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“Sal, it’s okay. I appreciate your looking out for me. But I gotta do my job.”

Sal scowled at me a few seconds longer, then shrugged.

And, a short while later, I was wondering if he was onto something.

It was the weirdest thing I’d ever seen happen on the track.

There were about fifteen or so of us out there. I was on a filly named Heroism, a two-year-old who wouldn’t start racing for another few months. She was a handful and I couldn’t get a good feel for her. Henry had me working her with two older horses. He was so short on help he had Pepe, the hotwalker—who’d only just been licensed—riding a battle-weary gelding named Fierce Fred. Larry, a talented Peruvian kid, was on Whippersnapper, an allowance mare I’d ridden once or twice. The two older horses were going to teach my little filly what’s what.

We all three had red-and-blue covers on our crash helmets so it’s possible we were indistinguishable. We were hand galloping in tandem, the three horses nose to nose, getting close to full speed when we heard shouting coming from behind us.

Next thing I knew, a horse was trying to wedge in between Larry and me. It all happened very quickly—which was a blessing, I don’t think any of us had enough time to panic. As horse and rider shoved between us, bumping both our mounts, Larry tumbled off, over the rail. Somewhere in the blur of what happened next, I got one brief look at the interfering rider and saw he was wearing a ski mask.

Both Pepe and I managed to keep our horses calm, which was no small feat since my filly was sky-high to begin with. One of the outriders was galloping ahead, trying to catch up with the horse and rider that had caused the accident and then, to my amazement, the masked rider asked his horse to jump the rail and the pair jumped out of the track and over to the far parking lot.

PEPE AND I both pulled our horses up and turned around, trotting back to where Larry had fallen. Another of the outriders had already caught Larry’s mare and the old gal seemed none the worse for the wear.

Sal had run onto the track along with a dozen or so others. The paramedics were already bent over Larry but I could see him sitting up, which was a very good sign.

I jumped down off Heroism’s back and handed her to an outrider to hold. Sal grabbed me by the shoulders. “Come on, Attila, you’re out of here.”

“Lay off, Sal,” I said, shrugging from his grip and going over to look at Larry. The kid was evidently indestructible. He stood up and seemed more annoyed at being covered in mud than anything else. He looked ready to get back on a horse. Which I wouldn’t have minded either. This was serious business though. The clockers and track officials had all come onto the track and were talking with their hands. Soon men and women from the security force were searching all over the backstretch but, incredibly enough, the masked rider and his mount seemed to have vanished completely. And, racing being racing, things went back to business fairly soon. Larry and Pepe and I all had to talk to the head of security and a handful of officials. Pepe and I had both noticed that the perpetrator had been wearing a ski mask but neither of us had gotten too good a look at the horse other than to notice it was a bay and fairly thick, indicating it was an older horse, possibly a stallion.

As soon as he could, Sal took me aside and demanded that I tell Security and whoever else needed to know that I’d been threatened.

“The actual threat came weeks ago, Sal. I really don’t think this had to do with me. I didn’t feel anything in my gut. It seemed like they were after Larry.” This was a blatant lie. I had seen Tony Vallamara just a short time before the incident. I had a strong feeling the whole event had been his doing. But I also felt like, if I kept ignoring it, it would go away. I just couldn’t see Tony—or anyone—putting that much effort into destroying me just because I’d refused to hold a horse back. There was something more going on.

“There was no way to tell you and that Larry kid apart from a distance, what with you both