WORKING... and the reality of it (Part 52a)

As well as my private life was going it certainly wasn’t the same for my work. It was a bit of a shock to realize that it was a lot different now than when I was working during the Summers because now I had to. A lot of the annoying things that I’d had to do when working with AJ during the previous Summers I was able to handle because, on the whole, working with the horses was “fun”. I was rapidly coming to the realization that all those things would be around as long as I chose this life as my profession.

As I’d mentioned before I was disappointed that I wasn’t getting to drive in more races. I told you that a couple of the owners now fancied themselves as “drivers” and were driving their horses in the races thereby cutting AJ out of money that he counted on to help pay me. That, in turn, was forcing AJ to drive horses that I might’ve had the opportunity to race.

Because the stable was so large there weren’t any free nights except for Sundays when the horses weren’t racing. There were nights when what I wanted more than anything was to stay home with Elle and the baby but I had to work. There were very few nights that Elle was up when I finally got home. Yes, I did get “some”, but it was a lot more fun to go to bed at the same time as she did.

In an earlier post I had told of wanting to get to know Carol’s (she of the 59 Chevy Impala) father Andy and it came about in a rather unique way. AJ had decided to let me drive a horse that he hadn’t had any success with. I ended up finishing third and was pretty proud of myself being that it was the longest shot in the race. After dismounting I was walking back up the chute into the paddock when I felt something tapping me on my shoulder. I turned to see it was Andy tapping me with his whip. He also had a horse in the same race. I stopped and as he walked up to me he said with a definite French Canadian accent, “You coulda won that race.” It was a bit of a comedown for me after thinking I’d done so well. Remembering that I wanted to become a friend I let my hurt feelings slide. What he ended up telling me was really good advice and I was sincere with my thanks.

The next night he walked up to me and asked if the horse AJ had in the second race “had a chance”. That was a code for asking a driver if he thought he could win. I told Andy that AJ (and I) thought he would. As he walked away he said that his horse in the first race also ”had a chance“. I quickly looked up old Mose, the paddock worker who would take our bets and place them over at the grandstand, to bet the Daily Double ($2 bet on the winner of both the 1st and 2nd race) As I remember it I got back around $20. More important was that Andy and I now were on the same page.

Over the next week I spent more time chatting with Andy than I did with AJ. One night he told me that an owner he had trained for in years past was interested in getting back into the business. He was looking at a horse that was racing at a track about 2 1/2 hours away. Out of the blue he asked if there was any chance that I could join him when he went to look at the horse. Of course I was flattered... but pretty much knew AJ wouldn’t let me. I told him to let me know when he was going and I’d let him know. For once luck was with me as the day he chose we only had one horse racing. I picked my spot and asked AJ if I could have the night off. I didn’t tell him why and he didn’t ask and he said ”yes“.

Andy had worked it out that we would go on a night that the horse was racing. He wanted to have a chance to sit behind him during the early warm ups as well as to see him actually race. Andy said he’d pick me up around one pm and when the car pulled up I saw his daughter, Carol, driving. I’d assumed that it would be just Andy and I and that I would share the driving with him. I went around to the passenger side and got in the back seat. Andy introduced me to Carol and then, sort of embarrassed, explained that he couldn’t drive as his license had been suspended. Carol, who worked as a nurse, worked the midnight to 8am shift didn’t want to take a chance in driving back that night so I was to be the ”relief driver“. That was fine by me.

I found Carol to be a really nice person. The time that I’d seen her at the laundromat her hair was down to her shoulders but today it was tied back in a pony tail. She had a pretty face and, from where I sat, a pretty fair body. She was wearing a blouse and shorts and even from the back seat I could see that she was, indeed, very well endowed. Most of the conversation was about me and my background. When we arrived at the track we went right to the barn where the horse Andy was to look at was stabled. The groom was getting the horse ready to take to the paddock which gave Andy the time to go over the horse to see if any of his critical areas were sore. While he was doing that the man who was intending to buy the horse arrived and he and Andy went into ”conference mode“ leaving Carol and I to chat.

She was very candid and told me that Andy had taken a liking to me. She also told me that Andy had always been a ”drinker“ but when her mother died he pretty much fell into the bottle. He wrecked his car and got hurt and that was when she decided to step in. They’d been together for about 9 months and even though he hadn’t had a drink in that whole time she still worried about him. She chose the midnight shift so that if he did fall off the wagon she would be able to keep him from trying to race while drunk and possibly lose his trainer/driver license. It was obvious that she cared deeply about him.

To be continued...