The Wonder Horse

by GEORGE BYRAM

WEBSTER says a mutation is a sudden variation, the offspring differing from the parents in some well-marked character or characters — and that certainly fits Red Eagle. He was foaled of registered parents, both his sire and dam descending from two of the best bloodlines in the breed. But the only thing normal about this colt was his color, a beautiful chestnut.

I attended Red Eagle’s arrival into the world. He was kicking at the sac that enclosed him as I freed his nostrils from the membrane. He was on his feet in one minute. He was straight and steady on his pasterns by the time his dam had him licked dry. He had his first feeding before he was five minutes old, and he was beginning to buck and rear and prance by the time I got my wits about me and called Ben.

Ben came in the other end of the ramshackle barn from the feed lot. He was small as men go, but big for a jockey. Not really old at forty-two, his hair was gray and he was old in experience of horses.

Ben came into the box stall and as he saw the colt he stopped and whistled. He pushed back his hat and studied the red colt for a full five minutes. Even only minutes old a horseman could see he was markedly different. The bones from stifle to hock and elbow to knee were abnormally long. There was unusual length and slope of shoulder. He stood high in the croup and looked like he was running downhill. He had a very long underline and short back. All this spelled uniquely efficient bone levers, and these lexers were connected and powered by the deepest hard-twisted muscles a colt ever brought into this world. Unbelievable depth at the girth and immense spring to the ribs meant an engine of heart and lungs capable of driving those muscled levers to their maximum. Red Eagle’s nostrils were a third larger than any we had ever seen and he had a large, loose windpipe between his broad jaws. He would be able to fuel the engine with all the oxygen it could use. Most important of all, the clean, sharp modeling of his head and the bigness and luster of his eyes indicated courage, will to win. But because of his strange proportions he looked weird.

“Holy Mary,”said Ben softly, and I nodded agreement.

Ben and I had followed horses all our lives. I as a veterinarian and trainer for big breeders, Ben as a jockey. Each of us had outserved his usefulness. Ben had got too heavy to ride; I had got too cantankerous for the owners to put up with. I had studied bloodlines and knew the breeders were no longer improving the breed, but I could never make anyone believe in my theories. One owner after another had decided he could do without my services. Ben and I had pooled our savings and bought a small ranch in Colorado. We had taken the mare that had just foaled in lieu of salary from our last employer. Barton Croupwell had laughed when we had asked for the mare rather than our money.

“Costello, he said to me, “you and Ben have twenty-five hundred coming. That mare is nineteen years old. She could drop dead tomorrow.”

“She could have one more foal too,'' I said.

“She could, but it’s five to two she won’t.”

“That’s good enough odds for the kind of blood she’s carrying,”

Croupwell was a gambler who raised horses for only one reason: to make money. He shook his head. “I’ve seen old codgers set in their thinking, but you’re the worst. I suppose you’ve got a stallion picked out— in case this mare’ll breed.”

“He doesn’t belong to you,” I said.

That needled him. “I’ve got stallions that bring five thousand for a stud fee. Don’t tell me they aren’t good enough.”

“Their bloodlines are wrong,” I answered. “Mr. Carvelliers has a stallion called Wing Away.”

“Carvelliers’ stallions cost money. Are you and Ben that flush?” He already knew what I had in mind.

“You and Carvelliers trade services,”I said. “It wouldn’t cost you anything to have the mare bred.”

He threw back his head and laughed. He was a tall, thin man, always beautifully tailored, with black hair and a line of mustache. “I’m not a philanthropist,” he said. “Do you really want this mare?”

“I said I did.”

“You really think she’ll get with foal?”

“I’ll turn your odds around. I say it’s five to two she will.”

“I’ll gamble with you,” he said. “I’ll send the mare over to Carvelliers’. If she settles I II take care of the stud fee. If she doesn’t, I keep the mare.”

“And my and Hen’s twenty-five hundred?”

“Of course.”

“You’re no gambler,” I said, looking him in the eye, “but I’ll take the bet.”

Now, Ben and I were looking at a running machine that was something new on the face of the earth.

2

OUR ranch was perfect for training the colt. It was out of the way and we took particular care that no one ever saw Red Eagle. By the time he was a yearling, our wildest estimate of what he would be had fallen short. Ben began to ride him when he was a coming two-year-old. By that time he had reached seventeen hands, weighed twelve hundred pounds, and could carry Ben’s hundred and twentysix as if Ben were nothing. Every time Ben stepped off him he was gibbering like an idiot. I was little better. This horse didn’t run; he flowed. Morning after morning as Ben began to open him up I would watch him coming down the track we had dozed out of the prairie and he looked like a great wheel with flashing spokes rolling irresistibly forward. Carrying as much weight as mature horses are asked to carry, our stop watch told us Red Eagle had broken every world record for all distances and this on an imperfect track. Ben and I were seared.

One night when the racing season was close upon us, Ben said nervously, “I’ve made a few calls to some jockeys I know, Croupwell’s and Carvelliers’ and some others. The best two-year-olds they got are just normal, good colts. Red Eagle will beat them twenty lengths.”

“You’ve got to keep him under restraint, Ben. You can’t let anybody know what he can do.”

“I can do anything with him out here by himself. But who knows what, he’ll do with other horses?”

“You’ve got t.o hold him.”

“Listen, Cos, I’ve ridden some of the best and some of the toughest. I know what I can hold and what I can’t. If Eagle ever takes it in his head to run, there’ll not be a hell of a lot I can do about it.

“We’ve trained him careful.”

“Yes, but if I’ve got him figured, he’ll go crazy if a horse starts to crowd him. Another thing, any horseman will see at a glance what we’ve got. They’ll know we’re not letting him extend himself.”

We were standing out by the pine pole paddock and I turned and looked at Red Eagle. Have you ever seen a cheetah? It’s a cat. It runs faster than any other living creature. It’s long-legged and longbodied and it moves soft and graceful until it starts to run; then it becomes a streak with a blur of legs beneath. Red Eagle looked more like a twelvehundred-pound cheetah than a horse and he ran the same way.

“Well, lie’s a race horse,” I said. “If we don’t race him, what’ll we do with him.'”

“Well race him,” said Ben, “but things ain’t ever goin’ to be the same again.”

That turned out to be pure prophecy.

We decided to start him on a western track. We had to mortgage the ranch to get the money for his entry fee, but we had him entered in plenty of time. Two days before the race we hauled him, blanketed, in a closed trailer and put him into his stall without anyone getting a good look at him. We worked him out at dawn each morning before any other riders were exercising their horses.

This track was one where a lot of breeders tried their two-y’ear-olds. The day of the race the first person I saw was Croupwell. His mild interest told me he already knew we had an entry, lie looked at my worn Levis and string-bean frame. “What’s happened these three years, Costello? You don’t appear to have eaten regular.”

“After today it’ll be different,” I told him.

“That colt you have entered, eh? He’s not the bet you won from me, is he?”

“The same.”

“I see by the papers Ben’s riding. Ben must have lost weight too.”

“Not so’s you’d notice.”

“You’re not asking a two-year-old to carry a hundred and twenty-eight pounds on its first start!”

“He’s usod to Ben,” I said casually.

“Costello, I happen to know you mortgaged your place to get the entry fee.” He was looking at me speculatively. His gambler’s instinct told him something was amiss. “Let’s have a look at the colt.”

“You’ll see him when we bring him out to be saddled,” I said and walked away.

3

Yor can’t lead a horse like that among a group of horsemen without things happening. Men who spend their lives with horses know what gives a horse reach and speed and staying power. It didn’t take an expert to see what Red Eagle had. When we took the blanket off him in the saddle packloek every jockey and owner began to move close. In no time there was a milling group of horsemen in front of where Ben and I were saddling Eagle.

Carvelliers, a handsome, white-haired Southern gentleman, called me to him. “Costello, is that Wing Away’s colt?”

“Your signature’s on his papers,” I said.

“I’ll give you fifty thousand dollars for his dam.”

“She’s dead,” I said. “She died two weeks after we’d weaned this colt.”

“Put a price on the colt,” he said without hesitation.

“He’s not for sale,” I answered.

“We’ll talk later,” he said and turned and headed for the betting windows. Every man in the crowd followed him. I saw several stable hands pleading with acquaintances to borrow money to bet on Eagle despite the extra weight he would be spotting the other horses. By the time the parimutuel windows closed, our horse was the odds-on favorite and nobody had yet seen him run.

“I’m glad we didn’t have any money to bet,” said Ben, as 1 legged him up. “A dollar’ll only make you a dime after what they’ve done to the odds.”

The falling odds on Red Eagle had alerted the crowd to watch for him. As the horses paraded before the stands there was a rippling murmur of applause. He looked entirely unlike the other eight horses on the track, He padded along, his head bobbing easily, his long hind legs making him look like he was going downhill. He look one step to the other mincing thoroughbreds’ three.

I had gone down to the rail and as Ben brought, him by, heading for the backstretch where the sixfurlong race would start, I could see the Eagle watching the other horses, his ears flicking curiously. I looked at Ben. He was pale. “How is he?” I called.

Ben glanced at me out of the corners of his eyes. “He’s different.'’

“Different!” I called back edgily. “How?”

“Your guess is good as mine*” Ben called over his shoulder.

Eagle went into the gate at his assigned place on the outside as docilely as we’d trained him to. But when the gate flew open, the rush of horses startled him. Breaking on top, he opened up five lengths on the field in the first sixteenth of a mile. The crowd went whoosh with a concerted sigh of amazement.

“Father in heaven, hold him,” I heard myself saying.

Through my binoculars, I could see the riders on the other horses studying the red horse ahead of them. Many two-year-olds break wild, but no horse opens five lengths in less than two hundred yards. I saw Ben steadying him gently, and as they went around the firsi turn, Ben had slowed him until the pack moved up to within a length.

That was as close as any horse ever got. Around the turn a couple of riders went after Eagle and the pack spread briefly into groups of three and two and two singles. I could see the two horses behind Eagle make their move. Eagle opened another three lengths before they hit the turn into the stretch and I could see Ben fighting him. The two that had tried to take the lead were used up and the pack came by them as all the riders turned their horses on for the stretch drive. Eagle seemed to sense the concerted effort behind him and his rate of flow changed. It was as if a racing car had its accelerator floorboarded. He came into the stretch gaining a half length every time his feet hit the turf.

When he hit the wire he was a hundred yards ahead of the nearest horse and still going away. Ben had to take him completely around the track before Eagle realized there were no horses behind him. By the time Ben walked him into the winner’s circle, Eagle’s sides were rising and falling evenly. He was only damp, not having got himself hot enough to sweat.

The first thing I remember seeing was Ben’s guilty expression. “I tried to hold him,” he said. “When he realized something was trying to outrun him he got so damn mad he didn’t even know I was there.”

The loudspeaker had gone into a stuttering frenzy. Yes, the world’s record for six furlongs had been broken. Not only broken, ladies and gentlemen; five seconds had been cut from it. No, the win was not official. Track veterinarians had to examine the horse. Please keep your seats, ladies and gentlemen.

Keep their seats, hell! Every man, woman, and child was going to see at close range the horse that could run like that. There had been tears in my eyes as Eagle rolled down the stretch. You couldn’t stay calm when you saw what these people had seen.

The rest of that day sorts itself into blurred episodes. First, the vets checked Eagle’s teeth, his registration papers, his date of foaling, and finally rechccked the number tattooed in his lip to make sure he was a two-year-old. Then ihcy found that he had not been stimulated. They also found measurements so unbelievable they seriously questioned whether this animal was a horse. They went into a huddle with the track officials.

There was loose talk of Irving to rule the Eagle off the tracks. Carvelliers pointed out that Eagle’s papers were in perfect order, his own stallion had sired him, he was a thoroughbred of accepted bloodlines, and there was no w av he could legally be ruled ineligible.

“If that horse is allowed to run,” said one track official, “who will race against him.'”

Croupwell was seated at the conference table, as were most of the other owners. “Gentlemen,” fie said suavely, “aren’t you forgetting the handieapper

The job of a handieapper is to figure how much weight each horse is lo carry. It is a known fact that a good handieapper can make any field of horses come in almost nose and nose by imposing greater weights on the faster horses. But Croupwell was forgetting something. I sually, only older horses run in handicaps.

I jumped to my feet. “You know two-year-okls are not generally handicapped,” I said. “They race under allowance conditions.”

“True,” said Croupwell. “Two-year-olds usually do run under arbitrary weights. But it is a flexible rule, devised to fit the existing situation. Now that the situation has changed, arbitrarily the weights must he changed.”

Carvelliers frowned angrily. “ Red Eagle was carrying a hundred and twenty-eight against a hundred and four for the other colts. You would have to impose such weights to bring him down to an ordinary horse that you d break him down.

Croupwell shrugged. “If that should be true, it is unfortunate. But we have to think of the good of racing. Yon know that its lifeblood is betting. There will be no betting against this horse in any race it’s entered.”

Carvelliers rose. “Gentlemen, ‘ and the way he said it was an insult, “I have been breeding and racing horses all my fife. It has always been my belief that racing was to improve the breed, not kill the best horses.” He turned to Ben and me. “At your convenience I would like to speak with you.

4

BEN and I paid off the loan we’d used for the entry fee, bought ourselves some presentable clothes, and went up to Carvelliers’ hotel.

“Hello, Ben; good to see you,” he said. “Costello, I owe you an apology. I’ve disagreed with you on bloodlines for years. You’ve proven me wrong.”

“You’ve been wrong,” I agreed, “but Red Eagle is not the proof. He would have been a good colt if he was normal — maybe the best, but what he actually is has nothing to do with bloodlines.”

“Do you think he’s a mutation — something new?”

“Completely.”

“How much weight do you think he can carry and still win?”

I turned to Hen and Hen said, “He’ll win carrying any weight. He’ll kill himself to win.”

“It’s too batl you couldn’t have held him,” said Carvelliers. “My God, five seconds cut from the record. Don’t fool yourself, they’ll weight him until even tendons and joints such as his can’t stand it. Will you run him regardless?”

“What else will there be to do?”

“Hmmmm. Yes. Well, maybe you’re right. Hut if they break him down, I have a proposition to make you.”

We thanked him and left.

Ben and I planned our campaign carefully. “We’ve got to train him with other horses,” Hen told me. “If I can get him used to letting a horse stay a few lengths behind, I can hold him down.”

We bought two fairly good platers with the rest of our first winnings and hired neighboring ranch kids to ride them. We began to see men with binoculars on the hills around our track. We let the Eagle loaf and the boys with the binoculars never saw any great times.

The racing world had gone crazy over what Red Eagle had done to the records. But as time passed and I he binocular boys reported he wasn’t burning up his home track, the writers began to hint that it had been a freak performance — certainly remarkable, but could he do it again? This was the attitude we wanted. Then we put Red Eagle in his second race, this one a mile and a sixteenth.

It was a big stakes race for two-year-olds. We didn’t enter him until the last minute. Even so, the news got around and the track had never had such a large attendance and such little betting. The people didn’t dare bet against the Eagle, but he had only run at six furlongs and they weren’t ready to believe in him and bet on him to run a distance. Because of the low pari-mutuel take, we were very unpopular with the officials of that track.

“If there’s any way you can do it,” I told Ben, “hold him at the gate.”

“I’ll hold him if I can.”

By this time Red Eagle had become used to other horses and would come out of the gate running easily. When they sprung the gate on those crack two-year-olds that day, Ben had a tight rein and the pack opened a length on the Eagle before he understood he’d been double-crossed. When he saw horses ahead of him he went crazy.

He swung far outside and caught the pack before they were in front ol the stands. He’d opened five lengths at the first turn. He continued to accelerate in the back stretch, and the crowd had gone crazy too. When he turned into the stretch the nearest thing to him was the starting gate the attendants hadn’t quite had time to pull out of the way. Eagle swerved wide to miss the gate and then, as it the gate had made him madder, really turned it on. When he crossed the finish line the first horse behind him hadn’t entered the stretch. I sat down weakly and cried. He had cut ten seconds off the world’s record for a mile and a sixteenth.

The pandemonium did not subside when the race was over. Front-page headlines all over the world said “New Wonder Horse Turns Racing World Topsy-turvy.” That was an understatement.

“The next time we run him,”I told Ben, “they’ll put two sacks of feed and a bale of hay on him.”

Ben was gazing off into the distance. “You can’t imagine what it’s like to sit on all that power and watch a field of horses go by you backwards, blip, like that. You know something, Cos? He still wasn’t flat out.”

“Fine,” I said sarcastically. “Well run him against Mercedes and Jaguars.”

Well, they weighted him. The handicappcr called for one hundred thirty-seven pounds. It was an unheard-of weight for a two-year-old to carry, but it wasn’t as bad as I had expected.

At home we put the one thirty-seven on him and eased him along for a few weeks. He didn’t seem to notice the weight. The first time Ben let him out he broke bis own record. I kept tabs on his legs and he never heated in the joints or swelled.

We entered him in the next race to come up. It rained for two days before the race and the track was a sea of mud. Some thought the “flying machine,”as Red Eagle was beginning to be called, could not set his blazing pace in mud.

“ What do you think?” I asked Ben. “ He’s never run in mud.”

“Hell, Cos, that horse don’t notice what he’s running on. He just feels the pressure of something behind him trying to outrun him and it pushes him like a jet.”

Ben was right. When the pack came out of the gate that day, Red Eagle squirted ahead like a watermelon seed squeezed from between your lingers. He sprayed the pack briefly with mud, then blithely left them, and when became down the stretch he was completely alone.

During the next several races, three things became apparent. First, the handicappcr bad no measuring stick to figure what weight Eagle should carry. They called for one hundred forty, forty-two, then forty-five, and Eagle came down the stretch alone. The second thing became apparent after Eagle had won carrying one forty-five. His next race he started alone. No one would enter against him. Third, Eagle was drawing the greatest crowds in the history of racing.

There were two big races left that season. They were one day and a thousand miles apart. The officials at both tracks were in a dilemma. Whichever race Eagle entered would have a huge crowd, but it would be a walkaway and that crowd would bet its last dollar on Engle, because the track was required by law to pay ten cents on the dollar. The officials resolved their dilemma by using the old adage: You can stop a freight train if you put enough weight on if. Red Eagle was required to carry the unheard-of weight of one hundred and seventy pounds. Tints they hoped to encourage other owners to rare against us and at the same time they d have Eagle’s drawing power.

Ben grew obstinate. “I don’t want to hurt hirn and that weight’ll break him down.”

“Great,”I replied. “Two worn-out old duffers with the world’s greatest horse end up with two platers, a sand-hills ranch, and the winnings from a few races.”

“I know how you feel,” said Ben. “The only thing you could have got out of this was money, but I get to ride him.”

“Well,” f said, trying to be philosophical about it, “I get to watch him and that’s almost as good as riding him.” I stopped and grabbed Bens arm. “What did I say?”

Ben jerked bis arm away. “You gone nuts?”

“Get to watch him! Ben, what’s happened every time the Eagle’s run?”

“He’s broke a record,” said Ben matter-offaetly.

“He’s sent several thousand people into hysterics,” I amended.

Ben looked at me. “Are you thinking people would pay to see just one horse runt”

“Has there ever been more than one when the Eagle’s run? Come on. We’re going to enter him.

5

WE ENTERED Eagle in the next to the last race of the season. What Ed expected happened. All the other owners pulled out. They weren’t having any of the Eagle even carrying a hundred and seventy’ pounds. They all entered in the last race. No horse, not even the Eagle — they thought. — had the kind of stamina to make two efforts on successive days with a plane trip sandwiched between, so they felt safe.

The officials at the second track were jubilant. They had the largest field they had ever run. The officials at the first track had apoplexy. They wanted to talk to us. They offered plane fare and I flew down.

“Would you consider an arrangement,” they asked, “whereby you would withdraw your horse."”

“I would not,” I replied.

“The public won’t attend a walkaway,”they groaned, “even with the drawing power of your horse.” What they were Blinking of was that ten cents on the dollar.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” I told them. “Advertise that the wonder horse is running unweighted against his own record and you’ll have a sellout.”

Legally, they could not call off the race, so they had to agree.

On the way home I stopped off at Carvelliers’. We had a long talk and drew up an agreement. “It’ll work,”I said. “I know it will.”

“Yes,” agreed Carvclliers, “it will work, but you must persuade Ben to run him just once carrning the hundred and seventy. We’ve got to scare the whole racing world to death.”

“I’ll persuade him,”I promised.

When I got home I took Ben aside. “Ben,” I said, “every cow horse has to carry more than a hundred and seventy pounds.”

“Yeah, but a cow horse don’t run a mile in just over a minute.”

“Nevertheless,” I said, “he’ll run as fast as he can carrying that weight and it doesn’t hurt him.”

“But a cow horse has pasterns and joints like a work horse. They just ain’t built like a thoroughbred.”

“Neither is Red Eagle,”I answered.

“What’s this all about? You already arranged for him not to carry any weight.”

“That’s for the first race.”

“First race! You ain’t thinkin’ of runnin’ in both of them?”

“Yes, and that second one will be his last race. I’ll never ask you to ride him carrying that kind of weight again.”

“ You ought to be ashamed to ask me to ride him carrying it at all.” Then what I had said sunk in. “Last race! How do you know it’ll be his last race?”

“I forgot to tell you I had a talk with CarveHicrs.”

“So you had a talk with Carvelliers. So what?”

“Ben,” I pleaded, “trust me. See what the Eagle can do with a hundred and seventy.”

“All right,” said Ben grudgingly, “but I ain’t goin’ to turn him on.”

“Turn him on!” I snorted. “You ain’t ever been able to turn him off.”

Ben was surprised but I wasn’t when Red Eagle galloped easily under the weight. Ben rode him for a week before he got up the nerve to let him run. Eagle was still way ahead of every record except his own. He stayed sound.

When we entered him in the second race all but five owners withdrew their horses. These five knew their animals were the best of that season, barring our colt. And they believed that the Eagle after a plane ride, a run the day before, and carrying a hundred and seventy pounds was fair competition. At the first track Eagle ran unweighted before a packed stand. The people jumped and shouted with excitement as the red streak flowed around the track, racing the second hand of the huge clock that had been erected in front of the odds board. Ben was worried about the coming race and only let him cut a second off his previous record. But that was enough. The crowd went mad. And I had the last ammunition I needed.

The next day dawned clear and sunny. The track was fast. Every seal in the stand was sold and the infield was packed. The press boxes overflowed with writers, anxiously waiting to report to the world what the wonder horse would do. The crowd that day didn’t have to be told. They bet their last dollar on him to win.

Well, it’s all history now. Red Eagle, carrying one hundred and seventy pounds, beat the next fastest horse five lengths. All the fences in front of the stands were torn down by the crowd trying to get a close look at the Eagle. The track lost a fortune and three officials had heart attacks.

A meeting was called and they pleaded with us to remove our horse from competition.

“Gentlemen,” I said, “we’ll make you a proposition. You noticed yesterday that the gate for Eagle’s exhibition was the largest that track ever had. Do you understand? People will pay to watch Eagle run against time. If you’ll guarantee us two exhibitions a season at each major track and give us sixty per cent of the gate, we’ll agree never to run the Eagle in competition.”

It was such a logical move that they wondered they hadn’t thought of it themselves. It worked out beautifully. Owners of ordinary horses could run them with the conviction that they would at least be somewhere in the stretch when the race finished. The officials were happy, because not only was racing secure again, but they made money out of their forty per cent of the gates of Eagle’s exhibitions. And we were happy, because we made even more money. Everything has been serene for three seasons. But I’m a little concerned about next year.

I forgot to tell you the arrangement Carvclliers and I had made. First, we had discussed a littleknown aspect of mutations: namely, that they pass on to their offspring their new characteristics. Carvelliers has fifty brood mares on his breeding farm, and Red Eagle proved so sure at stud that next season fifty carbon copies of him will be hitting the tracks. You’d never believe it, but they run just like their sire, and Ben and I own fifty per cent of each of them. Ben feels somewhat badly about it, but, as I pointed out, we only promised not to run the Eagle.