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“Okay then, see you soon… Trey?”
“Yes, Tylar?”
“Never mind, it’s nothing.”
I miss you, Trey.
“Okay then, sweet dreams."
I miss you, Tylar.
I spent the next three hours studying last season’s races with Jezebel. I had her moves down to a science by the time I finally collapsed into bed.
The following day was full of preparations for opening day at Le Belle Vie racetrack. I worked out with Jezebel early in the morning. Her time was improving steadily. Post positions were conducted prior to the race in a draw. I was keeping my fingers crossed that Jezebel would get an outside position. She tended to do better with fewer distractions as what was more typical with a middle post position. Jezebel was a late breaker, which meant an outside position would be to her advantage.
Since most of the jockeys were men, I dressed in the ladies’ restroom over in the paddock area. Most of them were riding in a couple of the races this evening on different horses; I only had to focus on Jezebel in the fourth. Andy had given me the jockey silks for Jezebel; the Sinclair Stable colors were purple and gold. I changed my cap cover to purple to match the silks. I made my way into the paddock area where Andy was tacking Jezebel. The post positions were in, we drew number eight.
“Yes!” I screamed, hugging Andy as he spun me around. Jezebel would race one spot in from far outside, ideal for this horse.
“Tylar?” someone called out behind me.
Holy horse shit!
I was afraid to turn until he repeated my name. It was Clint's voice and he sounded pissed.
“Hey, Clint,” I said going over to him and giving him a hug.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asked, his voice now having more than just an edge to it.
Christ! A junior version of Trey here!
I stated the obvious, “Riding Jezebel in the fourth.”
“Are you nuts?” he yelled at me. “Do you know how muchmoretrouble I'll be in withhimif I allow you to do this?”
Did he say allow? Allow?Oh, hell no.
“First of all Clint,youdon’t have the responsibility for deciding what I'm allowed to do or what I'm not allowed to do, got it? Secondly,” I continued on a roll, “Hedoesn’t have responsibility for deciding what I'm allowed to do, or what I'm not allowed to do on my own personal time!”
Clint was fuming. At any moment I fully expected smoke to curl out of his ears, they were beet red. Andy had walked away from our argument and for that I was grateful.
“He sure as hell does if you’re riding a Sinclair horse!” He was furious. People were starting to look over at us. Andy seemed unperturbed from the distance. I tried another approach.
“Clint, look,” I said quietly to him, “nobody has to know that you saw me, right? And hey, they have me listed under a different variation of my name, so it'll be easy enough to say that you didn’t recognize it on the roster if you have to right?"
Clint pulled a program from his back pocket. He skimmed down through it, and then looked back up. “Jockey: T.J. Preston?”
I smiled proudly. “I know, right? Tylar Jamie Preston, T.J. for short.”
“Oh yeah, I see what you mean Tylar. That'll throw somebody off for, gee, like a full10 seconds?” He was quickly becoming more exasperated with me. Trey must’ve really made his life miserable this past week. It was clear that I wasn't going to win Clint over.
“Do what you have to do Clint; I guess our friendship means very little to you. Besides that, Trey’s out of town so there's really nothing you can do about it anyway.”
I turned my back to him and walked back over to help Andy finish cinching up the outer girth on Jezebel. When we finished I turned back around, relieved that Clint was nowhere in sight.
CHAPTER 10
I loved the pageantry of horse racing as much as anything else. I loved jockeying. It had always been a part of my life, starting as far back as junior high school. I was fortunate that during my years in college I'd been afforded opportunities to ride and train in racing and dressage.
