Lover Unleashed - J. R. Ward [9]
Oh, yeah, there she was. There was his girl.
As Manny’s eyes locked on GloryGloryHallelujah, the noise of the crowd and the bright light of the day and the bobbing line of the other horses disappeared. All he saw was his magnificent black filly, her coat catching the sun and flashing, her superlean legs flexing, her delicate hooves curling up out of the track’s dirt and planting down again. With her at nearly seventeen hands high, the jockey was a tiny pretzeled gnat on her back, and that size differential was representative of the division of power. She’d made it clear from day one of her training: She might have to tolerate the annoying little humans, but they were just along for the ride. She was in charge.
Her domineering temperament had already cost him two trainers. The third they were on now? The guy was looking a little frustrated, but that was just his sense of control getting hoofed to death: Glory’s times were outstanding—they just had nothing to do with him. And Manny was summarily unconcerned with the inflated egos of men who bossed horses around for a living. His girl was a fighter, and she knew what she was doing, and he had no problems letting her go and watching the fun as she buried the competition.
As his eyes stayed with her, he remembered the sucker he’d bought her off of a little more than a year ago. That twenty grand had been a steal, given her bloodlines, but was also a fortune going by her temperament and the fact that it hadn’t been clear that she’d be able to get her gate card to race. She’d been a unruly yearling on the verge of getting benched—or worse, turned into dog food.
But he’d been right. Provided you gave her her head and let her run the show, she was spectacular.
When the lineup approached the gate, some of the horses started to twinkle-toe it, but his girl was rock steady, as if she knew it was pointless to waste her energy on this pregame bullshit. And he really liked their odds in spite of their pole position, because this jockey on her back was a star: He knew precisely how to handle her, and in that regard, he was more responsible for her success than the trainers. His philosophy with her was just to make sure she saw all the best routes out of the pack and then let her choose and go.
Manny rose to his feet and gripped the painted iron rail in front of him, joining the crowd as it crested out of the seats and popped countless binocs. As his heart started to pound, he was glad, because outside of the gym he’d been all but flatlining it lately. Life had carried a terrible numbness with it over the past year or so, and maybe that was part of the reason this filly was so important to him.
Maybe she was all he had, too.
Not that he was going there.
At the gate, it was a case of move it, move it, move it: When you were trying to stuff fifteen high-strung horses with legs like sticks and adrenal glands that were firing like howitzers into itty-bitty metal boxes, you didn’t waste time. Within a minute or so, the field was locked down and the track hands were hightailing it for the rails.
Heartbeat.
Bell.
Bang!
The gates released and the crowd roared and those horses surged forward like they’d been blown out of cannons. The conditions were perfect. Dry. Cool. Track was fast.
Not that his girl cared. She’d run in quicksand if she had to.
The Thoroughbreds thundered by, the sound of their collective hooves and the driving beat of the announcer’s voice whipping the energy in the stands to an ecstatic pitch. Manny stayed calm, however, keeping his hands locked on the rail in front of him and his eyes on the field as the pack rounded the first corner in a tight knot of backs and tails.
The wide-screen showed him everything he needed to see. His filly was the second to the last, all but loping while the rest of them went at a dead run—hell, her neck wasn’t even fully extended. Her jockey, however, was doing his job, easing her out from the rail, giving her the choice of running around the far side of the pack or cutting through it when she was ready.