It had been about a week since Ralph's stroke. Little by little he was improving but there was no way he was going to make it to the first Triple Crown race. The early spring breeze wafted through the barn as I brushed Fire down after our light jog. I looked into Fire's eyes his large soulful ones returning the gaze.
"Dude, if we lose this tomorrow then I'm not going to be a happy camper." I said threateningly.
He whickered gently and nuzzled his nose into the palm of my hand.
"The big blonde man that feeds you carrots, when he really shouldn't, is the man that I am in love with. I could never forgive myself if I lost the very first race." I brushed some of Fire's chestnut hair off of my jacket.
He bobbed his head up and down, in acknowledgement of my threat to him.
"That's a good horse," I whisper and place the final brush back in the tack-box.
I hear Gavin enter the barn through the side door. He's talking rapidly on his phone ordering whoever is on the other side to make sure the feed is delivered on time. I grimace as his voice raises an other octave.
"The feed has to be delivered by nine-thirty tomorrow morning because after that no ones going to be here to pay for and accept the feed... No I can't make anyone wait around it's race day and we have to be at about four different tracks... Yes, my girlfriends racing in the Triple Crown.... Yes, I need to be there." He grumbles a bit more and then I hear a click and silence.
"Gavin?" I call and I hear his boots clomp down the aisle.
"Yes Avery?" he says coming around the door dressed in his barn clothes.
" Is your dad getting you to organize the jockeys and horses for the races he's missing?" I ask.
" Yeah," he says and pulls a sheaf of papers from a folder set outside the stall.
"Do you want me to get the horses for tomorrow organized into the loading stalls?" I ask.
"Sure, I need to call the jockeys for tomorrow just to make sure they're all good for tomorrow." he says and I leave the stall.
I enter the office and pick a sheet up off the desk. Three horses going to Ellis Park, two are going to Keeneland and one is going to Turfway Park. I quickly ran over the list of horses going to the races tomorrow. Six horses needed to be put in the easy access loading stalls. I exited the office with the sheet in my hand.
I entered Duke's Pride's stall and grabbed the navy lead rope from the front of his stall. He swung his long bay head around and rubbed it on my shoulder.
"Perfect, thank-you," I said appraising the art of horse snot, drool and hair he left on my arm.
I led him to the first loading stall and picked up a blue whiteboard marker. I quickly marked: DUKE'S PRIDE. RIDER: ALAN ALVAREZ. TRACK: TURFWAY PARK.
I hurried around the stable and collected Midnight Tango and French Reverie for Keeneland. Now I had the pleasure of collecting the biggest, fastest and most head strong horses we had for the ruthless Ellis Park races. My tiny frame made it's way towards the end of the aisle where Negative Reassurance was housed. His massive gray body required a larger stall as did Dancing with Shadows, Double Spade and All Aces. Ralph had decided weeks before the accident that today he'd play the big guns. I took the horses one at a time and managed to fit them in the smaller stalls.
Brushing stray horse hairs off of my pants I made my way back to the office where I could hear Gavin on the phone. I entered the office and he looked up from the computer on the desk he smiled at me and returned to his phone conversation. I took a seat at the desk and kicked my feet up. When Gavin finally clicked the phone off I sat up straighter.
YOU ARE READING
FLY
Teen FictionI had a dream but I was being held back. I had A life I wanted to live. I ran and I never looked back. I don't regret it, not one second of it. It was hard but I kept going. I failed over and over, but never gave up.
