The Trojan Colt Read Online Free PDF

Tony had gone off to—and, more importantly, why. He had to know that this would be a black mark against him, that no one hires a groom who walks off in the middle of the night, and since he was too big to be a jockey and too poor to be an owner and not anywhere skilled enough to be a trainer, how the hell was he going to find work in this sport that he so clearly loved?
    I thought about it until my coffee turned cold and then walked back to the barn. Jamie had finished rubbing Trojan down and was feeding him a carrot when I arrived.
    â€œWelcome back,” he said. “Hope you ate well.”
    â€œAs well as can be expected at a backstretch kitchen,” I replied. “I’ll be here ’til the auction if you want to go grab some breakfast.”
    He smiled. “You’re new to the track, ain’tcha?”
    â€œTo all of it except the two-dollar windows,” I said.
    â€œI know. Around here, the day starts at sun-up. Most of the trainers, grooms, and jocks you see had breakfast three hours ago and are starting to think about lunch.”
    â€œThank God I won’t be here long enough to get used to those hours,” I said devoutly, and he laughed.
    â€œWell, you don’t see any of the owners around in the mornings, either,” said Jamie.
    Somehow it seemed a little early to read the thriller I’d taken to bed the night before, so I picked up some of the racing magazines Tony had been reading and started thumbing through them. I didn’t see any ads for the top sires, the champions I remembered from the racetrack, but that figured: they were booked years ahead, so why spend the money on ads? Actually, more than half of the ads were for yearlings that were being sold in the next few days, which certainly made sense. I wondered how many of them would ever be heard of again after the first of the year, the arbitrary birthday of all racehorses. And then I wondered if Tony Sanders would ever be heard of again either. Hell, kids walked off jobs all the time, but there was just something about his face the night before that bothered me. He didn’t look bored, or lustful, or high. He looked scared, or at least worried.
    I spent a couple of hours trying not to think about him. Thoroughbred Weekly had a fascinating article listing the all-time biggest busts—starting with that thirteen-million-dollar half brother to Seattle Slew who never won a race, and juxtaposing them to the list of the greatest bargains. Twenty-five thousand for John Henry looked pretty good, given that he won over six million, but of course he was a gelding and his earnings stopped the day he left the track. The trick was to buy something like Storm Bird and collect eighty million a year in stud fees.
    Anyway, I didn’t even notice the time passing by until one of the sales officials stopped at the stall and told Jamie to get Tyrone ready, that he’d be sending an escort over in a couple of minutes, and then they’d all walk to the sales pavilion together.
    â€œPersonally,” he added, “I think it makes more sense to put the cream of the crop up at night, where fans can watch the auction on streaming video, but two of the people who want to bid on this colt asked for an afternoon auction, since they won’t be here tonight. They could use proxies to do their bidding, of course—I mean, hell, we’ve been doing that for the better part of a century—but I guess they’re business rivals and each wants to gloat over the other if he wins the auction.”
    Then he was gone, and Jamie ran a brush over Tyrone one last time and attached a lead shank to the halter.
    â€œI’ve gone over every inch of him,” he told me, “and there ain’t so much as a pimple. I say he brings close to two mil.”
    â€œI’ve heard higher guesses than that,” I said.
    â€œThat’s because he’s the first Trojan colt ever to enter the ring,”