Bullet Work (7 page)

“What a crock of shit,” Biggs
interrupted.

“Got the cameras going up this afternoon.”
Belker ignored Biggs’ comment and kept going. “Called the temp
agency, and we got coverage for twenty-four-hour presence.”

“No fucking cops on the backside. Hear me?”
said Biggs.

“Wha—”

“No cops. Got it?”

“I’m not sure they’ll go for it,” Belker
said.

“I don’t care. Don’t give them a choice,”
Biggs said, pointing a finger at Belker’s chest. “If they want to
interview folks, it should be in your office, with you present.”
Biggs stared out the window as horses drifted by in morning
exercise. Turning back to Belker, he added, “I don’t care how you
do it, but I don’t want any cops on the backside.”

“Why? What diff—?”

“You can bet your ass that there are some
illegals on the backside.”

“So what?” Belker said. “They don’t work for
the track. They work for the stables. If anyone is in trouble, it’s
the trainers, not us.”

“Don’t matter who employs them,” said Biggs,
framing “employs” with finger quotation marks. “You ever heard of
Carl Lambert?”

“Lambert? What are you, nuts? Everyone’s
heard of Lambert. His colt won the Preakness and Travers last
year.”

“Yeah, well about ten years ago, as he was
building his stable, I was PR director for San Antonio Downs.
Lambert had about forty head on the grounds, about a dozen stakes
caliber horses. Anyway, INS agents show up one day and shake down
his barn. I’m sure ’cause some other trainer dropped a dime on
him.”

Biggs rose and walked to the wall of windows
overlooking the track. “They cart off two of his workers. Bad deal.
But the next week, they come back and shake him down again. Lambert
raised holy hell with track management, and he was right.” Biggs
crossed his arms and gazed out the window to the track. “I tried to
help, but Cliff Gantrell said it wasn’t his problem. Was between
Lambert and the INS guys. Meantime, help from all the barns starts
disappearing, acting dodgy, showing up late. You get the
picture.”

Biggs turned and face Belker. “So, sure as
hell, the agents come back the next week and shake Lambert down
again. Know what he does?”

“Blast track management?” asked Belker.

“Nope. He backs up his trailers and takes
every fucking horse off the track. Said ‘screw it’ and moved his
stable to Louisiana Downs. Put a large hole in our entries. Never
came back. Point being we don’t want to jack around our trainers by
making the help edgy. Sheriff or feds want to interview someone,
bring them over here. I don’t want cops on the backside.”

Belker shrugged. “I’ll do what I can.”

“You’ll do what I say, not what you can.”
Again with the air quotations on “can.”

Geez, thought Belker, that was ten years ago,
old timer.

Biggs went back to his seat behind the desk.
“And I got that damn Jason Cregg nosing around.” Cregg was the
racetrack beat reporter for
The Washington
Post
.

“Yeah, he called me,” said Belker. “Left a
message last night.”

“I don’t want you talking to him. Send him my
way.”

“Gladly,” said Belker, leaning back and
crossing his arms.

“Idiot wouldn’t say a nice word about us if
his life depended on it. All the fucking freebies we give him,
you’d think he’d show some kind of respect.”

“He had a nice piece about Hudgins’ mare last
weekend,” said Belker.

“Oh, he writes good stuff about horses and
horsemen, but he goes out of his way to trash the track and
management. This extortion thing will make him wet his pants. Can’t
wait to stick a knife in us. We gotta keep this under wraps. Keep
everything as low key as possible.”

“We can’t keep a lid on this,” Belker said.
“Cregg will go to the trainers if we stonewall him.”

“We can try,” Biggs shot back. “Lots of these
trainers will want to keep it hush hush. Don’t want their owners to
know what’s going on.”

“Going to be hard to—”

“I don’t give a damn,” Biggs shouted. “Do it.
We only have to keep it quiet until you catch the bastard doing
this. So don’t give me all the lame shit. Go do your job. Now get
out of here,” Biggs said, spinning around to face his computer
monitors.

Rosalind kept her head down as Belker walked
past. She’d heard everything. The whole office heard every
word.

Belker closed his office door, sat behind his
desk, bent his knee several times, took a sip of cold coffee, and
turned his attention back to the racing form.

Chapter 12

Friday morning brought Dan to the
backside early. Plenty of work awaited him at the office, but
passion drove him to the place he loved the most, the racetrack
backside. For Dan, being an owner was more than paying bills and
getting photos taken in the winners’ circle.

He loved the process of getting horses ready
to compete. He loved the smell of fresh straw being carted to the
barns and the pungent liniments slathered beneath bandages on
tender bones. He loved the strategy in bringing a horse up to a
race, the works, the morning drills, the equipment changes.

He studied the chalkboard outside Jake’s
office. It displayed a chart for each horse’s daily activity—who
would walk, who would work, who would jog the track, who would get
new shoes, and who would get vet treatment. It provided the map of
assignments, and as each day built on the prior, horses would be
prepared to compete.

As most owners did, Dan had started off
buying a claimer. These horses were the bottom of the racing
barrel. Horses that didn’t have the ability to run for large open
purses such as allowance races and stakes were relegated to the
claiming division, which means they ran for a price tag.

Races were scheduled for different claiming
values, and the horses could be bought or “claimed” for the stated
price. These claiming values ran from $5,000 to—in some areas of
the country—as much as $100,000. The ability to compete at given
levels was dependent upon the horse. The price established the
competitive level. Horses in the $5,000 claiming events were also
called nickel claimers. If horses couldn’t win as nickel claimers,
they became dog food.

In the game, owners claimed a horse and, with
the trainer’s promise ringing in their ears, tried to move up to
higher claiming levels with ascending purse structures.

Dan went “halvsies” on a nickel claimer with
Pug Wheatly, a seasoned local trainer. As the old saw went, the
best way to make a small fortune in horse racing was to start with
a large fortune. The prize was Sasha’s Diamond. Pug was able to get
her competitive for a dime, and she ran a few seconds and thirds
that first year.

The training and vet bills ate all the
proceeds, plus some, but Dan was in the game, and Sasha’s Diamond
ran under his blue and white silks. Dan had his own sports
franchise, meager though it was.

He learned quickly that winning wasn’t a
luxury to be afforded. It was a necessity. Owners don’t want to be
the last people holding the bridle on a tired claimer. Dan and Pug
did what most smart owners did and ran her down their throats. Pug
put her back in the $5,000 level and won. They kept running her
there with the unstated intention: “Beat me or buy me.”

It was dangerous to fall in love with a
horse, given the short careers. Make money or go broke. Pug didn’t
want to drop her down at first. The trainer’s job is to keep the
horse in the barn making day money, but he also knew he would lose
an owner if he didn’t cooperate. She was claimed from them after
her third win, and Dan was happy.

Dan learned that he didn’t want to partner
with trainers in the future. The conflict of interest was too
strong. They would be his horses and ultimately valued by him.

Jake Gilmore had approached Dan about buying
a yearling at auction. Young horses can be bought at auction either
as yearlings or two-year-olds in training. The two in training
sales mean that the horse could be ready to race in several months
following the purchase. A yearling needed to be boarded and trained
for a year before an owner would know whether he’s got
anything.

The selling price for a yearling was
generally much lower than a two-year-old, but the carrying costs
added up over time. To get a potential bargain, it made more sense
for Dan to buy a yearling, if he could be patient. With a purchase
at auction, there was always the dream that the horse could turn
out to be stakes quality.

When a claimer was purchased, at least the
new owner had an idea how the horse could perform. But claimers
rarely moved into allowance or stakes company. With a horse
purchased at auction, the sky was the limit. It could be a
performer or it could be a complete bust.

Over the years Dan had experienced both
performers and busts. The idea was to make hay with the performers
and get rid of the busts as quickly as possible. If that strategy
was followed, there was a chance to make money as an owner, but
only a chance. Horses were an asset of uncertain value and would
depreciate rapidly at some point.

With that in mind, he was always open to
selling a horse if the price was right, even a young horse that was
displaying great potential. It was easy to fall in love with a
horse. After all, it carried the silks and the pride of the owner’s
stable. But in the crazy market of thoroughbred race horses, the
upside of a promising young animal was steep.

Everyone wanted a winner, and people were
more than happy to overpay to get one. Much as it hurt emotionally,
Dan occasionally made the decision to sell and never regretted it
from a financial standpoint. He had been fortunate to make a little
money over the years.

His current stable consisted of four horses,
a three-year-old gelding named Hero’s Echo, an unraced two-year-old
filly named Aly Dancer, and two yearlings. The gelding was a solid
allowance horse that couldn’t quite crack the stakes competition.
He had a breathing problem, which Jake attempted to resolve through
surgical intervention. Hero’s Echo would be returning to the barn
today after laying up from surgery.

The filly was by Closing Argument, a colt
that came within a shadow of winning the Kentucky Derby. Her momma
was Techie Becky, who placed in a Grade III stake as a
three-year-old and knocked out about a quarter million bucks in her
career.

Dan was lucky to get her at auction. Buyers
of bluebloods thought the filly’s legs were a little crooked. They
were right about her lack of conformation. Had that not been the
case, he never could have gotten her. She would have been bid
through the roof.

Like all hopeful owners, Dan thought he got a
real steal but then had to put his emotions aside and wait. She was
only a yearling and would have to grow up.

After the start of the year, the shared
birthday of all horses, she became a two-year-old and was broken
and began her training to become a racehorse. Two-year-olds
typically don’t race until the summer. Some tracks would write
races for two-year-olds earlier than that, but it was risky.

The pressure to get in race shape can damage
a young horse, and the potential would never be achieved. The knees
of two-year-olds continued forming until well into the summer. Most
trainers wouldn’t think of starting a two-year-old until July.

Reports of Aly Dancer’s progress were always
upbeat and promising, but then again, the message came from the
person who had a vested interest in managing the horse for a long
time. If the trainer said the horse was a bum, he’d cut off part of
his revenue potential, even though it might be in the owner’s best
interest.

Dan had come to trust Jake Gilmore as a
first-class horseman, but he learned early that, in this game, he
had to trust himself first. It was his money, his name, his stable,
his sports franchise. If Dan wanted to stick around this game, he’d
have to learn everything and question everything. His background as
a lawyer served him well in that regard.

Hero’s Echo had just been off-loaded from the
trailer and settled in his stall. Dan and Jake briefly debated
bringing him to the track, given the attacks, but he didn’t make
any money resting on the farm. He’d been galloped several times at
Kenny Laughlin’s farm, but he was probably a few weeks away from
being able to make a start. The recuperation from throat surgery
had gone well, and, according to Jake, he hadn’t lost that much
conditioning as a result.

Beth DeCarlo, one of Jake’s newest grooms,
was in the stall with Hero’s Echo, scratching the side of his neck
and cooing softly to him. She was the size of an Olympic gymnast.
Maybe one hundred pounds if she wore work boots and had a few
horseshoes in her back pocket.

She had soft features, almost childlike. It
was hard to determine her age. She could pass for either eighteen
or twenty-eight. Her demeanor and command around horses clearly put
her at the top end of the scale. Her grayish blue eyes and youthful
looks gave her a pixie-like quality. Despite her size and
compassion, she was in complete control of the relationship with
her equine subjects. Her blonde hair was trimmed short, pageboy
style. It made good sense working on the backside.

Although Dan had seen her around Jake’s barn,
today was the first time they had met. She would be the groom, the
principal caregiver for Hero’s Echo, as she was for Aly Dancer.

A noise from behind Dan caused him to turn
around. A stocky man in jeans, white pearl buttoned shirt, and blue
sport coat approached. Pretty dressy for the backside, Dan
thought.

“Hey, Jake. How you doing?” said the man.

“Good, John, and you?”

“Rumor is you got a nice filly on the
grounds,” John said, peering into the stall nearest him.

“Got a lot of nice horses,” Jake said,
starting to move past the man.