Golden Filly Collection One (87 page)
After they exited the Cross Island Parkway, it seemed to Trish as if they passed Belmont Park signs for miles of almost country-like road before they turned in at gate 6. Sam stopped at the guard gate and flashed his pass.
The uniformed guard consulted his clipboard. “Go on down Gallant Fox Road and turn left on Secretariat Avenue. Runnin’ On Farm will be sharing barn 12 with BlueMist Farms. We expected you long before now.”
“There was an accident on the New Jersey turnpike,” Sam told the man. “It took me some time to get there to replace our other driver.”
“Everything okay?” The guard peered into the truck.
Trish felt like sliding to the floor. She knew how bad she must look.
News traveled faster than the speed of the van, because a crowd gathered around the west end of barn 12. Trish waited until David opened her door.
“I don’t want any more pictures,” she whispered as she slipped to the ground. “Stay with me, okay?”
David nodded, but Trish could tell by the look on his face that he thought she was just being a typical girl. Flashbulbs popped when she and Spitfire appeared at the head of the ramp. The colt was limping noticeably.
H
ow bad do you think it is?” Trish asked as Patrick probed the colt’s shoulder and examined the muscles down his right leg. “Wouldn’t you know it, the same leg got it again.”
“Better’n two lame legs, though.” Patrick ducked under Spitfire’s neck and checked the other side. “Let’s get ’em settled in and the ice packs in place. I’ll start the ultrasound in the morning.”
Trish measured grain and carried the buckets to each of the stalls. Her right shoulder ached with the strain, and her head pounded. She felt like hiding somewhere and letting the tears roll.
Like that would do any good,
she thought.
David had taken their parents to the Floral Park Hotel, where Hal had made reservations. That left Trish to walk the filly to loosen her up. Once around the sandy aisle of the long green barn was enough.
When she got back, one of the grooms from BlueMist Farms was helping Patrick with Spitfire’s ice packs. Two others had moved the Runnin’ On Farm equipment into an empty stall.
Trish breathed a sigh of relief. Her father had been right. They really did need more help. Sarah’s Pride stuck her nose in the feed bucket and switched her tail. She already seemed to feel at home.
Trish leaned against the wall in Spitfire’s stall while he ate. She was too tired to volunteer for the moving process. Spitfire lifted his nose and blew the smell of sweet feed in Trish’s face, along with several flakes of grain. “Thanks. You’re a big help, pal.” She wiped her face with one hand and flinched when she touched the bandage over her eye.
“That place is just too far from the track,” David grumbled when he walked back into the barn. “It felt like we drove on forever.”
“There aren’t many decent hotels around here anymore,” Patrick said. “This area has really gone downhill the last few years. Most of the hotels are out by the airport.”
“Were you able to get a place on the grounds?” David asked Patrick.
He nodded, checking the ice pack again without looking up. “That I did. Now, why don’t you two take dinner back to the hotel and get some extra shut-eye. The lad here won’t be workin’ in the morning, so you can take your time about showing up. We have to be off the track by nine-thirty.”
Trish checked Spitfire’s eye again. Now that it had been cleaned up, she could tell it was just a surface wound.
“I’ll put some antiseptic on that when he’s finished eating,” Patrick said. “Be on your way now.”
Holding her head up was too much effort, so Trish let it fall against the headrest on the back of the car seat. They stopped for tacos at a fast-food place. While the food smelled good, Trish hardly felt like eating anything.
At the hotel, they found Hal sound asleep. Trish ate half a taco and shoved the rest away. “Mom, can you fix me an ice pack? I’m going to bed.” She only woke enough to mumble “thanks” when Marge came into the room and removed the pack an hour later.
In the morning Trish gasped at the freak that stared back at her in the mirror. Her right temple and upper cheek had swelled and turned a reddish purple. The puffiness nearly closed her eye.
Her shoulder felt better after a hot shower pounded the stiffness out.
She rotated it. “Ouch!”
Guess I won’t do that again. Maybe I’ll let David ride the filly this morning.
She looked longingly back at her bed.
David thumped on the door. “Come on, there’s work to do. And I’m hungry.”
At the thought of food, Trish’s stomach rumbled. “I’m coming.” She grabbed a windbreaker and checked the mirror one more time. “Yuck!” She stuck her tongue out at the reflection and dashed out the door.
“How is he?” she asked Patrick as soon as she walked into the barn.
Patrick raised an eyebrow. “I’m a-thinkin’ he’s looking a sight better’n you, if you don’t mind me sayin’ so.”
“Thank you, that’s just what I needed this morning.” Spitfire nickered his welcome. “How ya doing, fella?” Trish stroked his cheek. With the brown canvas pack on his leg and the swelling above his eye, Spitfire didn’t look like a stakes-race contender. Especially not the mile-and-a-half Belmont. They only had ten days to go.
“Well, see you later,” Trish said, tickling the whiskery spot on her horse’s upper lip. “I gotta take care of the girl here.”
Sarah’s Pride seemed content to walk today. They followed other horses down the narrow, tree-lined street to the entrance to the track. Some farms had hanging flower baskets decorating the overhangs of the white-trimmed barns. The grass along the curbs was neat and lush.
It was all Trish could do to keep her mouth shut. The place was incredible. And she’d thought Churchill Downs was big. “What do you think that noise is?” she asked David as he plodded beside them.
“You got me. Sounds like high-powered sprinklers of some kind, but I don’t see any.”
“Could it be crickets?”
David shook his head. “They don’t make
that
much noise.”
Trish stopped the filly beside a traffic guard at the crossroads. “What’s all that noise we hear?” she asked.
The guard looked surprised, then a grin split his face. “Ah, them’s cicadas.”
At the look of bafflement on Trish’s face, he explained. “They’s a large insect in the elm trees. You hear ’em in the spring and summer when the weather turns hot.”
“How do you spell what you called them?”
He wrinkled his brow. “C—sounds like an S; then I, then C—sounds like a K; then A-D-A. Accent in the middle, on the C-A. Where you from?”
“Washington.”
“D.C.?”
“No, State.”
“Ah-h-h, then you must be Tricia Evanston. Hear you had an accident yesterday. That colt of yours gonna make it?”
“Time’ll tell,” David answered for Trish.
“Well, good luck to you.” The guard tipped his hat. “And welcome to Belmont.”
“Thanks!”
Trish left David and guided Sarah’s Pride through the gates. The mile-and-a-half track seemed twice as big as any Trish had known. Portland Meadows, backside and all, would have fit nicely on the infield. The grass and shrubs were neatly trimmed, and a couple of ponds glinted in the sunlight out beyond the tote boards.
And the grandstand. “Wow! Can you believe all this?” Trish said to no one. The filly shook her head. The wide concrete pad in front of the cantilevered stands reminded Trish of Santa Anita. She could see three levels of seats with only the top one glassed in. Flower boxes with trailing plants graced the front of the second level all the way down to the open seats.
The lighted tote board read WELCOME TO BELMONT PARK.
Trish clucked the filly into a trot at the far turn. A breeze carried a woodsy smell from the trees that lined the track. As the filly trotted up the far side, Trish caught a glimpse of houses through the trees. Otherwise, it felt as if they were out in the country. Two other tracks lay off to the left as they rounded the final turn, then more barns came into view.
“Can you believe it?” Trish asked David when he met her at the exit gate. “This place is huge.”
“You haven’t seen half of it,” David said, walking beside them. “It’s like a town all its own. Only instead of houses, the streets are lined with barns.”
Back at the hotel, Hal didn’t feel up to doing the necessary paper work yet, so Trish hit her schoolbooks. Marge had brought her more homework assignments, including a Shakespearean play and two more history papers to write. Because Trish wouldn’t be in class, her teacher thought written papers would make up for the lectures.
“How’re you doing?” Marge tapped on Trish’s door later in the afternoon.
Trish groaned. “Come on in, Mom. I can’t begin to keep all these characters straight.” She slapped her hand on the cover of
King Lear.
“Why couldn’t we at least have had one of the comedies for a change?”
“I remember reading one of the historical plays,” Marge said. “We had a slumber party and everyone read the different parts. Even Henry IV can be pretty hilarious at three in the morning.” Marge sank down in the chair across from Trish at a small table.
“Then what did you do?”
“Well, it was the night before the final, so we all trooped off to class and wrote like mad. Then I came home and crashed.”
“Did you pass?”
Marge raised one eyebrow. “I got an A. That’s the best way to study Shakespeare.” She ran her fingers through her hair. “If I can find a
King Lear
at the bookstore, I’ll help you if you’d like.”
“If we can find a bookstore.”
“That too. You want a Diet Coke or something?”
Trish chewed on the end of her pencil. “Sure. How’s Dad?”
“Sleeping.” Marge rose to her feet. “I’ll be right back. You want anything else?”
“Another ice pack?” Trish pushed gingerly at the bandage over her puffy eye. “Maybe I should wear a mask or something.”
Marge shook her head and left quietly. She returned a short time later with soda and ice pack in hand. “Why don’t you lie down with this for a while, Trish.” She applied a damp washcloth first, and then the ice pack. “Thank God it missed your eye.”
“I know.” Trish closed her eyes and let the cold seep in. It felt so good.