Dino started laughing. He said that he’d totaled the combined hours of sleep they had accomplished in the past 48 hours. The number was less than seven! “And we look like roadkill.”
About 90 miles southwest of Vegas, they stopped at the run-down Bun Boy coffee shop in Baker, California. Miami told Dino, “Baker is not the end of the world, but you can see it from here. Look at that sign. We are only two miles from The World’s Largest Thermometer, which is Baker’s only apparent claim to fame, other than us dining here at the world-famous Bun Boy. The end to a perfect fucking day.”
Dino pulled his head up and squinted at Miami. He waited a bit then asked him, “What’s wrong, man?”
“Nothing. I’m just tired. We can talk about it later.”
“OK. Well, what about going to Santa Anita next week?”
“I’ll skip it,” said Miami. He didn’t really want to rule it out, but he also didn’t want to commit to going with Dino after the time they’d just spent in Vegas.
“Me too,” Dino concurred.
Three hours later, Dino dropped Miami off at his condominium, and then arrived a bit later at his apartment in Santa Monica.
Chapter 6
Girls Don’t Belong
Three days after Winning Colors’ first career loss to Goodbye Halo, the whooping sound of helicopter blades startled the horses. It was in the early morning and Lukas had just flown in on the new private Sikorsky helicopter acquired in partnership with Klein. Lukas and Klein were meeting at Lukas’s office in Rancho Santa Fe to discuss plans for her next start.
Klein did not look well. He seemed to have aged rapidly since their last meeting, and his hair had turned completely white. Something was wrong. Lukas realized Klein was no longer flying in to watch his horses run in the big East Coast stakes races. Instead, Klein had been flying to Las Vegas to watch in an air-conditioned casino on wide screen TV. Lukas was worried for his friend’s health and was aware that he might lose his best client.
Lukas asked Luis to come into his track office to give a report to Klein. Luis told them both that Winning Colors was in good shape. Sometimes, after a hard-fought loss, a horse will go off their feed and become listless, but Winning Colors apparently had no memory of her loss. She bounced back as feisty as ever. That morning, when Luis called to her, Winning Colors went for his shirt pockets with her muzzle and bit through his clothing, as if insisting he must have some treats for her hidden somewhere. When she couldn’t find a treat, she lowered her head and threw it up at him, tossing him backwards like a rag doll. He found two sugar cubes in his jean pockets and held them under her nose. She chomped them down and proceeded to bite through his shirt pocket looking for more.
Klein shook Luis’ hand, and while thanking him for the great job he’d been doing with her, handed him three $100 bills.
Luis tried to give him back the money and said, “Señor, no es necesario,” but the owner insisted, and Luis smiled as he tucked the bills in the torn pocket of his work shirt. The bonus was nearly one week’s pay to Luis, and he knew they appreciated what he was doing for her.
After Luis left the meeting, Lukas told Klein, “Let’s just bring her right back at Halo in the Santa Anita Oaks.”
“Do whatever you want, buy what you want, run ‘em where you want,” Klein responded, “but if you start losing my money, I’ll jerk the rug out from you.”
The Oaks was the biggest race for 3-year-old fillies of the meet, now just two weeks away. Lukas was famous for working and running his horses hard. The legendary trainer Charles Whittingham had told Lukas, “Racehorses are like bananas. They spoil quickly,” so Lukas believed in running them when they were healthy. Despite being the most successful trainer in the world, Lukas felt he hadn’t received the credit he deserved. At every venue he had ever trained, from the cheap, quarter horse tracks in Oklahoma, Kansas, or New Mexico, or the big sprint tracks like Los Alamitos, he had been hugely successful. In 10 years, he had made the transition from quarter horse trainer to be the winningest thoroughbred trainer in America.
Klein asked, “Wayne, can she still beat the boys?”
“Damn straight she can,” Lukas replied. “I checked the times of her races and she is running faster than the colts. Goodbye Halo ran her eyeballs out to beat your girl, but remember, Halo had much more experience and seasoning. Your filly will know what to expect next time and will rip Halo’s heart out.”
Lukas never lacked for enthusiasm. The top quarter horse jockey, Bobby Adair, said of Lukas, “I want to die the same day as Lukas. Because no matter how I screw up before I die, if I arrive at the Pearly Gates with Lukas, I know for sure he can talk the both of us in.”
What Lukas didn’t know was that Luis was a bit worried that Lukas was training her too hard. Fillies are usually not able to handle the training workload of a mature male thoroughbred, and she was just a 3-year-old, early in her career, with only four starts. Winning Colors became agitated if she wasn’t galloped hard every day by Dallas Stewart, her exercise rider.
Dallas met with Luis in the late afternoon. “Luis…do you understand? She is getting too high strung for me to handle her in the mornings. I need to be the first rider out with her the moment the track opens for training at 5:00 a.m., when there’s less horse traffic, less noise, and fewer horses for her to attack. She seems to especially be going after the older mares if they get in her way on
