Saving Baby (8 page)

There was a certain amount of ego in that, and the aura intoxicated me. I couldn't wait for a jockey to wear our silks, for which we had chosen the colors maize and blue—the same colors as the University of Michigan, where our daughter Jessica attended college. I couldn't wait to be the one who handed out doughnuts the morning after Baby won his first race. It's tradition for the jockey's agent to buy a dozen doughnuts the day after a win and give them to the horse's trainer, who then sets them out for people to come around, take one, and offer congratulations. When would that be us, I wondered.

John and I started looking over racing programs with their glossy covers. It was fun reviewing the competition in that way, affording that same excited feeling we used to have when the girls worked toward winning in skating and dancing.

I had also figured out by that point that the Detroit Race Course was a lower-level track. The abuses I saw couldn't possibly happen to horses who ran on tracks in Kentucky, in Florida, in New York and California, I told myself. Even here, I believed, there were only a few bad apples, that most trainers and others involved in the horses' lives treated the animals well. I comforted myself that only once in a while did I come across something untoward.

Furthermore, I was pleased that despite the fact that no one seemed confident Coburn was the right trainer for Baby, he treated Baby well, always talking patiently to him and going slowly as far as training so that Baby wouldn't ramp up too soon and sustain an injury.

And Baby appeared to be doing so well. His exercise rider, Mike, nicknamed him The Tank because he was so solid and broad-chested.

In September, when he had been at the track about four months, Baby did his first timed work. He was more than ready. At first, when he had been led out to the racecourse, he would whinny to the other horses—“Do I know you?” or “Is there somebody out here who can tell me what's going on? Does anyone recognize my voice?” But now he was taking it all in stride.

That wasn't true for the new horses in general. The number of two-year-olds at the track had dwindled to the point that the racing secretary was having trouble filling races meant for that age group. They either were simply not cut out for racing or had become injured.

One problem to which young Thoroughbreds were prone, I learned by degrees, was bucked shins, a very painful condition similar to shin splints in people, except that even a finger lightly touching the spot can cause a horse to cringe. The covering of the long bone in the front of the leg—from the knee to the ankle—becomes inflamed from the stress of galloping. If it gets bad enough, the damage can cause a fracture that leaves no choice other than humane euthanasia.

A second orthopedic condition of young Thoroughbreds was green osselets—an inflammatory arthritis on the front legs, at the joint that connects the lower leg to the ankle. When green osselets occur, experienced horse people can feel some swelling at that juncture. Like bucked shins, I found out, the osselets heal with rest and phenylbutazone, a kind of horse aspirin known as bute, and don't come back. A callous-like material forms that protects the area. But until then, galloping around the track causes agony. Turns, in particular, are painful, because in leaning, the horse has to put more pressure on the affected spot.

The potential for bucked shins and osselets tugged at my conscience, another reminder that all that was going on was a lot for two-year-old Baby to deal with. Even with his sweet, confident disposition, he had to accustom himself to the loud sounds of big dumpster trucks with large metal forks that would crash right in front of the stalls to clear manure. He had to learn to steer on the track—go around other horses and let other horses go around him without anyone getting hurt. He did fine in every way, but I worried more than once whether I was asking too much of a two-year-old mind—and body.

That racing could be a dangerous activity for horses was further brought home by the fact that I would always see veterinarians at the track. They were there not just to administer painkillers and other medications but also to perform ultrasounds or x-ray horses for injuries. These vets had received permission from the State Racing Commission to set up practices on the backstretch, like farm vets who make barn calls, except the “barn” consisted of the barns and shedrows where some one thousand horses were kept. It was a lucrative business.

It appeared that the vets sometimes worked in tandem with men involved in the administration of euthanasia. Early on, when I was standing at the rail with several trainers one day, a man came over and exchanged hellos with everyone. Somebody asked him, “What are you paying?”

I couldn't hear the man's response, but the trainer who had asked about payment responded, “Yeah, stall eight and stall fourteen.”

Then another trainer piped up and said, “Stall three.”

“Okay, we'll take care of it,” the man said.

“Who was that?” I questioned the trainer standing next to me. I figured the man was buying used horse equipment.

“Oh, he's the meat buyer,” the trainer answered.

“Huh?” I responded.

“He's buying horses for slaughter.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because that's what he does,” came the reply.

I thought that meant the horses were being taken to be put down, that they had suffered injuries that were causing them incredible pain that couldn't be fixed. I assumed the man was going to be bringing them to the vet and that “slaughter” and “meat buyer” were just the lingo of the track. I was new enough at the point, and enamored enough with being around all these people who had by then started to take me in, that I couldn't consider any other possibility. Also, I was heartened that no debilitating injuries were going to compromise Baby. I felt confident that Coburn worked hard never to overdo it with him, accelerating him gradually precisely to avoid any orthopedic problems.

Still, I decided that Scarlett was not going to race as a two-year-old. The ball may have been rolling down the hill with Baby, and with him I may have felt sucked in to the point that it was too late to back out, but Scarlett would not train or race until she was three. A year old, she was supposed to begin training in the fall, around the time Baby would start racing, but it was now going to be more than a year before she left home. She would be fully protected from even the remote potential to suffer injuries that could befall racehorses younger than two.

Baby's speed, in the meantime, was going to be clocked for three furlongs, or three-eighths of a mile. He wasn't going to go as fast as he could. The highest speeds are saved for the race itself. But the pace with timed works is faster than with untimed training, and a rider can let the trainer know how much horse a Thoroughbred has left at the end of the run, setting the pace for further training.

The timed work informs bettors as well as trainers. The times are published, so serious bettors can get a sense of how well a horse might do during an actual race and base their wagers accordingly.

Of some forty horses who were timed for three furlongs that day, Baby ran the slowest, about fourteen seconds per furlong. I felt embarrassed, but at the same time, there was no heat or swelling on his legs. He had handled the increase in speed well. And some of the horses were seasoned athletes, having already been running for a few years. Baby was brand new to timed runs.

A week later, he repeated his three-furlong timed work and came in third to last out of twenty-four—better.

Two weeks after that, on October 3rd, Baby did a five-furlong timed work—five-eighths of a mile. Coburn had begun training him a little harder in the morning, having him go faster than he had been. That time, he came in the third fastest out of ten, about 12.5 seconds a furlong.

Based on those results, he could be entered in his first real race, a run of six furlongs to be held on October 10th. I could tell by Baby's demeanor that he felt ready to do well. I don't know if a horse can feel proud of himself, but I saw in him a swagger since his second timed run. And he was more anxious to get out there and run each morning, more excited as he would get saddled. After his third timed work, we actually had an exchange of looks, like a telepathy between us. It was as though he was telling me he knew what he was there for.

The night before the race, I hardly slept, then ran up the road to the mailbox 100 times once dawn broke to see if the
Detroit Free Press
had come yet. The sports column corroborated what Baby had been transmitting with his attitude, predicting that despite his slow start, he would come in first. “Reel Surprise well tuned for debut,” it said. The
Daily Racing Form
—kind of like
The Wall Street Journal
for making predictions about money and investments when it came to Thoroughbreds—picked him to come in third, a “show” in the “Win, Place, or Show” lexicon.

Pleased as I was, a part of me was still gripped with fear. Horses get injured racing. I'd seen horses break from the gate, then turn around and run the wrong way.

I also knew horses didn't usually win their first time out, despite what the paper said about Baby, so my fear was mixed with a kind of competitive dread.

But Baby had become so focused out there on the track. And though trainers don't like to make predictions, even Coburn said, “I like to send horses out when they're ready to win.”

A lot of the owners keep to the stands just before the race begins, but I stayed with Baby till the last minute, walking with the groom and the trainer from his stall over to the track, then shaking the jockey's hand and saying to him, “Just have a safe trip.” I meant it. A jockey could endanger his life clipping other horses' heels as he wove in and out. Or a horse could stumble, throwing a jockey, or the jockey's feet could slip out of the stirrups. Some time after Secretariat won the Kentucky Derby, his jockey became paralyzed upon being thrown from a horse during a race.

After speaking to the jockey, I went right next to Baby, rubbed his neck, and kissed him. Be careful, I thought to myself. We love you. I felt bad for him. It was a maiden race for all the horses, meaning they had never won before. But it was Baby's first start—his first time racing for real. There are no pre-season “games.” Even running furlongs in timed works, the horses go alone or with just one other horse. They are not running side by side with a field of horses while they are being clocked.

That's only one of many things that are brand new to a horse making his first start. When Thoroughbreds train, they go out in the morning, then generally like to take a little nap around 11:00 or 12:00. That's why, so many times when I would come back to Baby's stall after he finished training for the day, he'd be sleeping, stretched out and snoring adorably. While almost all horses sleep standing up some time after weaning, Baby always lay down in the straw, even at age two. I'd tiptoe away those days, not wanting to wake my sleeping child.

Races, in contrast to training, take place only in the afternoon, or at least they did in Michigan at that time. So already a horse, very much a creature of habit, knows something is different on race day. He hasn't been taken out in the morning for his usual training, and here he is being taken out later in the day. And when he gets out to the track, he sees not rows and rows of empty bleachers but a grandstand full of people moving around.

Horses have not only good distance vision but also much better peripheral vision than we do, and are able to see almost in a full circle. It's easy to tell that what they see is making them feel unnerved. Many start to prance in agitation, wondering what is going on. Voices booming over the loudspeaker only add to their anxiety. Furthermore, the horses saddle up right in the grandstand area, whereas for training they are saddled in their stall and then ridden out to the track. It's like after years of putting on your clothes and then going out to your driveway, you now have to go out to your driveway and finish dressing there.

I could tell that Baby was very concerned with all the commotion in the stands, that it was making him feel disoriented. “Good boy, easy boy,” I kept saying as my hand lingered on his neck, but I'm not sure how aware he was at that point that I was trying to soothe him, so distracted was he. I kept telling myself that it was not any different from a skater or dancer's nerves before a good performance, that Baby needed to get this experience under his belt and would feel less fearful the next time around, once he saw how well he could do.

I kept my hand on him as long as I could, until the jockey had to mount him. Then, like all the other horses, Baby was paraded back and forth in front of the grandstand with his jockey on his back, after which he was led into the starting gate, where the metal clanged shut behind him.

It is an extremely tight fit, which, because horses are prey animals, makes them very nervous. They want to be able to bolt. But they have to wait a few minutes for all the horses to load, adding to the tension. In fact, gate accidents are not uncommon. A horse might rear, catching his leg on the steel bars.

As soon as the last horse is loaded, the bell goes off. The deafening sound reverberates, piercing all other noise throughout the track. At the same time, the metal bars in front of the horse bang open while the jockey cries out as loud as he can to goad the animal into action. Then the horse is urged to run faster than it ever has, being whipped not only to make him go faster—animal behaviorist Desmond Morris likens it to trying to escape the sting of a biting predator—but also to keep him from bumping into other horses or from running through the gap back to the barn.

While Baby was being exposed to one new and unsettling sensation after another, I climbed the stands. We had invited more than twenty people to sit with us—my children, their friends, all our own friends, my parents, my sister and her husband, everybody in our inner circle. My heart was in my throat; I could almost feel the adrenalin rush through me as the bell rang. Here was the horse I had helped bring into the world, now ready to give it everything he had and show the world what he could do.