Sucker for a Horse

I'm just a horse freak. Even though I live in the city and spend most of my life sitting at my desk chainsmoking and writing, I periodically have to get near horses or I start to melt. It's genetic. My parents were nomadic horse trainers. My mom kept on riding up to 24 hours before I popped out of her womb. I came out predisposed to be a girl who's a sucker for a horse.

In this instance, though, I'd fallen for a very expensive horse: Kentucky Derby winner Fusaichi Pegasus, a horse I hated myself for liking. A total blueblood. Cost $4 million as a yearling. One of the things I love about racing is watching an inexpensive horse with a lot of heart suddenly fire and crush his pricey opponents. It's the whole rags-to-riches/underdog thing. The antithesis of the $4 million Pegasus. Whom I resented.

Until I saw him at Aqueduct last spring. His final prep race for the Derby. He was acting up in the saddling paddock, but he was gorgeous. A bay with a beautifully shaped head, a good eye and a fetching white star on his forehead. I begrudgingly bet on him. And swooned over the way he won. Effortless. Cocky. I was smitten. Bet him in the Kentucky Derby and, even going off as the favorite, he quadrupled my money. Then lost his next race, the Preakness. Got taken out of training for months. And nonetheless sold for $60 million as a breeding interest.

I started resenting him again. Found other horses to follow. Forgot all about Pegasus. Until he came back to racing in September. Suddenly, my grudges evaporated. I bet him to win. And he did it again. Effortlessly. Now, he was going to have his last lifetime start in the Breeders' Cup Classic in Louisville, KY.

I happened to know a big strapping Kentucky guy named Martin who lives in Louisville. When I'd initially met him, I'd been living with someone so I hadn't tried to devour him. Now, though, I had no ties. I got off the plane, made it over to a Best Western at the edge of town, changed into my lucky panties, tucked a wad of cash in my bra and waited for Martin to come to pick me up. I warmly hugged him hello. He was bigger than I remembered but still sort of sexy.

Martin is a good soul, going to law school to eventually have a practice defending abused kids. But he can talk. And the minute I got in his car, he started jabbering a mile a minute, distracting me from important prerace focus. I thought about asking him to pull over so I could ravage him and make him shut up. But it might make him peppier still. So I sat there, benign smile on my face as he chirped on. He finally piped down as we parked and trekked over to the track.

And then, catching my first glimpse of those infamous twin spires of Churchill Downs, I got giddy. Then oppressed once we were inside. It was packed. A seething throng. Perfumed hat-wearing harlots and angry tycoons elbowing drunken college kids, toothless drool cases and tight-skirt-wearing chainsmoking dames (me for instance).

I instantly got frustrated. The place was laid out badly and, short of paying $50 for a box seat, there was no way to get a good view of the track. And one of "my" horses, a mare named Beautiful Pleasure, was about to run in the first Breeders' Cup race, the Distaff.

As a big pink-skinned guy spilled beer on my shoe, I trained my binoculars on the crappy video monitor set up above the tote board. My heart jumped into my mouth as the announcer called "THEY'RE OFF!" And sank to my toes when Beautiful Pleasure failed to assume her customary position at the front of the pack. She seemed to be treading water, never got the lead at all. A mare named Spain, who'd gone off at 55-1, took the race.

Martin, who'd bet a longshot?just not the one that came in?looked gloomy.

"You okay?" I asked him.

"Fine," he said tersely.

I don't think Martin was taking to the track. People tend to either love it or hate it.

"You wanna go to the saddling paddock?" I asked him, thinking maybe on the way I'd yank him behind a Port-O-San and molest him to improve our moods.

"What's that?" he asked suspiciously, like I was threatening to tie him up and shove jockeys up his ass.

"The little enclosure where trainers tack their horses up. It's where you can get a good look at the horses before the race."

"No."

I shrugged, bought him a mint julep and went to the paddock without him. I looked over the horses for the next race, the Juvenile Fillies. My money was on She's a Devil Due, a filly two factory workers mortgaged their homes to buy. The guys thought they were buying themselves a decent filly to run claiming races. Maybe, with luck, she'd move up to allowance races. They never dreamed she'd make it to the Breeders' Cup.

It was too crowded to try fighting my way back to the rail so I watched the race on the paddock's video monitor. And wished I had darts to throw at it as She's a Devil Due crossed the wire in third place. A drunk girl standing next to me started jumping up and down, screaming as we watched Caressing, a 45-1 longshot, being led to the winners circle. "I bet her, I bet her," the girl said, to no one in particular.

"Why?" I turned and asked, curious how anyone had the foresight to pick this filly who, on paper, did not appear to have a popsicle's chance in hell.

"Her name. I've been very lonely. I liked the idea of Caressing," the girl said. Then darted off to cash in her ticket, collecting $180-something on a $4 bet.

As I watched the horses getting saddled for the next race, Martin appeared. "You bet on that race?" I asked him.

"Yeah. On Cash Deal. She finished last," he said gloomily.

I bought him another mint julep. We stood in silence, watching the video screen as War Chant and Kona Gold won their races?the only favorites to come in that day. Not that we had money on them.

Now it was time for the Juvenile Colts. I was betting AP Valentine, a two-year-old I'd watched win a tough race at Belmont a few weeks earlier. Today, he was installed as the favorite. And crossed the finish line dead last. I started to take it personally.

I'm one of those minor basket cases who, no matter how violently they fail to communicate with fellow humans, can always communicate with animals. Like 19th-century gangster Monk Eastman. The guy would happily shoot the head off anyone at all but had a soft spot for birds and cats. He'd reportedly walk about his murderous business with a bunch of pigeons on his shoulders and a gaggle of cats trailing behind him. I understand this. I've always felt like I know horses better than people. Not today though.

By the time the turf race went off, I didn't expect shit from "my" horse, John's Call. John's Call had been bought for $4K as a yearling. Then entered in bottom-of-the-barrel steeplechase races. And lost them all. Until one day someone put him in a flat race. And he won. And kept on winning. And now, at the unlikely age of nine (by miles the oldest horse in any of the races) John was a good prospect in the turf race.

As Martin stood at my side, radiating hostility, I watched John's Call race his heart out, getting to the front of the pack early on and gamely outrunning most of his opponents. But not all. He came in third. I sighed. Martin radiated. But all would be redeemed now, in the big race. The Classic.

The crowd was getting tense. The outer rim of the paddock was packed with people trying to get a look at Fusaichi Pegasus, who had not yet appeared. Near his saddling stall stood his owner, Fusao Sekiguchi, a thuggish-looking ponytailed Japanese venture capitalist straight out of central casting. His daughter-in-law at his side, wearing the floppy velvet hat she'd worn on Derby day, when Pegasus had, to most folks' thinking, proved worthy of his $4 million tag.

Finally, Pegasus' trainer, Neil Drysdale, escorted the star into the paddock. The colt looked good. Wasn't acting up. Seemed much more focused than I'd ever seen him. Looking more like the great champion Cigar than the foolish $4 million colt I'd grown to know. As Pegasus paraded by, jockey Kent Desormeaux in the saddle, flashbulbs went off like a thousand hope-filled fireworks. Oohs and aahs rose in pleased crescendos.

Martin and I fought our way toward the track. As the crowd roared and the announcer called "They're off!" we wedged our way into a view of the first stretch, where we got an eyeful of the rodeo that was going on by the race's first turn. Most of the 13 horses were packed together, bumping into each other, struggling to find daylight. I trained my binoculars onto the video monitor as the colts turned for the backstretch. Pegasus was stuck in the pack, about 15 lengths behind the dueling leaders. I focused on his lovely bay head, waiting to see that determined look come into his eye and shoot him to the head of the pack. But all he did was glance around, like he was surprised to find himself in a horse race.

By the time he finally remembered how to hit the accelerator, it was too late. Tiznow, a horse who'd never won a race before May 31, crossed the finish line first. Pegasus finished sixth.

My heart fell into my shoes. I was depressed. Martin seemed suicidal. He drove me back to the Best Western. Gave me a stiff-armed hug and, the moment I'd stepped out of the car, pulled into reverse and drove away as fast as he could.

Back in my room, I threw all my losing betting slips on the floor, stripped off my clothes and lay facedown on the shag orange carpet, vowing to give up on racing. From now on, I'd content myself with visits to my mom's in Maryland where, if I'm good and don't chainsmoke in the house, she lets me ride one of the horses she trains, a 12-year-old thoroughbred named Oat Bran Blues, aka Muley, a huge, sweet, not-so-bright bay gelding whose racing career was not particularly glamorous. We make a perfect pair.