surprise ’em next week.”
Alec thought again of the long list of three-year-olds nominated for the Kentucky Derby last February. T
here had been more than a hundred. A great number of them had been hopelessly beaten in preparatory races, yet he knew their owners might nevertheless start them in the Derby. And would there be others, too, colts and fillies like Black Minx, unraced and untried? Next week they would know.
At the end of the stable area Henry brought the van to a stop before Barn 10. When he appeared at the side door, Alec pushed the gangway down to him and checked the floor matting to make certain it would not slip.
Henry said, “All the Derby horses will be at this end of the stable area. Eclipse and Silver Jet are just up from us in Barn Eleven.”
They unloaded Napoleon first. Then the filly was taken down the gangway. They had no trouble with her, for the sight of grass after her long trip made her more than eager to leave the van.
“Take her for a short sightseeing tour while I fix up Napoleon and get her stall ready,” Henry said.
The early afternoon was more balmy than hot. Black Minx pulled toward the grass on the other side of the stable runway, and Alec went along with her. He let her graze a few moments, then pulled her up. “C’mon, girl,” he said, “we need to get the travel kinks out of our legs.”
At his touch she moved beside him, walking a little sideways and fighting her lead shank. She neighed constantly and shook her small head. But Alec was not disturbed by her restless antics. She had been on the road a long time.
Beneath the overhang of their barn, he saw Henry talking to three men with pencils and pads in their hands. Knowing they were reporters, he kept Black Minx away. But they turned searching eyes on him and at the filly as he led her down the runway.