Upon glancing at the competitors’ track records, Miami saw a new immediate threat to Winning Colors. “Jesus Christ, Dino,” he said, “have you looked at this New York filly named Goodbye Halo? They flew her in to compete with Winning Colors tomorrow. Shit! This filly keeps destroying her fields. She won her first race by eight lengths, and then won the Demoiselle Stakes at Aqueduct by 10 lengths! That’s a Grade 1 stakes in New York! That damn horse can really run.”
“I saw her last race in the Starlet Stakes. I don’t think she can handle Winning Colors. Our girl has too much early speed and Goodbye Halo will be too far back to catch her.”
“Goodbye Halo won that race by three-and-a-half lengths and it’s a Grade 1, too. I’m nervous as hell for tomorrow.”
“I’m hammering Winning Colors tomorrow at the windows. You’ll see,” said Dino.
Chapter 4
Stakes Class
Miami was a top sales broker in his office. He was used to making money and this new reality—lack of income—was causing him to doubt his career choice. On October 19, 1987, the historic financial event known as Black Monday had happened. On that day, the DOW dropped from 2,400 to 1,500 in a day. Four months later, investors still had no confidence to pull the trigger on any real estate deal, especially with the insane interest rates. Something has to give, or I am going to have to take a J.O.B., and stop going to the track, he thought.
Miami was not sleeping well. He had another problem—a $45,000 second mortgage coming due in less than two months on his two-bedroom condo in Westwood, and he didn’t have the money, or now, even prospects to get the money. He tried to get the loan refinanced through a bank but had been turned down due to lack of equity in his unit.
The current lender had called Miami the week before asking what his plan was to pay off the maturing loan.
“I’m planning on winning a large bet on a horse race,” Miami said, and then added, “just kidding…don’t worry…I’ve got it covered.”
Besides the mortgage, Miami had even more on his mind. He’d had another date that night with Ava Bouchon. She was smart, tall, classy, exotic, and dressed with great style and taste. Ava had a top marketing executive position in downtown Los Angeles, and a big corner office, but Miami was convinced she spent 150 percent of her income on clothes. Based on her wardrobe, he figured she was probably making more money than he was in his commercial real estate (commission only) business. She was flying all over the world because of her work and appeared to be killing it. Whatever she was doing, she had his attention. She was fun to be with, but he wasn’t sure what she thought of him.
Miami first met Ava while they were both on vacation in the mountains over the Christmas holidays, when there was no racing. They had been having some fun together on several dates, but now Miami was thinking that having a steady girlfriend could be cool. She seemed interested, but he couldn’t really tell. She was keeping her feelings guarded. Being with someone that could understand the passion he had for thoroughbred horse racing was uncommon. He was happily confused.
He was so confused that he was planning to break one of his most important and strictest codes in life: Never bring a woman along when gambling.
He made it through the next workday on Friday and that night he picked up Ava with the convertible top down and took her to a restaurant in Malibu. Ava looked great, but she kept asking about what hat to wear at Santa Anita tomorrow.
Miami didn’t tell her all the details, but women’s hats at the racetrack were a total annoyance to him. On big days at the track, when the best horses in racing and the best gambling opportunities of the racing year were present, it seemed that women only wanted to look at, talk about, and be seen in huge, over-stuffed hats. Sometimes on big race days, Miami couldn’t see over the women’s hats to watch the race, as they had entire fruit baskets perched on top of their heads.
“Ava, promise me you won’t wear a hat to the track.”
“I already picked it out. You’ll love it. It’s small and delicate.”
“You’re kidding…those track hats are ugly.”
“You expect me to take fashion advice from a guy that has 11 identical jackets from a character on a TV show?”
“They’re not identical… I have three different colors.”
Miami had given the waiter his credit card, but it was declined.
“Let me get this,” she volunteered.
“No, I’ve got it, Ava.” He put down another card that he hoped had a positive balance on it. It went through.
It was quiet on the drive back down Pacific Coast Highway toward Westwood, until Miami opened up to Ava. “Right now, being a commercial real estate broker is nearly impossible,” he said. “I’m struggling to get deals closed.”
“You don’t have to explain. Interest
