Gee Whiz (7 page)

T
HURSDAY NIGHT
,
JUST BEFORE DINNER
, D
ANNY ROLLED UP TO
the gate in his truck, pulling a strange trailer—not Jake Morrisson’s and not Jerry Gardino’s. He honked, and since I was on the front porch, not having yet taken off my boots, I ran out and opened the gate. It was nearly dark. He pulled through, then I closed the gate, latched it, and ran after the truck and trailer to the barn. Dad was out haying the horses. Dad never stopped what he was doing in order to do something else—he said that “one thing at a time” was the key to success—but nevertheless, he did walk fast to the barn when he had thrown out the last flakes, pushing the wheelbarrow ahead of him.

By that time, Danny had the ramp of the trailer down and
the horse unfastened up front. He unhooked the tail chain, and the horse backed down the ramp, one step at a time. He was almost pure white, with only a few dapples around his knees. And he was huge, bigger than Dad’s favorite horse, Lester, that he’d sold to Mr. Jordan, bigger than Onyx, bigger than Pie in the Sky. At the bottom of the trailer, he lifted his head and flared his nostrils. He stood absolutely still. He was so white he seemed to shine in the dusk. Danny said, “Meet Gee Whiz.” Then he added, “By Hyperion, out of Tilla, by Birkhahn.”

The back door opened, and Mom came out with a wooden spoon in her hand. There was a whinny from the mares, and then there was a whinny from the geldings. Gee Whiz pawed once, flared his nostrils, and answered. He was loud, no doubt because he had a huge chest. I said, “Is that horse over seventeen hands?”

“Seventeen-one,” said Danny.

Seventeen hands and one inch is big for a horse—and I could see that his withers were above the brim of Danny’s hat.

“What in the world would you do with such a big horse?” said Dad.

“Well, he’s been a racehorse his whole life. He’s eight, he’s had sixty starts, he’s won a hundred thirty-four thousand dollars, and he’s finished. Mr. Pelham will think of something to do with him, but they are full up for now, so I said we could put him up for a month, seventy-five dollars, until some of the two-year-olds go to the track and open up some space. As far as I can tell, he’s sound as can be.” Danny turned him in a little circle, then took him into the barn, where he put him into
a stall. That seventy-five dollars was another little reason not to sell Oh My too quickly, or to find a place for Lady before she really knew what to do with a calf. Marcus, Beebop, and Gee Whiz. Looked like we were in the boarding business.

Danny was excited, which was unusual, because Danny was like Dad—he thought getting excited was a pretty sure way to get disappointed. About the most Danny or Dad ever did was hope for the best. But after Danny cleaned out the trailer and turned it around, then came in for supper, he was smiling and bouncy. I was setting the table. I said, “You didn’t buy yourself a horse, did you?”

Danny laughed. He said, “I
have
a horse. No, I just … I don’t know. There’s something about this guy, the way he’s been around, done his job. I mean, he’s a beauty.”

“He’s a giant,” said Dad. “I’m surprised he’s still sound.”

“Yes,” said Danny as we sat down, “but look at his bone. He must have nine inches of bone.”

This was, basically, the circumference of his foreleg below the knee. The more the better.

All through dinner, Danny babbled on and on about Gee Whiz. It was like he had never seen a racehorse before, and maybe he hadn’t. I couldn’t think of any racehorses we knew. But he was working at Vista del Canada now, and they had won him over.

Did we know who Hyperion was?

Of course not.

Well, Hyperion was an English racehorse, born in 1930. In thirteen starts, he had nine wins, one second, and two thirds. Two of his wins were English races like the Kentucky
Derby and the Belmont Stakes. And he was maybe the greatest sire of the twentieth century, with winning offspring all over the world, in Australia and France, and everywhere. Had we heard of Pensive?

Mom said, “That’s a nice name.”

“Pensive won the Derby and the Preakness, and almost the Triple Crown—he was second in the Belmont Stakes.
And
he sired Ponder, who won the Kentucky Derby, and was the sire of Needles. Needles won the Derby in 1956.”

Dad said, “I do remember Needles. He was a good horse.”

“Well, he was named Needles because he got pneumonia as a foal, and they had to give him so many shots, that’s what they named him, but he was a great horse. In the Derby, he came from fifteenth out of sixteen, and in the Belmont Stakes, he came from behind to win again. Anyway, this horse, Gee Whiz, is from Hyperion’s last crop, and he is related to all of those other great horses. Of course, he got his size from the dam’s side, because Hyperion was tiny, maybe the size of Oh My.” Danny took a deep breath and actually started eating his food. I hadn’t seen many things that prevented Danny from diving into a minute steak with baked potatoes and gravy, but imagining all of Gee Whiz’s relatives had done the trick.

I knew how he felt. When Warn Matthews had sent me Jack’s probable pedigree (
if
he was the real son of Jaipur and Alabama Lady, and these days everyone said that he was), I had memorized the names of the horses and said them in my head every night for a while as I was going to sleep. The names were like little fairy tales all in a word or a phrase: Rare Perfume, Sir Gallahad, Blenheim, Nasrullah, Scapa Flow,
Priam, Asterus, Mahmoud. I thought for a moment, then said, “I need to get something.”

I ran up the stairs and went into my room. The pedigree was neatly folded in the top right-hand drawer. I grabbed it and ran down the stairs. When I put it on the table, there it was, Jack’s great-grandsire on his dam’s side was Hyperion, through a horse called Alibhai, who was born in 1938. And his son, Determine, had also won the Kentucky Derby. That was Jack’s grandsire. So Jack and Gee Whiz were related.

Danny said, “It’s like Gee Whiz is his great-granduncle.”

Dad said, “Believe me, there are lots and lots of cousins, and very few of them have done much.”

But still, it was interesting to think about.

After supper, Danny and I went out to have another look at Gee Whiz. I admit I was more drawn to him now that I knew he was related to Jack. I saw more grace in his movement and more intelligence in his eye. But he was, indeed, a striking horse, and only part of that was how big he was (good thing the stalls in our barn were really big, much bigger than the stalls out at the stables, which was part of the reason we hardly ever kept a horse in them—most horses take the opportunity to poop all over a big stall, so cleaning a big stall is more work, and bedding a big stall takes more straw). He was tall but he was graceful—as we stood there looking at him, he curved around the stall, and his strides were big but precise. At the same time, he kept his eye on us, not as if he was suspicious, but as if he was curious. He put his head over the door. I had some carrots in my pocket, and Danny had two cubes of sugar. He took them politely. Then, after I asked Danny when
he had last raced, and just as Danny said, “He raced Sunday,” Gee Whiz lifted his nose and, very gently, sniffed my hair and then my shoulder. I’d never had a horse do that before. I stood still. Danny didn’t stop him or reprimand him, as Dad might have done. Danny had learned from Jem Jarrow that a horse can be curious, and that that is a good thing. A curious horse is intelligent.

When Gee Whiz went back to his hay, Danny said, “He ran at Hollywood Park Sunday, in the last race, and I guess he was the oldest horse in the race, and he ran fifth out of ten. The trainer called Mr. Leamann and said that he ran a game race, but he had done his work, and it was time to do something else. I guess he came back to the barn a little depressed.”

“Do you think that’s true? That a horse knows he got beaten and feels sad?”

Danny said, “Why not? If he knows what racing is about, then he knows what winning is about, and he can’t be good at it without wanting to win. If he wants to win, then he knows if he’s lost.”

I said, “What about the carrot? What about the stick?”

Danny cuffed me on the head and said, “Now you sound like an idiot.”

That was the Danny I knew.

I walked him to his truck, only then asking him how Jack was doing.

“He’s doing fine. He’s spending the whole night inside tonight. First time. Saturday, I’m going to pick you up early and take you over there.”

“What for?”

“You teach those girls at nine, right?”

“I’m sure Melinda is still down south, but Ellen, yes.”

“Be ready by six. We’ll get to Vista del Canada by seven with time to spare.”

That was a reason to let him out of the gate, latch it, and run inside to study. The time you spend studying goes verrryyy slowly while you are doing it, but after you’ve done it, it seems to have passed very quickly. I’m not sure why that is. At any rate, by Saturday morning, all thoughts of the Romans, the volume of a sphere, poems by dead people, French irregular verbs, and kingdoms, phyla, classes, orders, families, genera, and species had vanished from my brain.

Halfway there, it got light enough that I could see that it was a beautiful day—completely clear and bright, and the air had an extra sparkle that it sometimes gets in December. When we drove down the road that led to Vista del Canada, we kept seeing scarves of fog wafting against the mountainsides, and the mountains themselves looked like flat cutout layers receding against the pale sky. Everything was sleepy along that road until we went through the Vista del Canada gate, and there everything was busy as could be. Horses, riders, and grooms were everywhere. At the upper barn, all three wash racks were busy—cross-tied horses being sprayed, the spray foaming up in the morning sunlight, and the horses shaking their heads. In the hillside pastures, the mares were grazing.

Encantado was trotting back and forth in his paddock, staring at the four horses and riders making their way around the big white oval, one at the trot and three at the gallop.
The trotting one slowed to a walk, then went out the gate, and one of the cantering ones eased to the trot. Yet another was being ponied—a man on a palomino was trotting around the track, holding the lead rope of a bay, who was trotting next to him. The center of the track was empty. In the walking area, three grooms were leading their horses, who were enveloped between their ears and their swishing tails by swaying yellow coolers with green trim that had
VISTA DEL CANADA
embroidered into one corner and
LEAMANN RACING
embroidered into the other corner.

Danny parked and we jumped out. I followed him to a pen not too different from our training pen at home—a little smaller, with perfectly smoothed footing, as if one of the grooms had raked it by hand. Right when we got there, three guys came over, leading Jack, and he had a saddle on his back.

Yes, he whinnied when he saw me, and Roscoe Pelham and the other two brought him over to the fence so that I could pet him. I tickled him the way he always liked it, around the eyes and underneath his cowlick, and then down his cheek. It was really strange that he was wearing a bridle. It was a racing bridle, simple, with no noseband, but strange anyway. His mouth worked a little around the bit, but he seemed more interested than uncomfortable. Roscoe said, “Here’s the owner, boys, Abby Lovitt. Abby, this is Wayne Griffin, the rider, and you know Ike.”

I nodded. Wayne Griffin was not as tall as I was, but bald and strong-looking. When he smiled, I saw he had about eight teeth. He said, “Nice colt. Nice colt indeed.” Then he stuck
his hand out for me to shake. His hand was twice as big as mine and his forearm bulged with muscles.

Roscoe said, “Ready?” and Ike started leading Jack around and around the little pen, just walking. Roscoe and Wayne walked alongside Jack, step by step, with Roscoe occasionally patting Jack on the shoulder or putting his hand on his haunch. For a while, Jack was looking around—either over at the track or, when Encantado whinnied, in his direction. But he got bored with that.

Danny said, “He’s been in here every day for the last three days. Yesterday, Wayne walked alongside him for twenty minutes.” Danny leaned his elbows on the railing and stared.

The three of them stopped and stood there for a moment, then Roscoe and Ike stepped away from Jack, and Wayne started petting him and leaning against him. Jack didn’t seem to care. All of a sudden, Wayne jumped on top of him, his chest in the saddle, his feet dangling, and his head on the other side. He stayed that way for a moment, petting Jack on his far side with his hands—Jack moved around, then stood still, and Wayne slid off. Then Wayne and Jack walked a little more, and Wayne did it again.

They came around to our side of the pen, and Wayne got on him a third time, but this time, he swung a leg over, and lay there, his feet hanging down and his chest along Jack’s neck. Jack walked forward about three steps, but didn’t make a fuss, and Wayne slid off again.

The reins were loose. Roscoe stayed near them.