OK, so after I get my license I need some horses to train. So my parents buy me this bug-eyed filly I liked. I used to be her groom and I call her bug-eyed (her real name is Lucinda's Pet) ‘cause when she looks at you the whites in her eyes around the colored part get real big and make them look like her eyes would pop out; usually sign of a real nervous horse, which she is.
About a week or so after I got her I found a race in the condition book going a mile and a sixteenth instead of the six furlongs she had been racing. I had thought it out being her groom and everything that the bug-eyed filly just wanted to go a distance of ground. She always went to the lead right out of the starting gate and then gave up when other horses came up along side her; but, in a distance race I figured she ought to have enough speed to get the lead all by herself.
So that's what I did. I entered her in that race. The entry clerk asked what jockey I wanted to ride the bug-eyed filly in the race. I didn't know any; so, I just gave him the name of one I remembered won a lot of races and hoped he would ride the bug-eyed filly for me.
It was the first race that day and I met my parents at the track. I walked into the paddock to put the saddle on the bug-eyed filly. I was proud of myself. I put the saddle and overgirth on just like I did when I took the trainers test from Charlie Frock. The jockey I named when I entered the bug-eyed filly did end up riding her for me and I told him what I thought about what had happened in the past. He shook his head like he agreed, which gave me a boost of confidence. I gave him a leg up and felt my career was in his hands.
My parents and I walked outside through the big glass doors of the clubhouse. We stood just far enough up the asphalt incline that ran alongside the outside of the track so we could see the backstretch over the tote board that sat in the infield. A mile and a sixteenth race starts right in front of the grandstand and the horses go all the way around the mile oval.
The bug-eyed filly leaped from the gate and had the lead before the horses reached the first turn. When they reached the backstretch her margin had increased to about five lengths; also, I could tell by the fact that the jockey was almost standing up on her that she was running easy and under no pressure from him. A quarter of a mile later the scenario was quite different. Another horse was catching up and the bug-eyed filly was being asked to run. Her jockey sat crouched close to her neck and with each stride she took he swung his left arm and then his right arm back and smacked her on the rump with his whip. Faster and faster he drove her with this pumping motion. The finish line was in sight as he glanced over his right shoulder to see how close the other horses were. His hard work paid off when he and the bug-eyed filly crossed the finish line first, two lengths in front of the other horses.
The best thing about that day was Albert Ferguson, Esq. After the race he himself, not the track announcer, said my name over the public address system, and that I had won this race with the first horse I ever entered. I guess he finally decided I knew what I was doing.
