Raja, Story of a Racehorse Read online

  “I like it! Raja, it is. Bob, will you see about registering that name?”

  “Of course, sir, I’d be happy to.”

  One of the men in dark glasses approached. “Sheikh, I’m sorry to interrupt, but the Senator is waiting for you. It’s time to leave.”

  “We’ll be right there, thank you.”

  Princess Ayesha looked at me and smiled warmly, “Good bye, Raja.”

  The Sheikh, Bob, and the dark-clothed men followed her gaze. Surprised, I raised my head sharply. Pretending to be indifferent but secretly liking the attention, I looked off in the distance at a movement — a man trimming a hedge a field away. All eyes were on me. I stamped, spun and galloped away, causing a stampede of foals and mothers, long broodmare manes flying, hooves pounding the ground like a hundred hammers.

  Max, the big bay colt, and Shadrach — Shaddy, he liked to be called — were my best friends. But that didn’t mean we were always nice. That’s just the way it is in a herd. Someone has to be boss. If one of the other foals tried to butt in, I pinned my ears back and kicked them, or bit their neck — to let them know they were out of line.

  “Come here,” my mother called in a tone that meant NOW. “You weren’t bred to be a bully. Remember, class shows. Our relatives have won every major race in the world. You have greatness in you. It’s your destiny. Always remember that.”

  Her tone softened and her big brown eyes held me. “Always try your best. If you don’t, you could be sold.”

  SOLD?

  “Every time you step into a horse van your life could change. You never know, you might be sold. We’re lucky, but bad owners and trainers can hurt you. People punish you when you don’t understand them, even if you are trying to do what you think they want. Usually you just have to guess.”

  She nudged me gently. “Remember this always: even when life is hard, never, ever give up.”

  Faster, FASTER!

  No one could beat me if I really tried. Sometimes I let Max win, but I was faster and he knew it, always pushing me and trying to catch me out unexpectedly so that he could win. Of course, only winning counts; second or third is losing, every racehorse knows that. That’s why we try so hard.

  Go hard or go home.

  Max sometimes won our play races on sheer willpower. He could outlast anyone. He wanted it so badly. It was quite amazing, really — mental toughness, Bob called it. That’s why he was my best friend. He hated to lose.

  Shaddy didn’t think the same way. An old soul in a bright young chestnut body, he loved to sleep, even more than the older broodmares. Even though he was relaxed — lazy, really, if you want to know the truth — he could get the job done. Every once in a while he would be right there with us as we galloped up the hill, but he didn’t see the point in working too hard. He just smiled when we teased him, as if he had more important things to worry about than winning.

  What could be more important than winning?

  The day after the Sheikh’s visit, Princess Ayesha walked into our field. I smelled her first — gardenias and another sweet smell. I stood still, on guard. She walked slowly, holding out her hand, crinkling something.

  What does she want?

  I held my breath, standing motionless. She came closer, blowing on my nose in greeting. I watched her warily. She inched forward, slowly.

  Suddenly she breathed in, holding her breath with a finger under her nose.

  A-CHOO!

  I spun, then sprinted to the top of the hill.

  The next day was the same. She held out a pink-and-white, sweet-smelling offering. I ignored it but it did smell good. I let her get a little closer before snorting and galloping off. On the third day, I let her get close enough to place her hand on my neck. I froze, but let her stroke me. I sniffed the treat in her hand and licked it — delicious — then picked it up in my mouth, letting the sweetness linger on my tongue. Letting out the breath that I had been holding in a rumbling sigh, I rubbed my head on her shoulder.

  After that, she came every day. When I saw her, I trotted up to her and rubbed my head on her shoulder, then nosed her hand, looking for my treat.

  “Hello Raja, my sweet. Here’s your peppermint. Did you have to get gunk on my new white shirt? I should know better than to wear white around horses. Oh well, I don’t care, but my mother will kill me. Ugh! I have to have dinner with my grandmother tonight and be formal and polite. All I want to do is to hang out with you and the other foals.” I nudged her hand again.

  “You greedy thing,” She laughed, holding another peppermint out to me. Princess Ayesha flicked her well-brushed, waist-long black hair behind her ear, her row of colored glass bangles on her arm shimmering in the late afternoon sunlight.

  She suddenly hugged me, whispering into my ear, “Raja, you’re the only one I can really talk to. I never know if people really like me for me for myself or whether they just like me because my father is a Sheikh. We’re alike, you know. We’re both prisoners. People wish they could have what I have, but I wish I could be a normal teenager. I’m 16. I should have a little freedom.” She looked me in the eye, patting my neck gently and hugging me.

  “You’re my only true friend. You don’t care if I’m rich or poor. I can be dirty and silly and it doesn’t make a difference to you. You’re the most perfect thing in the universe and I will always love you.”

  She found the shade of the big tree by the gate, sat down on a root and started to sing, lulling me to sleep as the sun tickled grass waved in the breeze and puffy clouds floated across the sky.

  “Don’t worry, about a thing, ’cause every little thing is gonna be alright,”she sang.

  Bob walked up to us and leaned against the fence as the pink and orange sky began to darken, watching quietly and smiling.

  Ayesha jumped up, a little flustered. “Bob, I didn’t see you; you startled me.”

  “Cute aren’t they? I love watching them.”

  She reached out gently to touch my forehead. Then she gasped, “Bob, look! Raja has the ‘Mark of the Chieftain.’ See the way his hair grows? The three whorls? I can’t believe I didn’t notice it earlier.”

  “The Mark of the Chieftain, eh? Sounds like some Arabian hooey to me,” Bob teased. “In my 30 years with horses, I’ve never heard of it.”

  She traced my forehead again, more slowly this time. “It’s very, very rare. According to Bedouin legend, horses with the mark change history. They attain great glory or meet great despair. You never know which it’s going to be. At least that’s what my grandfather told me.”

  “You should have seen his daddy win the Kentucky Derby, Princess. What an incredible horse. This little fella’s got the genes for greatness, there’s no doubt about that. He’d better be destined for glory. By the time he gets to the races, a lot of money will have been spent to get him there. If he doesn’t show something, he’ll be sold.”

  “My father would never sell him.”

  “Don’t be so sure, Princess. Racing is a business, plain and simple. It’s a beautiful sport, but you can’t be sentimental if you want to win at the highest levels. Your father knows that more than anyone.”

  2

  Youngbloods

  September, Ocala, Florida

  “That one. The big black colt over there.” Bob pointed toward me. “Of all of the weanlings, he’s something special. Watch him trot. He floats — like a ballet dancer crossed with an F16 fighter jet.”

  I showed off, arching my neck and flashing my feet as I trotted. Bob leaned against the fence watching us, his faded jeans and scuffed cowboy boots dusty from the day and his well-used bandana hanging out of his back pocket. His friend, Michelle, stood next to him, with Piewacket and Muttley, her Jack Russell terriers, at her feet, devotedly following her every move with quick, alert ears.

  “He’s going to win the Kentucky Derby. It’s destiny. Princess Ayesha even told me he has ‘special whorls’ that say so, see?” He pointed at my forehead, smiling.

  “Bob, don’t poo
-poo that — some people swear by reading horse’s whorls. Maybe there’s something to it. I don’t know much about them, but I agree. He’s a nice colt.” Michelle’s blond ponytail bobbed as she jumped up in a single athletic motion to sit on the fence and watch me. I felt her focus, first uncomfortable at such intimacy, then settling into her admiring gaze. Her intensity surprised me as we connected more like two horses, direct and honest and wordless, straight to the heart.

  “Seriously, Bob, he’s got charisma. The good ones always do. My horse, Holzmann, has it, and your colt reminds me of him.”

  “The one who won the silver at the Olympics?”

  Michelle nodded. “Raja has the same look of intelligence. They call it the ‘look of eagles.’ I think Raja wants to be a jumper and take me back to the Olympics,” she laughed.

  “Way-ell, now,” Bob drawled, a sly smile creeping across his face as he scratched his ear and pushed his cap forward over his forehead, “and how would you pay for the millions he would cost without sending him to stud?”

  December, a year later, Ocala, Florida

  “El peligroso,” the dangerous one. That’s what the stable hands called Max after two of them were sent to the doctor with injuries from his well-aimed hooves. I suppose every riding horse has to go through it, but I’m not saying it was fun. Almost everything was just plain uncomfortable: learning to wear tack — heavy, tickly saddles and bridles with heavy cold metal bits in our mouths; having our hooves trimmed by the farrier; and walking up a ramp into a stall on wheels, the horse van.

  We tolerated most things now that we were almost two, living in the barn and being “broken in,” but it was all slightly trying, especially for Max, who definitely didn’t like being told what to do.

  “You gotta outwait ’em,” Bob told Chris, his new young assistant, who was learning about training. “Sooner or later they come around if they understand what you want them to do. Reward them when they get it right. They’re smart; they know.”

  A familiar, calm smile starting with the crinkles at the corners of his eyes met any high spirits, as Bob waited patiently — no words, just a look that seemed to say, “You really want to make an issue out of this little thing?”

  Usually we just ended up doing what he wanted because we were tired of being asked again and again and again. And, of course, there were carrots involved.

  Carrots help a lot.

  “Vet’s comin’ tomorrow to tattoo their upper lips. The inside, see here.” Bob put his hand on the upper lip of a horse down the shed row from me and rolled it up to show Chris. “See that letter? It’s the year he was born. The number after is the last five digits of his Jockey Club registration number. That’s the way Thoroughbreds are identified. They have to be registered and tattooed before they race — that’s why they all have unique names.”

  Chris grimaced. “Ouch, sounds painful.”

  “Don’t worry, they only feel a prick.”

  Soon all of us two-year-olds were training on the dirt track, galloping side by side, four sets of nostrils breathing in stride or bucking and egging each other on.

  Starting-gate lessons were the best. We walked into the narrow metal stalls, hearts pounding, muscles taut and ready to go, feeling more alive than I thought possible, knowing it would soon be time to gallop! Watching the gate person intently, filling our lungs with a deep breath. And when you couldn’t bear to wait any longer, exploding onto the track, fighting to get out and away first, bodies bumping and hot wet sand flying in our faces.

  Max and I galloped head to head. Toward the end, I would look him in the eye.

  I dare you to try to beat me.

  He always fought fiercely and I always played with him for a while — like the barn cats with a mouse they were about to kill. Then I turned on what Bob called “the afterburners” and blew by him — to keep him in his place.

  “Como estas, Raja, how are you today? Are you going to win the Derby?”

  Every day, Pedro, my regular exercise rider, greeted me with a grin that took over his weather-beaten face and made everyone in its beam feel as if they were the best thing to happen to him. A mischievous gleam in his eye invited you to share the joke while he innocently rubbed the back of his nearly bald head.

  “Only forty years old and I’ve broken 20 bones — my collarbone four times.” He winked at Chris. “I don’ think I have any more left to break. I love working with all of the Sheikh’s babies. It’s so much easier when you start with class. These boys are the top, I’m tellin’ ya. You couldn’t teach a horse what they’ve had bred into them — power, boldness, heart. One of these boys could be the next Secretariat or Man o’ War.”

  We had a routine. Pedro usually brought me an apple or a sweet pastry. I greeted him and rubbed my head on his shoulder, trying to find the treat.

  “Hey buddy, you look like a big, tough racehorse, but you’re just a puppy dog.”

  Ta-da-da-dum, ta-da-da-dum, ta-da-da-dum.

  I felt Pedro’s joy, like warm sunlight, as we galloped together, the two of us chasing down the dirt training track on the mist-filled mornings, with his steady hold and light and even balance floating over my back. By now, I was strong and getting fitter and I wanted to go, go, go.

  Sometimes we had a little “conversacion,” as Pedro called it, about how fast we should be going. He always made sure that I came around to his point of view sooner or later. When I saw Pedro, I took a deep breath and relaxed. He was interesting, the way he was so calm and easy, but with fire and steel inside, ready if I acted tough, which was often. Mostly, he tried to teach me that the two of us were a team, better together than separate.

  Working! Breezing!

  If you really want to understand me, you have to know about working. There’s nothing, I mean nothing, better, except maybe actually racing. Most days we galloped or jogged, but on Saturdays, we got to turn it on! First, gallop a turn, around the middle of the track at a two-minute lick. Then, drop to the inside rail — the signal to GO! The wide-open dirt track coming faster and faster until it turns into a blur, no sound but the wind rushing by my ears; Pedro’s hold is strong and tight as he crouches lower, moving in rhythm with my longer and longer strides until we begin to fly, skimming the ground.

  Then, with a shift of his weight, Pedro stands in his stirrups and the moment is over. Hearts pounding and catching our breath, Pedro laughing, the colors more intense, sounds sharper, I feel happy, more alive, somehow. I know Pedro felt it too. That’s why we got on so well. We both loved, I mean, loved, speed.

  It was a Monday, our day off, and Pedro and Bob were off with the horse van, leaving Chris and Ken, the second-string exercise rider. Chris moved a little more slowly than usual, cleaning the tack and folding saddle towels as he sang along with the radio. When he finished the tack, he started making his way down the shed row, taking off stable bandages and leading horses out one at a time to hand walk and graze.

  “Looks like we might get some weather,” Chris pointed to the grey clouds that had taken over the sky.Ken, muttered something angrily to Chris in response.

  Ken always seemed ready to explode. He stomped around the barn and got all of us horses riled up when he came to ride. Thankfully, I didn’t have much to do with him.

  “Figures they’d pick a rainy day to leave us to do all the barn work. Typical. That Pedro thinks he’s god’s gift to horses. Well, he ain’t. I’m just as good as Pedro. Better, in fact. He’s a tired old man. These people are stupid. I’ll show ’em, I’ll show everyone.”

  A wild, cloudy look swept across Ken’s darting eyes as he ranted, nervously scratching his scraggly beard, then spitting out his chewing tobacco juice in a long brown spurt aimed at the cat. He walked over to my stall.

  I lifted my head suddenly and backed up as Ken jerkily raised his arm toward me, then slapped my neck, thinking he was patting me. I flinched, holding my breath. I stood still, watching him warily out of the corner of my eye.

  “Put my saddle on Raja.
Ain’t no horse I can’t ride. What’s the big deal ’bout him, anyway?”

  “It’s the horses’ day off. Besides, only Pedro rides Raja, you know that.”

  Ken glared at Chris. “I said tack him up.”

  As he put the saddle on, I could tell Chris was worried.

  I felt the electricity in the air as the wind picked up, rustling through the bushes lining the stable yard. The sky was greyer than it had been just a few hours ago.

  This doesn’t feel right. It feels very wrong.

  When Ken and I reached the track, we were alone. My skin tingled as the heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach began to grow. I stopped, whipped my head in the direction of the barns, and whinnied loudly, hoping that one of my friends would respond. I wanted to go back. It was dinnertime and everyone was eating. Annoyed, I jigged sideways and let out an impatient buck. Ken hauled on the reins and jerked me sharply, angrily, in the mouth.

  “Whoa!”

  I tensed and started to toss my head.

  Why is he jerking my mouth? Why is he shouting? What have I done wrong?

  As we started to jog, then gallop, Ken took a short hold on the reins and, pulling roughly, leaned his weight heavily against my mouth.

  Does he want me to go faster? Why is he nervous?

  I didn’t like this at all. He was heavy and tense, not relaxed like Pedro. He made me nervous.

  I want him off my back.

  I really want him OFF, NOW!

  Head down between my knees, I let out a big, athletic buck, then another, twisting, propping and spinning, then dropping my shoulder and scooting sideways. Ken clung on determinedly and snatched me in the mouth again.

  “Here!” He growled in a low voice.