Triple Crown (17 page)

Clen was short for clenbuterol, a drug used extensively in certain parts of the world to treat asthma in humans but also as a decongestant to help clear an unwanted build-up of mucus from a
horse’s respiratory tract.

But I could hear Paddleboat’s airways. They were as clear as a bell – not even a hint of a wheeze.

I’d once done some research on clenbuterol for the BHA. Although not in fact a steroid, it had similar anabolic effects in horses, such that it helped to build muscle. It was rumoured to
have been widely used in US training barns for many years almost on a daily basis, like a feed supplement. Only recently had new regulations been introduced requiring that clenbuterol use be
suspended at least fourteen days prior to racing.

‘See to it he also gets a five-millilitre shot of HA in each hock joint and five hundred milligrams of Adequan into his hindquarters,’ George said to Charlie, who wrote again in his
notebook.

HA is hyaluronic acid, a component of synovial fluid found naturally in healthy joints, while Adequan is an osteoarthritis drug. Both are used for the treatment of degenerative joint disease,
something that really shouldn’t affect a horse that was only four years old. Paddleboat’s future prospects were looking worse by the minute.

George and Charlie moved out into the shedrow.

I quickly closed the stall door and moved on to my next horse, a five-year-old gelding called Debenture. The trainer and his assistant repeated the process of feeling his legs and discussing his
future.

‘He’s still getting the vitamin shots,’ Charlie said. ‘I’ve given him two already this week and I’ll do one more tomorrow. They should set him up well for the
Spring Handicap.’

‘Good,’ George said, before moving back out into the shedrow and on to the next horse.

And so on, down the full line of stalls.

When the inspections of my four horses were complete, I returned to each one in turn, replacing the protective pads and bandages on their legs and removing their halters.

George Raworth and Charlie Hern were still on their tour when I’d finished, so I walked round the shedrow towards Stall 17, which was at the other end of the barn, next to the office.

Stall 17 was the home of the barn star.

Fire Point had his head out over the half-door and he seemed to be taking a special interest in everything around him. Horsemen often talk about a horse having an intelligent head, by which they
mean it is broad with eyes set far apart, a straight profile with ample nostrils. Fire Point’s head was none of those things. It was narrow, slightly dished, and with a small muzzle. However,
his eyes were bright and alert.

‘Wonderful, isn’t he?’ said a voice behind me. I turned. It was Keith. ‘I love redheads,’ he said. ‘He’s like a reincarnated Secretariat.’

It was quite a statement. It was true that both Fire Point and Secretariat were chestnuts, but Secretariat was a legend in racing. Big Red, as he had been nicknamed, didn’t just capture
the 1973 Triple Crown, he destroyed it, completing his trio of wins with an astonishing 31-length victory in the Belmont Stakes, a feat so extraordinary that it reportedly made those watching it
cry.

And now, more than forty years later, Secretariat still held the record times for all three of the Triple Crown legs. He had been quite a horse, maybe the best ever.

I went over to stroke Fire Point but Keith put a hand out to stop me.

‘Mr Raworth doesn’t like anyone going near him. Other than me, that is. I look after him.’

I remembered that it had been Keith I had seen leading Fire Point over from the barns before the Kentucky Derby. Now he looked at the horse almost in awe. Certainly in adoration.

When the trainer’s tour of the barn was over, the grooms lined up at the feed store for Charlie Hern to issue the correct amount of concentrated mixed horse nuts for each
animal.

As a general rule, racehorses eat one pound in weight of mixed feed for every hand high they stand at their withers. Most Thoroughbreds are around sixteen to seventeen hands high so they eat
sixteen to seventeen pounds a day, plus some hay for fibre.

‘Paddleboat,’ I said, getting to the head of the line.

Charlie scooped two large measures of nuts from the feed bin into a black plastic bucket with a large number ‘1’ painted on the side in white. He then poured some thick syrup onto
the food from a stubby brown glass bottle with a white label.

The syrup contained the clenbuterol – it said so on the label. Next, he measured more feed into the buckets marked 2, 3 and 4, for my other horses.

‘Make sure they eat it all up,’ Charlie said.

I took the buckets back to the appropriate stalls, gave the feed to the horses and waited while they ate it. I then checked they all had fresh water before returning the equipment to the
appropriate store. My first evening’s work as a groom was done, and I hadn’t messed up.

Raworth’s six grooms plus Maria and the yard boy went together to the track kitchen for supper.

‘Food good,’ Rafael said to me on the way. ‘Plenty.’

‘Don’t listen to him,’ Maria said. ‘It is garbage. Always full of chilli. Mexicans will eat anything.’

‘Where are you from?’ I asked.

‘Puerto Rico,’ she said.

Hell, I thought. I hope I hadn’t turned down the chance to share a room with her.

‘Are there many Puerto Ricans here?’ I asked.

‘Lots,’ she said. ‘Diego, my cousin.’

She indicated towards one of the others in our group. I smiled at him but it wasn’t reciprocated. He simply glared back at me with cold black eyes.

The eight of us did not eat together as a single unit. Having individually swapped a meal token for food with Bert Squab at the service counter, most went off to sit on their own or with grooms
from other barns. Maria, however, sat down right opposite me.

Cousin Diego clearly wasn’t happy.

He moved to our table, taking the chair right next to Maria. He continued to stare at me, eating his supper without ever looking at it once. I found it rather disconcerting, and Maria
wasn’t happy with him either.

‘Go away,’ she shouted at him in English.

He didn’t like that.

‘
Habla Español,
’ he shouted back at her. ‘
Mantente alejado de este gringo.
’

‘
Púdrete!
’ She stood up and raised her hand as if to strike him but stopped short. She sat down again. ‘
Por favor vete.
’

Diego reluctantly moved away across the gangway, but still he continued to stare.

‘I sorry,’ Maria said, looking down at the table. ‘Diego speak very good English, much better than me, but he still act like he in San Juan. All his friends here from Puerto
Rico. They like control of women. He not like me speak to men not from Puerto Rico.’

‘Do you speak to men not from Puerto Rico often?’ I asked.

She looked up at me and smiled broadly. ‘Only every day.’

I smiled back at her and sensed Diego getting agitated to my left.

We ate for a while in silence. Maybe the food was a little too hot for Maria’s taste, but I liked things spicy and, as Rafael had said, there was plenty of it.

Attached to the track kitchen was a recreation hall and Maria and I went through there after eating. Diego followed. In the hall were some casual seating, a jukebox, two pool tables and five
computer workstations. There was also a large TV currently showing a baseball game between the New York Yankees and the Kansas City Royals.

‘Where’s the bar?’ I asked.

‘No here,’ said Maria. ‘Sometime boys go out to bar but drinking not allowed on backside, although some still do.’ She smiled as if implying that she was one of
those.

‘Is there much else to do?’ I asked.

‘We have classes. English most, but also reading and math.’

‘Hey, Maria,’ shouted one of the young men watching the baseball, ‘come and give us a kiss and a cuddle.’

She raised her middle finger to him but she wandered over to join them nevertheless. Maria clearly enjoyed being the centre of attention.

If possible, Diego looked even less happy.

I, meanwhile, went over to another group of eight grooms gathered at the far end of the hall.

‘May I join you?’ I asked in my best Cork accent.

None of them said anything but two shifted along a bench to make some room. I sat down.

‘I’m new here,’ I said. ‘Name’s Paddy. I’m Irish. I started today, on Raworth’s crew.’

All I received was a few nods.

‘I’ve come from working the barns at Santa Anita,’ I went on, ‘in California.’

I received a couple more nods.

‘How about you?’ I asked, turning to the boy sitting right next to me. ‘Been here long?’

‘A while,’ he said nervously, glancing across at an older man.

‘Where do you come from?’ I asked him.

‘Why do you want to know?’ the older man said sharply. He was probably in his early forties, with slicked-back black hair and a matching goatee, and was clearly the group’s
leader.

‘I’m only being conversational,’ I said.

‘Well, don’t be,’ the man said abruptly. ‘We don’t like people asking questions. Especially about who we are and where we come from. Too many of us are trying to
forget.’

I could see that finding any of Adam Mitchell’s previous grooms was going to be difficult, if not impossible.

This was not the first time I’d come across those with such a sentiment.

I thought of them as victims of a ‘here-and-now’ syndrome – people that exist only for the here and now, without any consideration of their future, and without learning any
lessons from their past.

Many habitual criminals have it. It is not that they enjoy going to jail, they just persistently ignore previous experience and mistakenly believe that it will not happen to them again this
time. The notion that long prison sentences act as a deterrent against criminal behaviour simply does not apply to such people.

In many respects, steeplechase jockeys have exactly the same here-and-now mentality. History should have taught them that future mounts
will
fall and they
will
be seriously
injured, but they live only for the here and now, for the thrill of the race, not contemplating for one second the inevitable agony of broken bones or dislocated shoulders. Once they do, it is time
to retire.

I stood up and went outside to find a quiet corner to call Tony Andretti.

‘Equine viral arteritis,’ Tony said. ‘EVA.’

‘What is that?’

‘It’s a disease caused by a virus. The three horses at Churchill have tested positive for antibodies in their blood. There’s no doubt. It seems it is quite common in some
breeds but less so in Thoroughbreds.’

I’d never heard of it

‘How did they get it?’ I asked.

‘Strictly speaking, according to one of the veterinarians I spoke to, EVA is contagious rather than infectious,’ Tony said. ‘It is a respiratory disease but horses have to have
their noses in contact to pass it on, as the virus exists in their nasal discharges – snot to you and me – rather than in the air. But it can also be transmitted via any nasal droplets
left on shared tack or feed bowls, anything that is moved from one animal to another, as long as it is done immediately.’

‘How long is the incubation period?’

‘Anywhere from three to fourteen days depending on the strain of the virus and the amount transmitted.’

‘That means that one of them couldn’t have given it to the other two because all three went down with it on the same day. So where did it come from initially?’

‘Maybe there was another horse with a mild case of the disease,’ Tony said. ‘It seems that some horses don’t show any clinical symptoms when infected but they still shed
the virus and so can infect others.’

‘Can you find out when those three horses arrived at Churchill Downs and where they stayed when they were there? If you can, find it out for all the Derby runners. See if any were together
in a Stakes Barn.’

‘I’ll contact the Churchill backside manager,’ Tony said. ‘He must have had a list of where each horse was housed to know where to detail the sheriff’s
deputies.’

‘Also try to discover if there’s anything else that might be a common denominator for those three. Perhaps they flew to Louisville on the same flight or something.’

‘OK,’ Tony said. ‘I’ll get on to it. Oh yes, there’s one more thing. We’ve had the results back from the samples taken from Hayden Ryder’s horses after
he was killed in the raid at Churchill. At least half of them were dosed to the eyeballs with the steroid stanozolol and had obviously been running with it in their system.’

‘That’ll be why he was trying to ship them out to Chattanooga.’

‘Stupid man,’ Tony said. ‘Hardly worth dying for.’

I agreed.

‘Anything else?’

‘Not that I can think of at the moment,’ I said. ‘I’ll call you again tomorrow, same time.’

‘I’ll be here.’

I went back into the recreation hall. Maria was now sitting on one of the young men’s laps holding court, and cousin Diego was almost beside himself with rage. Meanwhile, the baseball was
in the bottom of the fifth inning, not that anyone was taking much notice any longer.

There was now a far more interesting game to watch – sexual electricity.

I left them to it.

One of my greatest frustrations at working undercover was that I’d had to leave my laptop and iPhone at Tony’s house – a groom working on minimum wage would never have such
things – and I desperately wanted to do some Internet research on EVA.

I left Maria to her admirers and sat myself at one of the recreation-hall computer workstations, the one at the far end closest to the wall. I angled the screen such that prying eyes could not
see what I was reading.

According to a veterinary website, equine viral arteritis had been first isolated as a separate disease in horses in Ohio in the 1950s, although it had been blighting horses around the world for
centuries. It was easily confused with other equine respiratory diseases such as influenza or herpes, and could be confirmed only by the detection of EVA antibodies in blood.