Dante of the Maury River (27 page)

The old App had come limping into my wildly successful life, dragging the real past and imagined future. I couldn’t abide it. I did not consider Chancey one of mine to protect. I wanted him gone.

I confess.

I admit.

I was wrong.

For two nights, I kicked and threatened Chancey through the bars. On the third night, the old App placed a mouthful of grain on the ledge between our stalls.

“Here. I’m growing stronger every day. This is for you. I don’t need it.”

Chancey stood still and watched while I ate it.

“Someday, you can repay me,” he said.

I turned away.

The old App and I always kept some space between us. He did grow stronger, and many came to believe him beautiful. Mrs. Maiden and Mac and Gwen trained him to join the therapeutic school. I watched, incredulous that he could be so still and that for some students stillness, not speed, was exactly what they needed.

I had conquered the three tests of eventing time and time again. I had surrendered my heart to Ashley and joined with a herd. A greater test awaited.

On a cold, snowy afternoon at a time after Chancey’s eyesight had completely left him in the dark, Claire took him up Saddle Mountain. She was grieving the loss of a friend, and her heart needed the solid presence of the old App. He did as he was asked to do. He carried Claire across the frigid Maury River and up the mountain, where he stood with her while she grieved. They returned at nightfall, and again, though many years later, Chancey was led into the stall next to mine.

He was cold, shivering, and consumed all his grain and hay in an instant. He asked me for not a thing. The choice was mine to turn away or to recognize Chancey as my brother.

I placed two mouthfuls of grain on the ledge between us.

“Here. I don’t need this.”

Chancey ate, and I gave him more.

“Thank you,” he said. “You are a true friend, Dante.”

In that moment, I realized that if the old App was, indeed, a reflection of my future course, as I had once feared, well, I should be so blessed.

S
ome say the fate and fortune of every Thoroughbred boils down to the alchemy of bloodlines. Centuries of mixology endeavoring to produce one horse that will race and win, all for riches and fame or plain old bragging rights.

My own pedigree begins with my dam and my sire, then spirals back through the ages to the three stallions of the Orient: the Byerley Turk, the Darley Arabian, and the Godolphin Arabian.

Some say the original stallions were stolen. Others swear they were gifted by men of wealth and power in the East to men of equal wealth and power in the West. Either way, the founding sires tasted the salt of the sea as they journeyed to the British Isles, where the lost mares of Great Britain brought size and strength and heart into the family. Together they made history by creating a new breed, my breed, the Thoroughbred. Every Thoroughbred heart since the merger of the three Eastern stallions with the English mares has beat for the sake of winning races.

But all that might be changing.

I imagine that Grandfather Dante understood the changes facing our breed. I reckon that’s why he called to me from across the ancestral plain.

For the longest time, I misunderstood what Dante’s Paradiso meant when he told me that our breed needed a new kind of champion. When he described to me the three great tests and urged me to use my heart, I could not comprehend his meaning. Not until I had lived the journey.

What Grandfather Dante knew long before I did was that there are many more losers than winners at the track. Like me. Legions never even get to put hoof to the dirt that will lead but one to the winner’s circle.

Just what happens to all these Thoroughbreds who never race or never win — and to those who win big, but for whatever reason aren’t selected to continue the bloodlines?

After all — just ask Chancey — horses can live thirty years. Or longer. And that’s a fact.

If you’re me, with my pedigree, my training, my grandfather’s striking good looks and large heart, and my dam’s intelligence, science says you’ve got it all, you’re destined for the history books as a great racehorse and nothing less. But don’t bet the barn on what science predicts, because life may hold other adventures, and the science of the heart is not the same thing as the spirit of the heart.

Every horse has his own race to run. For sure, neither fame nor fortune is the destiny of everyone. In my case, Marey surely did try to ease me out of my stubborn willfulness and into the mold of a champion racer. As it happens, I discovered that my heart was not made for the track, after all.

I can recall my sour old trainer, Gary, explaining his disappointment in me: “Even the best-regulated families will throw a dud now and again.”

By dud, he meant me.

I was born on February fourteenth; an ironic beginning for a horse who would end up needing years and more years to learn what it means to use your heart. Maybe the clue lives in those wise words of Filipia’s Melon:
God’s greatest act was to make one day follow another
. If that’s so, then I reckon that the greatest act of my heart in response is to rise each new day and try again to offer my best.

But to those who say the fate of every Thoroughbred comes down to pedigree, I say, no, our fate is sealed by the heart. And I say, now is the time for a new kind of champion. Now is the time for a Thoroughbred revolution, and I
am
just the horse to lead it.

T
HANK
Y
OU

While I was writing
Dante
, we lost our dear Albert, who inspired
Chancey of the Maury River
. Thank you to all of my readers who asked about him and comforted us after he left this old world. We recently brought a little paint pony named Angel into our family. She truly lives up to her name. Albert and Angel impressed many a hoofprint onto this story.

I thank my generous friend Meg Medina, who helped me to imagine the jockey Filipia.

Much love and gratitude to these horses for their inspiration: My Sweet Albert, Angel Sent From Above, Norman, Payita Mia, Morning Latte, Personal Keepsake, Valentina, Pete, Moo, and Dartanian.

Thank you to these good people: Jennifer Wright, DVM, and the folks at 3 Oaks Equine; everyone at Campbell Springs Farm; and the superheroes — equine and human — at the James River Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation. I especially thank Mrs. Nellie Mae Cox, who shared her passion for and knowledge of the amazing Thoroughbred breed.

Thanks also to the James River Writers community. Thank you to my extraordinary agent, Leigh Feldman. Thanks a bunch to my excellent early readers: Judith Amateau, Bella Stevens, and Elena Zerkin.

Thank you to the awesome Candlewick Press team: Maggie Deslaurier, Angela Dombroski, Kate Herrmann, Katie Ring, Rachel Smith, and a duo I love very much: Kate Fletcher and Karen Lotz.

To my generous, loving family: Mom, Mary, Leigh, John, Betty, and always, Bubba and Judith.

D
ON’T MISS THE FIRST TWO
M
AURY
R
IVER NOVELS!

Hardcover ISBN 978-0-7636-3439-1
Paperback ISBN 978-0-7636-4523-6
Also available as an e-book and in audio

Hardcover ISBN 978-0-7636-3766-8
Paperback ISBN 978-0-7636-7670-4
Also available as an e-book and in audio

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