The Significant Seven by John McEvoy Read Free Book Online

tell you,” Wadsworth continued, “that I believe this colt is real special. I’ve been working on Kentucky horse farms since I was a kid. I’m thirty-two now, with a growing family to feed. I know horses. What the good ones look like, how they act. How the ones that look good won’t ever turn out to be nothing because they don’t have heart for it.
    “I just
hated
to sell this colt, Mr. Rison. But I sure wish you the best with him. I’ll be watching for him and rooting for him, I guarantee you. And, you watch, he’ll surprise a lot of people. So long.”
    Wadsworth started walking off, then stopped. “Sorry, Mr. Rison, I forgot to ask. Who’s going to train your horse?”
    “This is the first horse me and my friends and I have owned,” Rison said. “Ralph Tenuta will train for us. Ralph is here at the sale with me.”
    Wadsworth grinned and said, “Well, that’s good news. Mr. Tenuta has a great reputation. Where are you shipping my colt— sorry, your colt— from here?”
    “To Hill ’n’ Dale Farm up in Illinois. Ralph will pick him up there in the spring and put him into training at Heartland Downs.”
    Rison watched Wadsworth hurry down the long corridor toward a small dark-haired woman with two toddlers in tow. He and the woman embraced. Wadsworth picked up the heaviest and oldest of the children, and the family walked out into the January night.
    Tenuta reappeared carrying two large, steaming containers. “I asked them to make us Irish coffees,” he said. “No problem, especially at these prices. Who was that young guy you were talking to?”
    “Chip Wadsworth. He bred our colt. He said he wanted to wish us well, tell me what a nice horse we bought.” He sipped his coffee. “Seemed real sincere.”
    Tenuta said, “I’ve heard of that young man. His father was a well known farm manager here for years. The son’s got an excellent reputation for recognizing talent and breeding sound horses. Here’s to young Mr. Wadsworth,” Tenuta said, raising his drink.
    An hour after buying Hip Number 1,264, Rison signaled that he would pay $33,000 for a nearly black filly, Hip Number 1,376, who despite her handler’s efforts was skittering around the sales ring like, as Tenuta put it, “a pig on ice. But I like her spunk,” he added.
    Rison rose from his seat and stretched. He was tired but jubilant. “We got the horse we need in that colt, and a filly, too, Ralph,” he said. “Good night’s work as far as I’m concerned. Let’s go downtown. You drive. I’ll call Judge Toomey from our car, he can e-mail the other guys as to what we did here tonight. Then I’ll buy you a good steak dinner at Malone’s.”
    As Tenuta and The Significant Seven would discover in the year ahead, the black filly “couldn’t run a lick.” Hip Number l,204, however, was another story.

Chapter Six
    April 21, 2009
    It took Doyle nearly ninety minutes to drive out of Chicago and up the Kennedy and the Edens and turn west on to Willow Road and, finally, arrive at the stable gate at Heartland Downs, the showplace facility renowned as one of the world’s most beautiful and well operated racetracks. However, he found the stable gate guard to be a less impressive model of efficiency.
    “Sir, do you have a pass to come in here?” asked the chubby, serious-looking young man. He wore a khaki uniform, dark sunglasses, a Smoky and the Bandit hat, and an expression of extreme suspicion. His badge identified him as Alvin Boemer Jr.
    “No,” Doyle said. “I don’t have a badge. Yet. I’m here to see trainer Ralph Tenuta. I’m going to start working for him. But I can’t start working for him until I’m licensed by the Illinois Racing Board. And I can’t get Tenuta to take me to the licensing office until I meet him at his barn.”
    The young man shook his head. “You should have a letter or something. So I could authorize your entrance. Without a badge, I can’t let you in.”
    Doyle lowered his forehead onto his