Sometimes you’re the windshield. Sometimes you’re the bug.
Yesterday, we were the bug(s). Tough day all around with two falls at the Iroquois, a lost rider and a forced off course at Willowdale. Managed a third and a fifth in the 110 handicap at Willowdale. 0-for-6.
Zabeel Champion jumped and traveled in the Iroquois, building, building, building. Cruising and climbing the hill under replacement jockey Freddie Procter (James O’Sullivan injured in an earlier fall), the 8-year-old was in the mix, in the scrum, Snap Decision looming, Abaan lurking but we were there in the teeth of the race. Zabeel stood off (I think), a reasonable spot, at the second-to-last and crumpled on landing. Like sand slipping through your fingers. There it was, the palpable this-could-happen feeling in the biggest race of the spring and then poof. Gone. Two horses behind were caught in his melee. Horses and jockeys everywhere.
Standing near the last hurdle, I take off at a run, down the hill as Abaan and Snap Decision climbed the hill. I didn’t see them. I could see Zabeel and his newfound comrades cantering into the corner of Percy Warner Park. Lost soldiers. I counted three. All standing. All composed, to some degree, anyway. They had gone 2 3/4 miles already. An exhale. I check numbers, a six, we aren’t the six. I think back to the start, remembering Zabeel sliding in near the bottom of the field. I see the three saddle towel and reach him, grab the reins, grass wedged in his brow band, under his cheek piece, over his eyes, in his ears. A big, placid, plain bay gelding, it’s like he recognizes me, or at least appreciates me. A rung on a rock face. Maybe he does, probably he doesn’t. We walk back up the course. I check his legs, they’re clean. He’s sound. We walk.
I unbuckle the breast plate, the overgirth along his heaving sides and hand him off to Erin Butler, another umbrella in the storm. I unbuckle the undergirth and heave Procter’s grass-stained tack to the ground. The ubiquitous black and red Iroquois saddle towel lands in a heap. It doesn’t look anything like To Ridley or Pinkie Swear or any of the others over all the years.
I take a deep breath and turn to look for the jockeys. I can’t see any of them, hidden behind the hedge. Then I see the dark blue and light blue, Procter’s OK. Then another and another. And another exhale. My phone is blowing up in my sport coat pocket. Jack Fisher. “He’s OK. He’s OK.” That’s it, nothing else to say. I fold and stack Procter’s tack and begin to climb back up the hill. A hill which has given so much and taken so much.
