ANOTHER DOSE OF REALITY... getting better (Part 58e)

I saw a well dressed middle aged man step out of the van portion of the truck. He looked more like a trainer than a groom (caretaker). I walked up to him and introduced myself and he told he his name was Will and then walked away and over to the open stalls. My first thoughts were that he was another “Chit”, Dan’s number one groom who was also a silent type. It wouldn’t make my job any easier but I wasn’t going to let it bother me. He went back into the van and carried out a bale of straw which he carried into the first open stall. I took the lead from him and did the same. He started spreading the straw preparing the stall for the horse. I continued unloading the straw and hay but when I went to put a bale of straw into one of the other open stalls he told me to stop as it all belonged to “Steve”. I was puzzled. I asked him what I was supposed to do for the other two horses and he just shrugged his shoulders. I could see that this was going to be an interesting arrangement. Fortunately, the other two horses arrived with enough supplies for me to get them bedded down for the night.

I had “assumed” that I would be sharing the tack room at the end of the barn. When I walked into the room for the first time Will asked me what I wanted. He’d arranged all of his things, which included a small chest, a small stuffed chair and a standing lamp, in such a way that even if I had a bed there was no way to place it without him having to move some of his belongings. Without saying it he had made it clear that this was his private domain.

I hadn’t seen any races at this track in over four years and was anxious to go that night. Even though I had no place to sleep I still wanted to go. As I looked over the program I saw that Super Steve was entered for the following night which was a complete surprise. Mr S hadn't said anything about it. The very best horses raced in a class designated as “Free for All”. Because only the best of horses raced at the city tracks their classifications trended towards the higher end of the scale. The next lower class was the Junior Free for All and then went on down to A1, A2, B1, B2, B3 and C1. At the tracks where I had raced the majority of the horses stabled at the track were in the C1 to C3 level. At the city tracks the majority of horses were in the B level and the two horses I was caring for were graded B3 and C1. I was guessing but I pretty much figured that track management had “accommodated” Mr S by allowing them to race there so they could have the benefit of Super Steve in their Saturday night featured Free for All race.

By seeing “Super” entered the next night told me that Mr S would be there and we'd be able to work out the situation with Will. I chose to sleep in my car than to make a fuss. That was another surprise. Not to drag this out but the “deal” was that Will was a relative of Steve’s owner and pretty much called the “shots“ as far as what he did and didn’t do... which wasn’t much. The best advice that Mr S could give me was to have as little to do with him as possible other than training Steve and helping out in the paddock on race night. Of course that meant that night. I was excited about seeing the horse race but not excited about working with Will.

Even though I’d worked as a groom and taken hundreds of horses to the paddock on race nights it didn’t mean a thing as Will felt it necessary to instruct me on every little thing that had to be done. It was almost laughable but I held my tongue wanting to please Mr S. Steve drew an outside post (The higher number the farther from the inside rail you were. Inside positions were always an advantage.) and his big rival, Adios B drew the rail (#1) position. At the finish he beat Steve by about a foot. It was really exciting and I couldn’t wait until the next Saturday.

During the evening Mr S went over with Will and I as to how he wanted Steve trained the following Wednesday. Will stood there with a sour look on his face and I wondered what would happen when it came training day. I also got instructions on what to do with the other two horses but I knew I didn’t have to worry about being challenged when training them.

A new ”fact of life“ happened on Sunday, supposedly our day off. All we had to do was clean the stalls, curry the horses and give them a walk. However, because of the ”celebrity” status of Steve there were all sorts of visitors to see him. Will was in all his glory as he would take Steve out of his stall and parade him around. I mentioned in an earlier post that I had gotten into the “confirmation” aspect of Standard Bred horses and had felt that Dan’s horse, Goldy, although bred to be a trotter, had the confirmation of a pacer. As Will paraded Steve around I kept looking at him and, at least to my eye, there wasn’t anything outstanding about him. If he’d been in a field of 20 or so horses you wouldn’t have picked him out as being special. It reinforced to me that it was his name that got the attention.

One of the “visitors” was the trainer of the other 21 horses stabled in the same barn. He introduced himself as "Antney". It was totally obvious that he was a “city boy”. Of course his name was Anthony but from that day on he was always “Antney”. He was very personable and we hit it off from the start. We chatted for well over an hour and by the end of that time he knew my history with horses and I knew his. When I mentioned that it was my goal to drive in some races at the track he threw out a “bone” and said that if it was OK with Mr S (he called him that as well) that he could probably arrange it. THAT really caught my attention.

To be continued...