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By Root 343 0

orchestrating deals on the dark side of the horse business. His personal organizer was chockful of unscrupulous veterinarians, corrupt bloodstock agents, and down-on-their-luck trainers. Tony had been the first one to approach me about holding a horse back in a race. I had been surprised. That stuff went on all the time at bush tracks but it was the last thing you expected on the New York circuit, which seemed much too carefully monitored and scrutinized for anyone to pull off something as obvious as holding a horse back. At first, I just laughed, thinking it was a sinister joke. But it wasn’t. Of course the guy wouldn’t dream of approaching any name riders with such a proposal and he probably wouldn’t approach any riders other than someone as low down as me. At the time, I’d been riding in New York for two months and hadn’t had a win. Ava and I were already on the skids with my lack of earning power generating a lot of the turmoil. When Tony approached me about holding back a horse named Razorskin in a little claiming race, it didn’t seem like the end of the world. The poor horse stood a raindrop’s chance in hell of running better than last anyway. I didn’t feel that badly. Took the money and rode the race same as I would have anyway. The horse came in second to last. It wasn’t always that easy though. Over the next few months, I took cash for holding horses that did have a chance. There was one horse, a big awkward gelding named Roustabout, that just didn’t want to lose. I was doing everything I could. Gave him a horrible start out of the gate, then got him stuck in traffic. But the horse went ten wide, trying to get to the lead. I had to lose my stirrups and even that didn’t do it. I waited till we were clear of other horses and fell off. The horse, relieved of his rider, crossed the finish line first by ten lengths and looked proud afterward. I felt sick. And I wasn’t the same after that.

When Tony had approached me about fudging my ride on a brave little claiming mare two weeks earlier, I’d refused. Tony had said I’d regret it, but I hadn’t taken the threat very seriously. The guy was crooked but I didn’t think he was a murderer. Now, I wasn’t sure. As Sal and I walked by, the small, ugly man looked at me and sneered. Sal didn’t notice. We kept walking.

We reached the rail of the track where the wind was gathering strength, chilling me so much I could feel my toes curling inside my boots. I was so stiff I wasn’t sure how I’d be able to ride, but once Sophie, the groom who was handling Jack Valentine, gave me a leg up, all the physical unpleasantness disappeared.

Jack was a sweetheart of a horse. He had trouble staying sound and, even though he was just starting to really get the hang of racing, he probably wouldn’t have a long career. Jack was an honest horse though and always gave me as much as he had. This morning that proved to be a lot. I guess that Jack, like all the rest of us, had had enough with being cooped up. As I asked him to move from a trot to a comfortable canter, he got excited, bucked, squealed, and shook his head, which was pretty uncharacteristic for this horse. He was probably just feeling good though. Like me.

I had a pretty tight hold on Jack’s mouth and he was paying attention to me, arching his neck, focusing. I pulled my first pair of goggles down over my eyes then asked him for a slow gallop. The track didn’t feel good. It was cold and still partly frozen, quickly turning to mud that was flying up into Jack’s eyes and plastering my goggles and vest. But Jack was going nicely. I liked the gelding and he liked me. We were galloping slowly but it still felt like flying.

When we finished, I brought Jack down to a walk along the rail and looked over and saw Henry beaming, the first smile I’d seen out of him since the day Ballistic won us a race.

Sal didn’t look nearly so pleased and, when I handed Jack off to Sophie, the big man cornered me.

“I don’t like it,” he scowled.

“What’s that, Sal?”

“You’re vulnerable out there.”

“I’m always vulnerable out there.”

“You know what I mean,” Sal