Horse Race (10 page)

Garvey shrugged again. “I don’t expect a thing,” he said. “Just for you girls to do the job you’re getting paid for and mind your own business. What could be wrong with that?”

“Nothing,” Stevie said. “But I should warn you: Anything that has to do with horses
is
our business.”

Lisa groaned inwardly at Stevie’s bold words. Garvey’s face was getting red and thunderous again. His huge fists clenched and unclenched as if he wanted to strangle them all then and there.

But before he could respond, they all heard hoofbeats approaching the gap. It was Toby on one of the Maskee horses.

“He felt pretty relaxed out there,” the jockey called out to Garvey, obviously not noticing the tension between him and the girls. “But he had a little trouble with his lead changes. He’s not used to this wide of a curve, I guess.”

“Don’t tell me what my horses are used to,” Garvey bellowed, whirling to face him. “I’m the trainer, not you. Got it? Now get that horse back to the barn and bring out the last one. We don’t have all day.”

Toby frowned, but he didn’t speak in response to Garvey’s
heated words. He just nodded and dismounted, leading the horse through the gap.

“You three, go with him,” Garvey told the girls. “Someone needs to walk that animal and it’s sure not going to be me.” He lowered his voice a little so that Toby wouldn’t hear. “And remember what we talked about, or we’ll have to have another little discussion very soon.”

The girls scurried to get away from Garvey and catch up with Toby. “Want me to lead him?” Stevie offered, reaching for the horse’s lead line.

Toby nodded and let her take it. “Thanks,” he muttered, shooting a glance back at Garvey, who had turned to watch the action on the track. “I wonder what that was all about?” He reached down and pulled a long, thin whip out of the side of his boot. As they walked, he tapped his hand with it rhythmically.

“I don’t know,” Lisa said. She wished they could tell the friendly jockey the truth, but they couldn’t—not as long as they thought he might be in cahoots with Garvey. “He must have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed or something. I’m sure you were just trying to help.”

“Thanks,” Toby said, glancing at her gratefully. “It’s nice to hear you say that. I only wish Garvey would realize it, too.”

Carole was thinking about what the jockey had said. “What did you mean about the lead changes?” she asked. Being riders themselves, she and her friends knew all about
lead changes, when a horse switched from beginning its stride with its left front leg to its right or vice versa. But Carole hadn’t realized that racehorses needed to be able to change leads on command, and she said so.

Toby nodded. “That’s a fair question,” he said. “It’s actually pretty logical. The lead foot takes a lot of pounding when a horse is running at full speed, so we like to make sure they change leads at least a couple of times during a race so one leg doesn’t get more tired than the other. And since racehorses run counterclockwise around the track—in this country, at least—it makes sense for them to lead with their right leg during the two straight stretches on the course and switch to a left lead going around the turns.”

“I get it,” Stevie said. “That way their left leg sort of leads them around the curve.”

“Right,” Toby said. “Sometimes a jockey will have a horse switch leads when he’s running down the homestretch, too. A fresh lead can give the horse an extra bit of energy when he’s tired.”

“That’s really interesting,” Carole said. “I’m surprised I never noticed the horses were doing that in the races I’ve seen.”

“I’m surprised, too,” Lisa said with a laugh. Seeing Toby’s puzzled look, she added, “Usually Carole notices every single thing about every single horse she sees.”

As Carole was starting to protest, another horse approached, led by a man even shorter and wirier than Toby.
He was leading a gray filly, and the girls immediately recognized Leprechaun. “Hey, Toby,” the little man called. “Are you ready to lose in the second race this afternoon?”

Toby grinned. “Not on your life,” he replied. He quickly introduced the girls to the other jockey, whose name was Mack.

Mack nodded a polite hello and then winked at them. “I beat Toby every time we run together,” he said. “He just hasn’t learned to admit it yet.”

“Ha!” cried Toby, a twinkle in his eyes. “Don’t listen to him, girls. I’ve left him in the dust the last ten or twenty times we’ve met. The only reason he’s still getting mounts is that he’s so small he never has any trouble making weight.”

Carole smiled. She knew that each horse had an assigned weight to carry in a race, which included the weight of its jockey and tack. No trainer wanted his or her horse to carry more than the assigned amount, since it would slow the horse down, and that was why jockeys were so small and thin. Looking at the tiny Mack, Carole could imagine that no weight assignment could possibly be too low for him. In fact, he probably weighed no more than she did.

Mack grinned. “The day you beat me in a horse race, Toby, is the day I pack my bags and move straight back to Dry River,” he said. “You might as well keep your filly in the barn this afternoon and save yourself the effort. Leprechaun will be crossing the finish line before you make it to the quarter pole.”

Toby just laughed. “We’ll see,” he promised his friend.
“We’ll just see about that, won’t we, girl?” He reached over and gave Leprechaun a friendly slap on the neck. The filly snorted and eyed him suspiciously.

Mack said good-bye and continued on his way with the gray filly. Stevie turned to watch them go. “Do you think Leprechaun really might win today?” she asked Toby.

Toby shrugged. “Anything can happen on the track, and it usually does,” he said. “But if racing luck is on our side, I think C.C. will take it in a walk.”

As the group continued on its way, Carole had a different kind of question for the jockey. “I still don’t quite understand how this distance thing works,” she said. “Just now, Mack mentioned the quarter pole, and I know that’s one of the poles around the track that measures the distance. But where is it exactly? And why is it there?”

“It can be a little confusing if you’re not familiar with the system,” Toby said. “The poles measure the distance around the track, but the trick to remember is that they count
backward
from the finish line. That means the quarter pole is a quarter of a mile—or two furlongs—before the finish if you’re going counterclockwise. The three-eighths pole is one furlong, or an eighth of a mile, before that. And so on.”

“I see,” Carole said, and her friends nodded.

They were almost back to the shed row by now, but Toby paused for a moment to finish his explanation. “The poles are really useful for measuring distance when you’re riding,” he said. “When you see them go by, you know how much
more of a race is left. And you can help your horse use his energy the best way so that he doesn’t get overtired before the end.” He glanced toward the row of stalls in front of them. “Could you take C.C. and cool her down?” he asked the girls. “I’ve got to go find one of the grooms to help me tack up the other horse.”

“We can do better than that,” Stevie said. “Lisa can walk C.C., and Carole and I will help you tack up.”

“It’s a deal,” Toby said with a smile. “Let’s go.”

T
HE GIRLS DIDN
’
T
see Garvey again for the rest of the morning. They walked Cookie Cutter and then pitched in to help the grooms with some other chores. They were so busy that they didn’t have time to talk about Garvey’s threats or anything else. By noon most of the work was finished and the girls’ stomachs were grumbling.

“That should do it for now,” one of the grooms said as Stevie swept the aisle. Carole and Lisa were putting the finishing touches on the tack that would be used in that afternoon’s races. “You three are a big help—I wish you worked here all the time. Now go reward yourselves with some lunch, okay?”

The girls agreed quickly. “I’m famished,” Lisa said as they left the shed row.

“Me too,” Stevie said. “Should we head over to the grandstand and get something there? There’s only an hour until post time.”

Carole nodded. “That will give us just enough time for that Saddle Club meeting we’ve been trying to have.”

“Right,” Stevie replied. “We don’t have much time if we’re going to stop Garvey from carrying out his dastardly plan.” She grinned ruefully. “Especially since we still have to figure out what it is.”

L
ISA FOLLOWED HER
friends as they walked between the rows of stables toward the gate leading to the public area of the track. Her mind had been nagging at her for a while now. She had the funniest feeling that they had missed a clue somewhere—maybe an important one that might tell them more about what Garvey was planning. What could it be?

“Come on, Lisa,” Stevie said, pausing to glance at Lisa as she started to fall behind. “I’m dying for a huge, icy-cold soda. After all that hard work, my mouth is totally dry.”

“That’s it!” Lisa exclaimed, stopping short in the middle of the path. “That’s the clue!”

“What?” Carole stopped, too.

“I knew that somebody had said something we should have noticed, but it just clicked,” Lisa explained. “It was
that other jockey, Mack. He said something about going home to Dry River. That’s the name of the town Garvey is from, remember? He told Deborah that yesterday when she was interviewing him.”

Stevie shrugged. “So they’re from the same town,” she said. “So what?”

“I don’t know,” Lisa admitted. “Maybe nothing. But it’s kind of a funny coincidence, isn’t it?”

“What are the odds of that, right?” Carole teased. “It
is
pretty weird. But I can’t imagine what it could have to do with whatever’s going on with Garvey.”

“I don’t, either,” Lisa said. “But it’s just about the only possible clue we have right now. And we need all the help we can get if we’re going to figure this thing out.”

“Carole! Hey, Carole! Wait up!” a voice called from farther down the path.

“Don’t look now,” Stevie whispered. “It’s our good friend Win.”

Carole glanced toward the voice out of the corner of her eye and saw Josh A heading their way. “Oh, no,” she groaned. “I don’t think I can face this right now.”

“You don’t have to,” Stevie told her. “I have the perfect escape plan.” She pointed across the path, and her friends turned and saw that they were standing right beside a set of public rest rooms.

“Perfect,” Lisa said. “It’s the one place none of the Joshes can follow us.” The girls darted across the path and soon
were safe inside the women’s room. There was nobody else there at the moment.

Carole sat down on a metal bench near the door and sighed. “I seem to be spending a lot of time in the bathroom on this trip,” she said, thinking of her escape from Garvey the night before.

Lisa shrugged and headed for one of the sinks. “At least this gives us a chance to wash our hands before we eat,” she said.

“How long do you think it will take him to give up and go away?” Stevie asked, glancing at her watch. “My stomach won’t wait much longer.”

“Who knows?” Carole said. “I feel kind of bad for running away like that. He really is nice.” She stood and joined Lisa at the sinks. “I just never know what to say when he starts showing off and acting weird. It’s too bad in a way, because I like him fine when he’s talking about horses.”

Stevie nodded. “Some of the stuff he was telling us yesterday was pretty interesting,” she said. “Like when he was talking about his job, and when he was talking about all the different habits and quirks that racehorses have.”

Suddenly Lisa let out a gasp. “That’s it!” she exclaimed.

Stevie cocked her head at her. “You’ve been saying that a lot lately,” she said. “What is it this time?”

Lisa threw a balled-up paper towel at her. “Oh, nothing much,” she said. “I’ve just solved the mystery, that’s all.”

“Really?” Carole grabbed her by the arm. “What is it?”

“First, tell me one more time what Garvey said on the
phone last night,” Lisa said. “Try to remember the exact words.”

Carole thought back carefully. “Let’s see. The first thing I heard clearly was Garvey telling the person he was talking to not to back out, and saying the race was tomorrow—that’s today.”

Lisa nodded. “Then what?” she asked expectantly.

“Then he said, ‘Ride her however you want,’ or something like that.” Carole could almost hear Garvey’s gruff voice again as she remembered the phone conversation. “And he said that when the time was right the person had better come through. And that the person should be loyal to where he came from.”

Carole gasped as she realized what she had just said. “That’s it, isn’t it?” she asked Lisa. “Where he came from, as in Dry River, Virginia.”

“You mean he was talking to Mack?” Stevie asked with a puzzled frown. “I don’t get it.”

“Think about it,” Lisa said. “They’re both from the same place. And it sounds like that made Garvey think he could ask a favor.”

“A
big
favor,” Carole said. “The next part of their talk was about the stewards finding out, remember? What could it be?”