That Summer (12 page)

Half an hour before the eighth race—the Derby—was to be run, Liam and I made our way out to the backside. We stood with Buster as he was saddled up and taken to the paddock.

“He looks marvelous,” I said to Liam.

And he did, but he wasn't getting any attention. All of the crowd's attention was on Baffert's big bay horse, Honor Bright. “Hah,” Liam said. “All of these people are in for a big surprise.”

Buster tossed his head as if he agreed. Then the call went out:“Riders up!”

All around the paddock, trainers began to give their jockeys a leg up. There was Jerry Bailey in crimson and gold on Honor Bright, then Gary Stevens on Epic Challenge and Kent Desormeaux on River Rush. Jorge Chavez blessed himself before vaulting into the saddle of Tango With Me. John gave Miles a leg up, and the line of splendid horseflesh began to move toward the paddock exit.

The owners, trainers and grooms followed the horses, and Liam and I joined the crowd as we moved out of the paddock and into the tunnel that would take us to the track. As we passed through the darkness of the tunnel I sent up a prayer, I
know I shouldn’t pray about such an unimportant thing as a horse race when people are suffering and dying, but please, Dear God, let Buster win!

We came out into the sunlight at the end of the tunnel and the horses moved onto the track where each was picked up by an outrider. They began to trot down the track in front of the grandstand. The University of Kentucky marching band struck up “My Old Kentucky Home.”

I got goose bumps. All around me people were singing,
“Weep no more my lady, Oh weep no more today. I will sing a song of my old Kentucky Home, of my old Kentucky home far away.”

Liam said to me as we pushed through the crowd to get to our box, “There were 36,152 thoroughbred foals registered with the Jockey Club the year that Buster was born.”

“Wow,” I said. “What are the odds of any one of them getting to the Derby?”

“Very low.”

I bit my lip. “I can't stand this. I think I'm going to be sick.”

“Don't you dare desert me now.”

I clutched Liam's arm. “I can't bear to watch.”

He gave me a hug. “We'll know soon.” John Ford and his wife arrived in the box but, aside from a quick smile, none of us spoke. All of our attention was on the glossy chestnut colt wearing the number nine.

The horses had finished their parade up the track and now they turned and headed back toward the starting gate. I watched Buster cantering down the track, his face pulled over the withers of the sensible quarter horse that was leading him. He seemed perfectly calm. Much calmer than I.

My whole body felt frozen with tension. I could tell Liam was the same. They started loading the horses into the gate and we looked at each other. I moved a fraction of an inch closer to him, then we both returned our focus to Buster, who was waiting patiently to be loaded. My dad had taught him well.

One of the assistant starters took hold of his bridle and another assistant got his flank and he walked quietly into the gate. The door closed behind him.

For one moment that seemed frozen in time, all of the horses were in their stalls, poised to erupt into full flight. Then the bell went off, the gate sprang open and the horses surged forward. The Kentucky Derby had begun.

I lifted my field glasses and tried to pick Buster out from the pack of horses crowding the field.

“Shit,” Liam said. “He got bumped on his way out of the gate.”

“He has plenty of time to make it up,” John Ford said.

We watched amidst the noise of the crowd as the field sorted itself out. Tango With Me ran to the front, as expected, followed by Enzo and Kerry's Way. The three set a scorching pace. A few lengths behind were Honor Bright, Point Taken and Mileaminute. Behind them came the rest of the field, including Buster.

“Christ, they're going fast,” Liam muttered as the front runners passed the first quarter pole.

The early speed on the front could be a good thing for the horses in the second tier, like Honor Bright. It simply wasn't possible for the horses on the lead to maintain that pace over a mile and a quarter; they were sure to fade and leave the track open for the horses that had been lying just off the pace.

A few moments later, the announcer informed us that the third tier of horses, in which Buster was running, was fourteen lengths behind the leaders.

I said, “Damn. He's too far back. And he's in the middle!”

“Miles is going to get caught in traffic if he doesn't watch himself,” Liam said tensely.

As if he had heard Liam's words, Miles angled forward, slid between two horses in front of him, and got himself open on the outside part of the track.

“He's free,” I cried.

Buster began to pass the horses in the third group that were in front of him.

The horses headed into the second turn and Tango With Me, who had set a blistering pace on the lead, began to tire. He dropped back, as did the horses that had been running with him, and the horses in the second tier, Honor Bright, Point Taken and Mileaminute, caught and passed them and moved into the lead.

For a fraction of a mile, the three horses raced together. Then Honor Bright pulled away to the front, running on the rail. The crowd was screaming for the favorite as he began to pull away from the field.

The original front running horses were fading fast, and Buster caught and passed them on the turn. When he came off the turn there were three horses in front of him: Honor Bright, Point Taken, and the fading Mileaminute.

“Here it is,” Liam shouted to me. “Miles has done his job. Now it's up to Buster.”

My eyes were glued to the bright chestnut colt on the outside who now was thundering down the stretch, his long stride eating up the ground. Buster caught and passed Mileaminute as if he wasn't even moving.

I was jumping up and down and screaming, “Go Buster! Go!”

“Honor Bright's still running hard,” Liam said.

“Honor Bright is toast,” I said.

As I spoke, Buster caught Point Taken and passed him.

“Come on Buster!” I shrieked.

“Go, go, go!” Liam was yelling.

Honor Bright was not giving up, but Buster was closing in on him fast. There was a very long moment when Buster caught him and for a few seconds the two horses ran head to head, eye to eye.

“Come on, fella!” Liam shouted. “Come on!”

As if he had heard his owner, Buster began to pull away. One-hundred-and-twenty-five-thousand voices screamed as, all by himself, Buster crossed the finish line, the winner of the Kentucky Derby.

Pandemonium erupted in our box. I threw my arms around Liam's waist and hugged him. “We won,” I kept saying. “We won.”

He bent his head and kissed me. His eyes looked as blue as the sky in his suntanned face. “Oh Annie,” he said. “Oh Annie.”

I grinned up at him.

“Congratulations,” John Ford said to Liam, extending his hand. Liam ignored the hand and gave John a hug.

“You did a great job, Johnnie. A great job.”

Mrs. Ford and I were hugging each other and doing a jig at the same time. My hat had fallen off.

Several security men came into the box and told John that they were there to escort him and the rest of Buster's connections to the winner's circle. Liam and I held hands as we fought our way through the crowd to the horseshoe-shaped enclosure that was used only once a year.

I tried to catch my breath and calm down before we entered the winner's circle, but it was impossible. Liam looked at me and laughed. “Your hat is crooked.”

I straightened it. “Okay now?”

“Okay.”

It was chaos in the winner's box. The television cameras and mics and reporters took up half the space. “Mr. Wellington.” It was a local news reporter. “How does it feel, having the Kentucky Derby winner?”

It was a stupid question, but I guess he had to ask it.

“It feels great,” Liam said. “I bred that horse myself, and I'm very proud of him.”

“Why isn't your father, the senator, here today?”

“He had other commitments,” Liam said evenly.

A roar went up from the crowd as the winning time was posted. It was under two minutes; Buster had just run the third fastest Derby in history.

“Wow,” I said.

“Pennyroyal's baby did us proud,” Liam said. His eyes were very bright.

A television reporter put an arm around Liam and pulled him in front of the camera. “How does it feel to win the Kentucky Derby?”

“It feels great,” Liam said.

“When did you know you had it won?”

“When he made his move and started passing horses. It was the same move he made in the Florida Derby. I thought we had it won then.”

Someone called “Sandy! We're ready to present the trophy.”

“Come on,” the TV person told us and we followed him over to the stand that had been set up. Buster was wearing the blanket of red roses that signified the winner. The governor of Kentucky was standing ready to present the trophy. We all went to take our places and the silver trophy, topped with a horse draped in a ruby-studded shawl, was placed in Liam's hands.

“This couldn't have happened without the work of John Ford,” Liam said into the microphone. “Wellington Farm bred this horse and raised him but he wouldn't be a Kentucky Derby winner if it wasn't for John.”

A cheer went up from all the Kentuckians, many of whom had bet on Buster because he was the only Kentucky-trained horse in the race.

“Will you be going to the Preakness?” the TV man asked. The Preakness was the second race in the Triple Crown.

“If he's healthy.”

My God,
I thought.
This craziness isn’t over. Buster is now a potential Triple Crown winner. He has to run in the Preakness in two weeks.

The television cameras were turned off, Buster was led back to his stall for a well-deserved bath and feed, and the rest of us prepared to troop off to the press conference that had been arranged for the Derby winner's connections.

“How about dinner afterward?” Liam asked John Ford.

“We'd love to,” the trainer answered.

So that was what we did. After the press conference we went back to the hotel to freshen up, and to leave my hat behind, and then we met the Fords at a restaurant John knew.

We were all high before we even had a drink. “You did a perfect job with him,” Liam said. “You did exactly right.”

John tried not to look too pleased. “I know that everyone is in love with speed right now, but speed asked for too early in training can burn a horse out. As I've said a million times before, the Derby is an endurance race. So is the Belmont. The Preakness is another story.”

“Do you think he'll be ready for the Preakness?”

“I hope so. I'll be able to tell you more in a week.”

“Let's not worry about the future,” I said. “Let's just celebrate the present. Out of the thirty odd thousand foals registered the year Buster was born, he was the one who won the Kentucky Derby.”

“That calls for a drink of champagne,” Liam said. He had ordered a bottle for the table.

We all raised our glasses. “To Buster,” Liam said. “To Buster,” we all echoed.

We had a nice dinner; the Fords were very pleasant people and the men got drunk on several bottles of champagne.

“It's a good thing we can walk to our hotel,” I told Liam.

“What would you have done if we couldn't?” he asked.

“I would have driven.”

“My guardian angel,” he said.

“What?”

“That's what you've always been,” he said. “And my good luck charm too.”

There were many things I wanted to be to Liam, and an angel and a charm were not included in the list.

“Come on,” I said. “A walk will do us good. Help to clear our heads before we go to bed.”

“Okay.”

He was walking perfectly straight, but he had drunk three quarters of a bottle of champagne and I didn't think he was really sober.

We said goodbye to the Fords, who were driving back to their farm. I noticed it was Lorraine Ford who got behind the wheel. John had been celebrating as much as Liam.

The fresh air felt good and we walked in silence along the streets of Louisville.

The first thing we saw as we came into our hotel room was the message light blinking on the telephone. Liam pushed the button and the first of twenty-three messages came over the wire.

We listened for a while. Then, “Good grief,” I said. “Every person you've ever met must have sent you congratulations.”

“It does seem that way.”

There was one notable absence. There was no word from Liam's father.

“He'll be furious he missed it,” Liam said. “What an opportunity to have his picture taken.”

“Why didn't he come?”

Liam shrugged. “Who knows? He probably didn't want to be associated with a loser.”

I was silent. Liam's indifference was even more damning than bitterness would have been. Liam truly didn't care what his father did. As if he was reading my mind he said, “ I miss your dad, Annie. He was more of a father to me than my own father ever was.”

I thought of the many hours Liam had spent in my house, doing his homework, watching my mom bake a cake, or playing cards with Mom, Daddy and me. His only exposure to normal family life was with my family. His own was almost classically dysfunctional.

“Too bad your mom didn't come,” he said now, as if he had been following my thinking. “She would have had a good time.”

“I think she's avoiding things that remind her too vividly of Daddy. That's why she was anxious to move. The house has too many memories.”

“You can't run away from grief, Annie. I know that for a fact.”

He was very grave.

I kicked off my high heels and wiggled my feet. “Ah. My poor feet. I haven't worn heels in years.”

“They look very nice,” he said. “You have great legs, Annie.”

His tone was fraternal.
At least he noticed,
I thought.

I went into the bathroom to change and came out in my pajamas. I
should have worn a sexy nightgown,
I thought. But then, I didn't own a sexy nightgown.

I went over to the bed and got in, plumping up my pillow so I could sit up against it. He smiled at me, his eyes as blue as sapphires.