Daybreak in Hot Springs - Part 1

Original article written by The Steward posted 12 years 2 weeks ago

Hot Springs Park never failed to impress Emily Shields.

First of all, the grandstand suddenly towered up out of nowhere off the main road. You might think you were merely cruising along in the beautiful, quaint town of Hot Springs, when suddenly the monster grandstand appeared, dwarfing everything around.

Secondly, Hot Springs Park managed to look a bit like The Spa in Saratoga Springs, New York, before 7 in the morning. When the sun rose, gorgeous purple mist clung to the track, and a red-gold light bathed the wire and first turn. Hot Springs Park was a photographer’s dream and a horseman’s holiday.

Emily checked the time on the dashboard clock in her car for the 15th time in the last 13 minutes, and Melissa Mae uttered a groan. “Relax, will you?” she snapped at Emily, who was driving. “It will be fine.”

“I’ve never been late before!” Emily responded, wringing her hands nervously on the steering wheel.

“The thing is,” Melissa explained, slightly sarcastically, “tracks all over the country manage to run themselves without you. Horses go to the track for training. They even figure out how to hold racing!”

Emily shot her a glare, then reddened. “I just LIKE being there, okay?” she said sheepishly. “What if one of the big horses goes to the track today and does something stupid, or does something amazing? I hate when they do things and I don’t know about it.”

Melissa yawned and stretched, blocking Emily out. They had been in the car over ten hours, having left Lexington at nine in the evening. They’d expected to arrive in Hot Springs around 5 am, but construction traffic had delayed their arrival.

The magical view of the far turn between the trees on the main road leading to the grandstand captured both of their attention for a moment. Sleek and powerful Thoroughbreds, the fastest in the world, galloped past the quarter pole and into the stretch, steam billowing from their nostrils.

“That’s Set to Stun,” Emily said, nodding out the window. A leggy gray whipped past them, running faster than their car, moving out of sight into the lane. “She’s an Irish-bred that Amy Atkins brought over here.”

Melissa shot her a look that said, “I don’t care,” so Emily shut up. They turned left past the grandstand and pulled into the horsemans’ parking lot. Emily waved a badge at the sullen face of the security guard – racetrack security always looked like they’d rather be anywhere else – and drove through the gap in the fence.

“Just drop me off at Emma Lochran’s barn,” Melissa said, consulting her barn list and then pointing in the general direction. “She has this gorgeous filly in the Juvenile Fillies and I want to get a look at her.”

“You, look at a dirt filly?” Emily asked, raising an eyebrow. She obliged, however, and dropped Melissa off at Barn 4.

The Hot Springs backside bustled with activity. With an hour to go until the training break, horses were being hustled up the tree-lined horse path to the track, their riders singing joyfully in the beautiful morning. Emily saw Cleo Patra sitting quietly on the back of Cacophony of Sound, her heels jammed down in the tiny stirrups and her body swaying easily with the filly’s walk. Behind her, Soren Kierkegaard was bouncing sideways, moving parallel up the path, threatening to run straight into Patra and her mount. Fanta Arcadia reached up and grabbed the colt’s bit, leaping out of the way of his sideways propulsion.

Emily parked by Barn 17 and detangled herself from the rental car.

“Took long enough!” she heard an accented voice say, and looked up to see Norman Architecture leaning on the doorframe to his shedrow.

“Construction!” she explained, reaching over to hug him. “How are the two girlies?”

“Kicking down the barn,” Norman replied with a grin. “Doldrums, especially.”

They moved into the barn, chattering excitedly about the upcoming races for Norman’s two horses, In the Doldrums and Bodega Harbor.

Behind them, along the horse path, the drama of the morning played out. Lucas Davenport’s barn, one over from Norman’s, was host to several sleek Thoroughbreds being cooled out. One of them, Cat of the Wild, was skittering anxiously around his hotwalker, his hindquarters facing the opposite direction of the tow ring. Lucas watched, leaning on the low outer wall of the shedrow, his brow furrowed.

Bryan Doolittle and Charles Bunbury walked up the horse path together, headed to the track. Doolittle’s Sock It To Ya moved smoothly a few paces behind, her elegant head raised as she watched a pair of horses bouncing towards her.

“Watch out!” the rider of a flashy chestnut filly barked, warning Bunbury to get out of the way just in time. The filly wore a purple Steward’s Cup saddle cloth with the letters SHETALKSTOVI showing before the girth obscured the rest. “Sorry about that!” Clinton Jacinto called, raising a hand in greeting to Doolittle and Bunbury as they crossed paths. “Just one more race and I can send her rambunctious self back to the farm!”

--

Steph Lonhro eased off the gas pedal, and the golf cart slowed to a stop and fell silent. She waited at a faded stop sign, watching as a pair of undercard horses walked by, their tails swishing away the flies that had already descended despite the early hour. Once they were safely out of the way, Steph urged the golf cart forward with her foot and it started to rumble again. She continued past the horse path into the deeper recesses of the barn area, stopping at the low-slung, dark-roofed barn she shared with the Bowens.

The two Bowens could not have been more different. Sarah sat quietly on a tack box, polishing the leather halter worn by her four-year-old filly, Shou. She was perpetually quiet and somewhat shy. On the other hand, Skippy bounced about, shouting instructions and occasionally cursing to no one in particular. His horses gave off a similar energy, jigging sideways around the shedrow under saddle as they waited for the break to end and the track to open.

“Where’ve you been!?” Skippy demanded of Steph, who was always slightly taken aback by his exuberance. Although she had an impossibly friendly demeanor, Steph identified more with quiet Sarah than her husband.

“I had to run my entry forms to the racing office,” she explained. “I was a bit worried that Rose Shoes wouldn’t get in, but there’s no Also Eligible list yet.”

“She could win,” Skippy said surely of Steph’s filly. “I like that sire you have, Work Shoes. If I cared about turf sprinters, that is!”

Steph smiled gratefully. “Thanks, but we might all be running for second.” She dropped her voice. “Have you seen that filly of Kira’s?” She nodded one barn over, where Kira Ravenwood kept her two turf sprinters, including the brilliant filly Eastport. “She reminds me of Too Cool For You.”

“It is the Steward’s Cup,” Sarah said, surprising both her husband and Steph by speaking. “Anything can happen.”

No one could disagree with that.

--

Jon Smythe hated Mondays.

Who doesn’t? he thought, hurrying up the horse path to the narrow staircase up to the trainer’s stand. It was an awkward climb; not only were trainers and owners trying to go up and down, thus running into each other, but a horde of photographers had taken up residence at the top of the stairs, blocking access to the doorway and causing traffic to jam.

He made a few hopeful noises, followed by a few impatient tuts, then snapped, “Excuse me! I have a horse to watch!”

Several photographers turned around and gasped excitedly at seeing him, snapping away at his face. Jon, usually a quiet and congenial man, found it extremely irritating.

Jiggle, his Turf Sprint contender, galloped by the instant Jon was able to squeeze himself into the trainer’s stand. The blocky bay was grabbing at the bit and tugging his rider along, a good sign. Unfortunately, the very next horse Jon saw was Pursual, another Turf Sprint entrant from the Larry Burndorf barn. Burndorf stood further down the trainer’s stand, clocking his horse’s gallop. He turned and made a face at Jon; he couldn’t quite tell if it was meant to be a companionable smile or a smirking sneer.

All of the sudden, there was a massive commotion outside the trainer’s stand. The photographers were practically falling off the platform above the narrow stairs in their haste to get down. Jon turned to see what was panicking them.

A white-faced chestnut colt was marching up the horse path, about 50 yards away from the gap. He was regal and majestic in every way, save for the crooked splash of white extending sideways above his nostril. The colt’s lighter man floated off his crested copper neck as he walked.

A grim-faced man walked at the colt’s head, one hand resting lightly behind the loose-ring snaffle bit in the colt’s mouth. Suddenly the colt stopped, throwing up his head, looking abnormally powerful in the 8:30 am sunlight. His purple saddle towel read MAELSTROM, but no one who followed horse racing at all needed to be told. They’d all seen him win the Triple Crown. They knew who he was.

Luis Polar stood back, letting the photographers get their shots. Maelstrom’s mouth turned down around the bit, giving him the haughty, arrogant look that so many great horses possessed. Jon had only been around the track long enough to see one other Triple Crown winner, Awake As I Am, whom he privately considered to be one of the better racehorses, but looking at Maelstrom, Jon had to wonder if this burly chestnut wouldn’t have given the lightly built dark bay a run for his money.

As Maelstrom moved off up through the gap to gaze at the track before exercising, the photographers frantically pushed themselves to the outside rail. Jon took the opportunity to slip down the narrow staircase and back onto the horse path.

--

At ten in the morning, the training track at Lake Hamilton Stables was still deserted.

Leonard Beagle stretched out in his thick green hammock, which was hung between two dark and crooked trees near the first turn of the training track. A cold drink was clutched in his left hand, and Leonard stared up at the blue sky between the two trees.

Somewhere behind him, he could hear Lisa Strummer sighing audibly with contentment. She was reclining luxuriously on a lounge chair, her right arm thrown over her head as she soaked up the sunshine.

“You train this way all year round?” she asked Leonard, stunned.

“Just during the winter and spring,” he admitted. “We move to the racetrack in the summer and fall.”

Beyond the training track, they could see the peaceful waters of Lake Hamilton. Leonard had used his considerable resources – thanks to a popular bay colt named Lioinze, to build a farm on Goat Island, located in the middle of the lake. Beagle’s farm was a small but ideal training facility. It had only a single training barn and the track, as well as a few small paddocks around the perimeter. A three-room yellow cottage overlooked the barn. Hugging a dock beyond that was Leonard’s blue and white yacht, which was used to transport people, not horses, to and from the shore.

“How DO you get the horses to the main land?” Lisa asked, suddenly wondering how her horses had ended up at the training center, and how they would get to Hot Springs Park the next day. She’d only flown in the night before.

“They swim,” Leonard deadpanned, and for a second Lisa believed him. Then he laughed, “No, there’s a barge. We can only move one or two at a time but that’s really all you need, you know? It only takes a few minutes to get here.”

“Is this where the party is?” asked a mild voice behind them.

“Paul!” Leonard greeted him jovially. “I trust you slept well in Casa de Beagle. Pull up a lounge chair.”

“Why don’t I get a hammock?” Paul jokingly complained. “You give yourself the best accommodations!”

“You’re right,” Leonard answered seriously. “I really should do something about that. I just don’t have visitors that often, mostly in the winter and then we usually can’t hang out here…”

The first horse was making its way up the path to the training track, and all three of them looked over, somewhat curious as to whether it was one of their own. Instead, they saw Julie Kluesener leading Too Cool For You towards them.

“Can we just stay here and ship in on raceday?” she asked loudly, clearly irritated. “I hate this stupid Be-On-the-Grounds-Four-Days-Out rule. Who does Steward’s Cup think they are?”

“They can do whatever they want,” Paul told her, looking slightly affronted. “They ARE the biggest organization in this industry. If you don’t like them, don’t run.”

“Their rules are stupid,” Julie continued, unaffected. “And those stupid purple saddle towels they force the horses to wear. As if I want photographers bothering my fillies.”

“I like the towels!” Lisa protested. “They’re a cool keepsake. Plus, it’s better than having to tell a hundred different photographers which horse is on the track.”

Julie had no answer for this so she let Too Cool for You go on the track and settled in against the rail to watch.

--

Training had long since ended, but Alysse Peverell hadn’t moved. She sat on a tack trunk in between the stalls of her two horses, her legs tucked up in a strange angle underneath her, devouring a book.

The orange jacket of the book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, contrasted sharply with the black of the tack trunk, and looked ridiculous next to Alysse’s argyle stall webbing.

A white-faced gray colt stuck his head over her shoulder, as if trying to read, too. When he got no response from his trainer, he whuffed in her ear and attempted to chew on her hair. “Stop it!” Alysse snapped at him, pushing his soft muzzle away. “This is the part where you come in!” Open at the Close retreated to the back of his stall.

--

If the photographers had gone crazy over Maelstrom’s first appearance at Hot Springs Park, that was nothing compared to how they reacted when both Amber and Whitney walked over to the paddock together for the 11 am schooling session.

Getting both super mares in the same shot had been the desire of the TV networks all week, and now that the opportunity presented itself, they all seemed to be in shock.

Amber came first, her hard body dark and a symmetrical blaze shaping her feminine face. Her trainer, Susie Raisher, walked nearby, a leather snap lead twisted in her hands. Amber possessed grace and elegance; she was a true girl. Her perfectly pulled mane floated back off her dapples neck.

Whitney followed, her heavy chestnut body looking somewhat studdish beside Amber’s lithe one. Whitney also sported a blazed face, but she was heavy, large, tremendously proportioned with the hindquarters and shoulders of the males she defeated so often.

“Don’t you think this is kind of weird?” Bill Outsilver asked Susie as they both parked themselves in the middle of the indoor paddock. Bill had come over with Flame and Smoke, his Louisville Derby winner, who normally would have been heralded by the media and fans but instead was being largely ignored thanks to the two super mares in the ring.

“What do you mean?” Susie asked, startled.

“Well… where’s Eric?” Bill asked.

Sure enough, Eric Nalbone was no where to be found. Susie shrugged. “Does it matter?”

“Well, no,” Bill said, taken aback by Susie’s attitude. “But, this is his favorite horse, right? What could possibly be more important that missing the last few days of her training?”

--

Two thousand miles away, Eric Nalbone knelt on the floor, making ludicrous baby-talk sounds from his throat. Flopped out on the rug in front of him was a red and black 9-week-old German Shepherd puppy.

Eric knew he needed to head out to his private jet and fly to Arkansas. He knew that he needed to go to press conferences, schmooze at parties, and wake up pre-dawn to check the legs of his very best horses before they went to the track. He especially knew that Whitney, his very favorite and most prized mare, needed his attention leading up to the final race of her career.

But for now, his attention was focused solely on the playful, fuzzy canine Guinness, a long-awaited precursor to the equine Guinness he had been planning for months.

---

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