Returning to the barn, he went to Black Minx. He stayed with her for a while and then left, afraid that his Derby-eve jitters might only be communicated to her and make things worse. He returned to Henry to find his friend already stretched out on his cot, his eyes closed. Alec envied his friend’s ability to lie still, perhaps even to sleep.
He picked up the newspaper again. There was little space that wasn’t devoted to the Kentucky Derby. He read, knowing he might as well accept the fact that the day was about here, that it did no good to try to escape it, that it might help more if he jammed his head full of Derby news until he was numb from it all. He might be able to sleep then.
He read everything. He learned that the majority of turf writers rated Golden Vanity as “the horse to beat if the track is fast for the Derby.” Nevertheless, the readers were advised to watch what might happen “if Silver Jet gets near enough to Golden Vanity in the stretch run to look him in the eye.”
The race prophets were being cagey with their forecasts, and their stories and comments were crammed with if’s and but’s. Readers were also asked to remember that Eclipse was sharper than he had ever been.
As one writer said, “We must disregard his loss to Silver Jet in the Wood Memorial, when he was plagued with bad racing luck. If he hadn’t been bumped going into the far turn, the results of that race might have been different. Wintertime should be kept in mind as well, for he is stronger than his small size indicates. Also, he’s a stretch runner as proven in his losing races to Eclipse in Experimental Number Two and to Golden Vanity in the Blue Grass Stakes, and again in last Tuesday’s Derby Trial. He was holding his own coming down the stretch in every race, and there’s no telling what might happen in that last long furlong of the Derby.”
Nor did the experts ignore the possibility of a victory by one of the lesser lights. Olympus, Rampart and Lone Hope had shown some remarkable morning works, and “they’re unraced and untried, but anything can happen in the Derby.”
Anything can happen in the Derby. Alec smiled. How often had he heard it and read it this week. It provided an easy “out” for the turf writers, trainers, owners and jockeys alike.
Black Minx was worthy of attention too, the sportswriters acknowledged. “A dangerous combination at any racetrack at any time are Hopeful Farm’s trainer, Henry Dailey, and the farm’s rider, Alec Ramsay. Although their filly, Black Minx, is not being given much consideration in some quarters, she bears watching. After all, a filly did win one Derby!”
Tiring of the prophesies, which were nothing more than carefully worded comments to cover almost any kind of a result in the big race, Alec turned to news of activities going on downtown.
All hotels were full, and now people were overflowing into towns within a radius of one hundred miles of Louisville. It was estimated that more people would be at Churchill Downs the next day than ever before. One Derby visitor had taken over a large highway motel for himself and his sixty guests. Special trains sided in the Louisville stations made up what was being referred to as “Railroad Town.” Thousands were making their homes in the trains while awaiting the Derby. One special train was from Texas, and its occupants were feasting on six hundred Texas steaks they had brought with them.
Alec continued reading for a long time, finding these stories more relaxing. It was almost midnight when his eyes became heavy and he decided that he could now sleep. He turned off the light, but it was another hour before he actually slept.
It was no better the next morning, and in many ways much worse. He galloped the filly but it didn’t help. Even though the sun was not yet up, the gates to Churchill Downs were open and the bleacher stands on the turns were already packed with people who had stood outside the main entrance all night long. Within a few hours the track’s infield would be a great mass of people as well. Only the towering grandstand and clubhouse would be empty until race time, for all seats there were reserved.
The Derby horses finished their gallops and returned to the barns. The stable area lacked the noise of other mornings, the good-natured calls, the whistling, even the humming of the grooms to their charges. The barns were closed to people not directly concerned with the Derby horses. No visitors today. No bay today. We go to the post at 4:30.
The sun came up. The sky was cloudless. It promised to be a hot afternoon, with the track fast. The day would be too bad for the “mudders,” but good for the others.
Henry wasn’t calm any more. All morning long he “stall-walked” up and down the dirt runway before the barn. And other trainers in other barns did the same. Repeatedly Alec went from Henry to the filly, and then back to walk with Henry again. There was nothing to do but wait as he had done all week long. Yet today there would be an end to the waiting.
Noon came. The early races had already begun. The noise from the stands was increasing with each hour. More and more people were arriving. By four-thirty there wouldn’t be room to move, to breathe, except for a mile and a quarter of lonely track.
Henry didn’t want to eat, so Alec went to the cafeteria alone, but he scarcely touched his food. On the way back to the barn, he passed Billy Watts and nodded. Wintertime’s jockey didn’t seem to see him, and Alec wondered if his own face looked as white and as grim as Billy Watts’s.
He heard the band playing across the track, but never looked in that direction. He would see the track soon enough. Instead, he looked up at the sky, to watch the many planes flying back and forth. Some were pulling long advertising trailers behind them; others were waiting as he was for the classic to begin.
He passed the barns of Silver Jet, Eclipse, Golden Vanity and Wintertime, and wondered why the colts alone appeared calm and undisturbed. But soon they would know too; they’d know on their way to the paddock.
In their own barn, Henry had his jacket off, and his shirt clung to his body with sweat. He spoke only to tell Alec to stretch out on the cot and relax. For a while Alec tried it; then he got up and went to the filly for some comfort. But he didn’t stay very long with her, for she was calm and he decided that he did her no good.
An hour before post time Alec said, “I’d better get going now.” He hardly recognized his own voice. He knew he must go to the jockey house to dress and weigh out for the race.
It had come. It was the beginning of the end of all the waiting.
Henry said, “Yes, I guess it’s time.”
“Have you got someone to take Napoleon across when you bring the filly?”
Henry nodded.
Alec let his hand trail off Black Minx’s muzzle. “I’ll see you in the paddock, then.”
“In the paddock,” Henry repeated.
Alec saw nothing, heard nothing, as he walked toward the track entrance. He was alone. He’d cross the track, the infield, and then go through the underpass to come up near the paddock and jockey quarters in back of the grandstand. The policemen let him through the gate, and he hurried across the track, seeing only the ambulance that was parked at the gate, the one thing he hadn’t wanted to see. To forget it he looked beyond to the moving mass of humanity in the infield and stands. Then he lowered his eyes again and kept walking. Soon he and the filly would be on the track. Soon the waiting would be over.
THE KENTUCKY DERBY
21
Thirty minutes before post time Alec stepped from the official scales and started for the paddock. He stopped on the balcony of the jockey quarters and looked below at the multitude of faces behind the grandstand and clubhouse. All who could get close enough were jammed against the open shed that housed the paddock. The colts and his filly were in their paddock stalls, waiting for the call to the post.
Alec carried Black Minx’s saddle. It had gone on the scales with him, making up the 121 pounds she’d be carrying on her back as against 126 pounds for the colts. A filly was permitted to carry five pounds less than the colts. Even that wouldn’t help her much. Fillies couldn’t race a mile and a quarter against colts in the spring of their third year. Fillies didn??
?t win the Derby … only one had won it.
He started down the stairs in all-black silks and highly polished black boots that shone in the sun’s rays. The only thing white on him was the number 5 high on his right shoulder. Other riders moved along near him, but he paid them no attention. Nothing mattered now but the black filly.
Protected from the surging crowd by a high wire-mesh fence, Alec walked with the others through the paddock. In the center of the rectangular building, there were two rows of stalls, built back to back. It was quiet here compared to the world just on the other side of the fence.
Alec passed Olympus, Eclipse, Rampart and Silver Jet without looking at them. He touched old Napoleon’s nose as he circled him and went to the filly in her paddock stall.
Henry took the light saddle from him without a word, and gently put it on top of the saddle cloth that also carried the number 5. As he tightened it, Black Minx moved uneasily beneath the binding girth strap.
Alec glanced quickly about the covered shed. Only the mud horse My Time had been scratched from the race. Break-up, another “mudder,” would go in spite of the fast track, making a field of nine.
The television cameras were on a platform at one end of the paddock, and even now were carrying the Kentucky Derby preliminaries to a waiting nation. Alec knew that his mother and father would be watching and waiting for a glimpse of him on the screen. He turned back to the filly. She was beginning to act up a little. Her calmness was gone. She knew now, as they did.
Henry stood quietly beside the filly, stroking her, talking to her. But never did he say a word to Alec. His instructions, if any, would come later on the way to the post.
A bell sounded, and the paddock judge called, “Riders up!”
It had come. It was here. Alec moved to the side of the filly. He raised his knee to Henry’s cupped hand. Henry tried to grin at him, failed completely, and nodded instead.
As Alec sat in the saddle, his head began to reel. He leaned forward, bringing the blood to his head. He shook it, and heard Henry ask anxiously, “You all right, Alec?”
“Derby jitters,” he replied, sitting back in his saddle. “It’ll go away now, I think. When we move, it’ll go away.”
Henry’s face was white. “I know,” he said. “I didn’t eat anything.” As if that explained it all.
The colts were beginning to move about the paddock. Number 1, Olympus … number 2, Eclipse … number 3, Rampart. Silver Jet was taken from the adjacent stall, wearing number 4. Then it was the filly’s turn.
Henry mounted Napoleon and led Black Minx out of the stall. Slowly they followed Silver Jet. Behind them came Golden Vanity, Break-up, Lone Hope and, last in the paddock parade, Wintertime, number 9.
The huge crowd pressed closer to the fence, shouting nothings and calling to the jockeys. Alec straightened in his saddle, moving his shoulders to relieve his tension. But his stomach and head were all right. The waiting had ended.
It was the filly who was upset now. She pushed hard against Napoleon in her excitement. The old gray plodded along, his big body rebuffing her jolts, never giving an inch. But Black Minx was no more restless than the colts. All had their stable ponies and trainers beside them. No owner was taking a chance of anything happening to his Derby horse between the paddock and the post.
“There’s Golden Vanity!” someone shouted outside the confines of the paddock fence. “Number six.” He began singing “California Here I Come,” and for the chorus was joined by hundreds of other voices.
“Here we go, Silver Jet! Ride him, Seymour! Bring that gray ghost home!”
“Oh, you Eclipse you!” a girl cried. “Oh, you Robinson!”
“Today’s the day, Wintertime!”
“Ram home, Rampart!”
“There’s Henry’s goat! Hey, Alec! Move that billy-goat today!”
“Filly-goat, you mean!”
“Break it up, Break-up!”
“You’re my Lone Hope!”
On and on the calls came as the horses circled the paddock shed; the noise ended only when the bugle sounded the call to the post. Most of those in the crowd moved at once, surging beneath the stands to the track, where they would witness the great race.
Alec pulled down his cap more securely about the protective fiber liner beneath it. This was an instinctive movement. He was not thinking of Wednesday’s accident. All he was conscious of now was the filly. All that mattered was the race ahead of them. His face was still grim, but a new and comforting calmness flowed through his body. It had come just as it always came when the waiting was over.
They left the covered paddock to walk for a moment in the sun. They went down a fenced runway toward the tunnel which would take them beneath the great stands and to the track. People pressed close to the runway fence, still shouting. But Alec no longer heard them. His eyes remained straight ahead, blinking a little in the bright sunlight. Before they entered the tunnel his gaze swept to the names of previous Kentucky Derby winners lettered along the back of the great stands above.
Henry led the filly into the darkness of the underpass. Just beyond, the sun shone on the track. Eight colts and a filly were going out there. Whose name would be added to that long list? Alec wondered. Which horse would meet the supreme test to come and emerge a champion in this year’s Kentucky Derby?
They were coming out of the tunnel now. Olympus, number 1, stepped onto a track turned by the bright sun into the color of flowing gold. And with his strides the band directly across from them began playing “My Old Kentucky Home.”
More than a hundred thousand spectators were on their feet yet strangely silent while the strains of the song wafted lingeringly through the still air. The melody was played as the horses filed onto the track, their bodies sleek and beautiful, their riders colorful in bright silks. The crowds in the great stands and center-field remained quiet, watching the horses, listening to the old and beloved tune.
Alec understood the silence. He felt the music move into his heart, felt it stiffen his spine and prickle the back of his neck. How long ago had he first heard it? In school certainly. Maybe before that from his mother. It was joy. It was sorrow. It was the story of the old South. Long ago he had accepted it as these. Yet even as a child he had thought of barns and foals, of Kentucky and bluegrass and horses. It meant the Derby too. He knew there were tears in his eyes but he didn’t care. It was nothing to be ashamed of.
The melody ended and the multitude came to life. The horses turned to the right, to file down the track before a thunderous acclamation. They passed the winner’s circle, going beyond and passing the finish line of the Derby. They went as far as the first turn, and then came back up the stretch again—that long, hard boulevard over which they would speed twice before the race ended.
The starting gate was far up the track at the head of the homestretch. They went toward it, still in file, still parading before the stands. Olympus walked directly behind the red-coated, black-capped marshal in the lead.
Eclipse was next, walking quietly and staying close to his stable pony. Ted Robinson was having no trouble with the burly colt. The jockey’s maroon-and-white silk-clad body hardly moved in the saddle.
Rampart was quiet too, but Silver Jet was prancing and his black-hooded head was stretched out, demanding more rein from Dan Seymour. In his red-and-black silks the jockey stood in his stirrups and kept a tight rein on his gray mount.
Black Minx tried to get away from Henry and stepped out of line, but Henry moved Napoleon still closer to keep her under control.
Behind them Golden Vanity reared, almost unseating Nino Nella. The crowd shrieked. His trainer got him down and back in line. The Derby favorite walked quickly, his great body impressive and startling in its beauty, and already shining with sweat.
The others in the field—Break-up, Lone Hope and the red-hooded Wintertime—stayed in line. Except for constant prancing and pushing against their lead ponies, they made no fuss.
The parade ended in the middle
of the stretch, and the horses were allowed to step out of line. Some went off in a canter, and others in a trot, but all headed toward the starting gate at the head of the stretch.
Henry kept the filly close to him and, without turning to Alec, gave his instructions. “Keep her back, not too far, if you can help it. If she gets a clear path in front she’ll run herself out. I don’t think you’ll have trouble keeping her back. Golden Vanity is sure to be out front, and maybe Silver Jet with him. The pace will be fast, too fast, I think. So if you can stay behind some other colts do it until the mile post anyway, then get her clear and let her go. She should be able to go the last quarter. The race will be decided there, particularly the last furlong. Watch Eclipse. He’s made to go the full distance.”
Alec said, “I understand. You want me to keep her back in the field and not worry about the pace up front until the mile post. Is that it?”
Henry nodded. The starting gate was just ahead. He’d be leaving the track soon and turning the filly over to the starter’s ground crew.
Alec said, “Golden Vanity might run so far out in front none of us will be able to catch him.”
Henry turned in his saddle for the first time to meet Alec’s gaze. “If he can hold the rest of you off in that last quarter he’ll deserve to win. A horse is game to come from behind but it requires greater gameness, greater courage for a horse to race in front and still repel the challenges he’ll surely get in this stretch run. If Golden Vanity can do it, he’ll be a champion and a worthy one. That’s all, Alec. Here’s good luck to both of you.” They were in back of the gate. Henry tried to grin but raised his hand instead. He let go of the filly and rode away with the others.
Over the loudspeakers came the announcement, “Ladies and gentlemen, the horses have reached the starting gate.”
We’re alone now. Just you and me, girl. Just the two of us.
He took her halfway around the back turn, farther from the gate than any of the other colts. They’ll wait for us. It’ll mean less time to spend inside. But finally he turned her back. She whinnied and struck out a foreleg either in play or eagerness, and he thought of the Black at home. She’d never pulled that trick before while in stride. A little of him coming out in her.