Riders Down (16 page)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Rick Rothmeyer concentrated on one of the half-dozen Heartland Downs press box television screens, a series of emotions flitting across his face. In order, these emotions were: worry, concern, and much deeper concern.

Prior to this moment it had been a typical Saturday afternoon in the press box. Racing writers from the two Chicago dailies worked on stories or talked on phones. Correspondents from two racing weeklies, in from out of town to cover that day’s featured race, the $200,000 Heartlands Dash, had settled into the desk slots reserved for visitors in the long, air-conditioned, carpeted room. Half of the press corps, which also included talent from a local television station and one radio reporter, reserved at least some time for placing bets with press box pari-mutuel clerk Tom Jaroz and grazing at the lavish free buffet provided each weekend by Heartland Downs management.

Trainers, horse owners, and track officials drifted in to say hello, some stopping at the large popcorn machine on the first level to take a bag of freshly popped product. Among the latter group was Heartland Downs President Robert L. Duncan. It was on Duncan’s orders that the popcorn machine had been purchased and installed several years earlier, and it was at his direction that it was scrupulously maintained. Duncan loved popcorn and, as with everything else he could control in his ultra-successful business life, demanded that it be “the best anyone can do.”

Popcorn bag in hand, Duncan walked up behind Matt, who was writing the ad lead to his
Racing Daily
story for that afternoon’s edition. Duncan placed a hand on Matt’s shoulder, saying, “How goes it, Matt?”

Matt frowned at the interruption, but smiled when he turned and saw Duncan. “Tension is building, Bob,” he said, pointing toward where Rick stood in front of a television set. Rick’s arms were down, one hand clenched in a fist, the other tightening on a rolled-up copy of the day’s track program. “Rick’s alive in what could be a good-sized National Pick Four,” Matt explained. He got to his feet. “C’mon, let’s watch this last race with him.” The two men walked over and flanked Rick, whose gaze never left the screen containing the telecast of the Prairie Schooner Handicap from Des Moines Downs in Iowa. Five of the starters had entered the gate, with another three to go, when Duncan asked, “What have you got going here, Rick?”

“The beginning of a bonanza,” Rick replied confidently. Never taking his eyes off the screen, he quickly told Duncan that he had scored with two “bombs” in the first two legs of the Pick Two: a $22 winner to begin with, a $52 horse in the second leg, followed by a favorite that had returned $6.60. He had played four horses in leg one, five in the second, two in the third. In this final leg of his $80 ticket he had played the two main contenders. “It looks like a match race between these two to me,” Rick said confidently. “I’ve got Tashkin’s Baba and Rim Shot. New York’s top jock, David Guerin, went out there to Iowa to ride Tashkin’s Baba. And Randy Morrison came in from California to ride Rim Shot. How about that, two of the top jocks in the country going to Iowa to ride. Of course, it is a big purse, $400,000. But these two horses are two standouts in this field. And I don’t care which one wins,” he grinned.

Morrison and Guerin, Matt thought, Guerin and Morrison. And in a National Pick Four. “They still got to run around the track. Don’t count your winnings yet,” he murmured as Tashkin’s Baba strode into his stall in the starting gate. Rick heard him, but shrugged off the admonition. “Not to worry, men,” he said. “God put me on earth to bet horses like these.” Matt rolled his eyes as he looked at Duncan. “They showed the possible Pick Four payoffs a couple of minutes ago,” he whispered to the track president. “Rick’s ticket will be worth either $21,000 or $28,000 if one of his two horses win, depending on which one. Either way, the biggest score of his life. He’s pumped.”

A minute and fifty seconds later the field for the Prairie Schooner Handicap had flashed across the finish line and all of Rick’s concern had been replaced by disappointment and anger. Rick hurled his copy of the track program into a nearby waste-basket. He then began to kick the basket across the carpet toward the press box door, bellowing “God
damn
those idiot little son of a bitch pinheads.” A lengthier stream of expletives would have followed had not Rick suddenly realized that Duncan, a man who despised public displays of emotion and abhorred curses, and had fired or barred from his track dozens of people guilty of engaging in the former or uttering the latter, was glaring at him, his face red. Rick quickly turned and went to his desk. He sat down. He put his head down on the desk, forehead first, and began thumping it against the surface.

The official order of finish of the Prairie Schooner Stakes appeared on the television screen. First—Mark Madness. Second—Justakisser. Third—Tashkin’s Baba. Fourth—Rim Shot. Mark Madness, a 19-to-1 shot, returned $40 to win. Minutes later, the Pick Four payoff appeared on the screen: $350,000.

Matt sighed as he looked at his stricken friend. He knew he’d better stay out of Rick’s pain-wracked personal orbit for the rest of the day. Turning back to the television, Matt heard Tashkin’s Baba’s rider, David Guerin, say softly to the interviewer, “Don’t know what happened to him out there today. Horse just didn’t seem to have it,” he added, eyes averted.

The interviewer, Carol Conti, pressed on. “David,” she said, “your horse was seemingly such a standout in this field that I have to ask you a little more. Was he rank early? Is that why you went to the lead right away? We were all surprised, since that sure hasn’t been Tashkin’s Baba’s style.”

Guerin, usually one of the more accommodating and articulate of jockey interviewees, startled Conti when he abruptly turned and walked off. Startled, Conti quickly composed herself and faced the camera head on. “I guess he’s taking this loss pretty hard,” she managed. Then she added kindly, as if to further explain the jockey’s uncharacteristic rudeness, “Of course, David is still dealing with the terrible shock of the recent death in New Orleans of his brother and fellow rider, Mark. They were very, very close.”

Conti turned to Tashkin’s Baba’s trainer, who was standing nearby. Jon Voelkner, a fixture on the national racing scene for many years, was grim-faced. As Conti asked, “What do you think happened out there, Jonny?” the trainer’s lips tightened. He shook his head. “Sorry, Carol,” he answered, “I can’t tell you. I don’t know what the hell happened out there today. My horse never had a chance to run his race the way he was ridden today. That’s all I’ve got to say.”

Conti shrugged her shoulders as she faced the camera. “I tried to get Randy Morrison, rider of the other big disappointment in the race, to come on camera. But he declined. That’s it from trackside. Back to you, Chris,” she said to the television show’s host. A commercial quickly followed before the program’s fadeout began. Behind the list of sponsors and technical staff members being shown came the replay of the race. Matt watched it carefully, wanting to confirm his initial conclusion: that David Guerin and Randy Morrison had both ridden to lose. He watched Tashkin’s Baba being taken out of his game plan by Guerin. In the second replay, Matt concentrated on Morrison. “This is amazing,” he said softly. “Morrison had this horse in every pocket but mine. Rim Shot had
no
shot with that ride.”

With the replay now in its final seconds, Matt was joined by Rick in front of the screen. “I don’t think I can watch this again,” said the anguished Rick. “What in hell were those riders thinking?
They
cost me the race, not the damn horses.” He walked over to the press box refrigerator and yanked out a Heineken.

“What was Guerin thinking?” Matt said to Rick. “I think he was thinking, ‘I’m going to get this sucker beat today.’ That’s what I think he was thinking.” Disgusted, he turned away from the television and went back to his desk.

After sitting silently for nearly ten minutes, reviewing what he had just witnessed, Matt picked up the phone and dialed Las Vegas. When his call was answered, he heard loud voices, the sound of water being splashed about, and music blaring in the background. Then he heard The Fount’s voice, saying “I thought you’d call. Hold it a second. I’m down at the pool, it’s noisy as hell. Let me go inside.”

Matt waited a minute or two before he heard his friend resume talking. “You’re calling about the Iowa race, right? What a fucking joke,” The Fount said. “Matt, do you remember when you were out here last and I showed you the tape of the Gorham Stakes in New York?”

“Yes, I remember.”

“Well, it’s the same damned scenario,” The Fount continued. “Today Guerin takes a stone cold closer completely out of his game and gets him beat. And in the last leg of a National Pick Four for the second time! Then you’ve got Morrison on the other favorite, giving him no chance whatsoever to run a winning race. I can hardly believe these guys are pulling this crap. Believe me, I thought they were two of the straightest shooters in the game.”

“So did I,” said Matt. He didn’t know Morrison well, but he readily remembered the day nine years earlier when he had first met David Guerin, then a sixteen-year-old apprentice jockey already recognized as the latest in a long line of terrific riders to emerge from Louisiana’s Cajun country. After two sensational months at Evangeline Park in his home state, David had been brought to Chicago by Tom Morgan, one of the Midwest’s top jockey agents. Guerin won 348 races during his first full year of competition, easily leading the country’s apprentice riders and finishing third in the overall standings. His career had kept on a steadily rising curve since then. Until now, Matt thought.

In the first story he’d done about the fresh-faced riding sensation, Matt wrote that “David Guerin looks like he should be sitting on somebody’s knee, not somebody’s horse.” Matt had been impressed by the kid’s good manners and his career objectives. “All I want to do,” young Guerin had earnestly stated, “is ride horses and win with them and save enough money to buy my folks a decent house and get my little brother started as a rider, too.” Nine years later the flush of idealistic youth was gone along with, as far as Matt was concerned, Guerin’s reputation for professional integrity.

Would there be repercussions from this race? Matt thought not. The Des Moines Downs stewards might call Guerin and Morrison on the carpet, but they would just contend that their horses had been “too rank for me today,” or that “he just got away from me.” So talented were these two that they could easily disguise their intent to lose. Besides that, Matt knew, there was no way for the officials to prove malfeasance even if they were convinced it existed.

“But why in hell are these boys doing this stuff?” Matt said. Rick didn’t respond. His head was down on his desk, hands covering his ears.

***

Matt met Maggie after the races at Radigan’s, a popular steakhouse near the track, for an early dinner. Most of their conversation concerned the Iowa race, which Maggie had not seen, but which Matt glumly described in detail. After dessert and coffee, both declared themselves to be tired. They decided to make it an early evening and head for their respective homes.

Standing beside her car as Maggie hooked on her seatbelt Matt said, “I’ll be better company tomorrow, I promise.” Maggie smiled up at him as she inserted the key into the ignition. “Don’t let this thing eat you up, Matt. I know it’s a big deal, and potentially a big story, but you shouldn’t let it dominate your life. Our lives, for that matter,” she added. He leaned down to kiss her, then watched as she drove out of the parking lot.

In his Evanston condominium forty-five minutes later, Matt clicked on his computer. According to the
Racing Daily’
s website, there had been eight winning tickets at racetracks and off-track betting facilities around the country sold on that afternoon’s National Pick Four. Besides Mark Madness at Des Moines Downs, the other three winners of Pick Four races were Over at Lisa’s at Elmont Park, Graustark’s Memory at Flader Race Course, and Dim Donny at Green Valley. One of the eight $350,000 tickets had been sold at Heartland Downs, marking the third time this season that the big bet had been hit by someone at that track.

Matt sat back in his chair, staring at the computer screen. Then he revolved his old Rolodex to the Js and found Tom Jaroz’s home phone number.

“Tom,” he said, when the phone was picked up, “it’s Matt. Sorry to bother you at home. You got a minute?”

“For you, Matt, after you helped get Oily Ronnie’s claws out of my Aunt Sophie and her pals? Anything, buddy, anything. What’s up?”

“That big Pick Four ticket that was sold today at Heartland. You hear anything about who cashed it?”

“Sure, all the guys were talking about it. Right after the official sign went up at Des Moines Downs, this elderly woman comes up to the Customer Service desk on the third floor and asks for the mutuel manager. Dressed real casual, slacks and a sweater, looked like all the rest of those once-a-year customers we get. She wasn’t anybody we’d seen around much before, not a racetrack regular, that’s for sure. They directed her to the general manager’s office. Monroe took care of her.”

Matt said, “You hear anything else? Like, her name? Or where she’s from?”

“Naw. I didn’t really ask about her name. All I heard was scuttlebutt, that she was from some place up in northern Wisconsin. She played a big ticket. Used all seven horses in the first leg of the Pick Four, all eight in both the second and third legs. What surprised Monroe, I understand, was that she played six horses in the fourth leg but left the two big favorites completely off her ticket. You know, Tashkin’s Baba and Rim Shot. Anyway, the ticket cost almost $2,700. But she didn’t do too bad, did she, Matt? Showed a profit of over $347,000.”

“Not bad at all,” Matt said.

Jaroz laughed. “I hear she took the payoff in cash—can you imagine? She also insisted that her name not be given out to the press. Monroe had somebody from security walk her out to the parking lot.”

Jaroz laughed again before saying, “This is some game, isn’t it, Matt? You never know when one of these amateurs is going to hit it big. Meanwhile, we got all our wise guy, heavy-hitting customers beating their brains out making speed figures, and pace numbers, and charting wind velocities, and God knows what else. Then some broad like this comes along and gets the big money. It’s really something.”