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They fell silent after that, and Trey didn’t dare look down at his phone, which he’d started as close to the sounding of the bell as he could. She ran like the wind on the far straightaway, and Trey tensed as the corner approached.
He’d seen Rob let her loose many times before, but he always felt the need to hold his breath.
Lady entered the turn, ready to break, but Rob held her back. He could see the concentration on the jockey’s face, and the desire to run on Lady’s.
“There she goes,” Lawrence said the moment Rob let her go.
“Holy cow,” Spur said as horse and rider flew off the corner. She’d tightened her turn, and Rob was sure he could get her into a position where she wouldn’t touch another horse.
Lawrence stood up and started cheering, and that made Trey smile. He wanted to do the same, but he was too nervous. Lady looked like a winner as she streaked toward the finish line, which would be more pronounced at the actual Classic.
She crossed it, and Rob put up his fist. By then, Trey couldn’t see his face, but he felt the joy in the fist pump that would surely show on the jockey’s face.
“I can’t believe it,” Spur said. “Makes me wonder if we have some sleeper racers in our row houses.”
“Why don’t you let Trey find out?” Lawrence asked as he sat back down.
Trey looked at him, his eyes widening. “Lawrence.”
“Come on,” Lawrence said. “You want to train horses, and you’re good at it.” He leaned forward to see Spur on Trey’s other side. “He should be training horses. He can obviously do it and keep up with his track scheduling. He can go through our horses and train the ones you think aren’t Derby-worthy, but that could still bring home good money.”
“Half a million dollars is nothing to sneeze at.” Spur kept his eyes out on the track, and that raised a red flag in Trey’s mind.
“Nothing at all,” Lawrence said, and the conversation suddenly felt rehearsed.
“You guys,” Trey said. “Come on. You’ve talked about this before.”
“So what?” Spur said, some of his favorite words. “You are good at this, and maybe you should be training our lower-level horses.”
“Just what I want,” Trey said dryly. “The seconds and thirds. Tell me Conrad or Ian could’ve taken this horse from where she was to what we just watched.”
“Of course they can’t,” Spur said. “They’re divas, just like the horses they work with. You wouldn’t like working with the divas, Trey. That’s not you.”
“He’s right,” Lawrence said.
“Oh, stop it,” Trey said, growing surlier by the sentence.
“They’re not seconds, besides,” Spur said. “They’re great horses, and they’ll love you, and you’ll love them. And if you can get Rob to sign on with us full-time, you can keep twenty percent of any winnings you guys get. He can keep ten.”
Trey sucked in another breath and finally turned to look at Spur. “That’s triple what you pay Ian and Conrad.”
“You’ll not say a word to them about it,” Spur said. “Rob will have to sign an NDA too.” He wore a dark look. “The last thing I need is to deal with diva racehorses and diva trainers in the family.”
Trey blinked a couple of times, trying to find a downside to what Spur had just proposed. He couldn’t find one right now. “I’ll think about it,” he said, because he knew better than to just accept something without at least a little bit of time to examine things from all sides. He’d also like to pray about it, strange as that still was to him.
“What are you guys wearing for that photo?” Lawrence asked.
Spur practically growled next to Trey, which almost got him to laugh. “There’s a wardrobe specification,” Trey said. “Didn’t you get your shirt?”
Trey had received his blue, black, and white plaid shirt in the mail, and it had fit great. He’d been told to wear clean, “as new as possible” blue jeans, clean cowboy boots, and a dark cowboy hat.
“I got it,” Lawrence said. “I meant, are you going to put on your fancy belt buckle?”
“I am,” Trey said. The city was taking a picture of the eight Chappell brothers and putting a giant billboard up on the highway leading into Lexington. That required a big, shiny belt buckle.
“I think I will too,” Lawrence said.
“Just don’t be late,” Trey said. “Cayden said that about fifty times, and while I know he’s a little overbearing about some stuff, this feels important.”
