“He’s not too old to have forgotten his top speeds, is he?”
“You’re a good rider,” Phil said, “but you’ll be better off if he’s forgotten at least a little bit.”
“Are you saying he’s too much horse for me?”
“Did I say that? I didn’t say that.” He whispered to Joe, “Go easy on her, old man.”
The horse snorted as if even Phil didn’t have the inside track on whatever joke he planned to pull.
“Here.” Phil handed her a helmet.
“I don’t need one of those for a little canter.”
“Yeah yeah. I know how these things start.”
She snatched up the helmet and strapped it under her chin.
“I hope you don’t lose your job over this,” she whispered to him so Fiona wouldn’t hear.
“I won’t. This is you: Princess Borzoi, Her Majesty the animal whisperer. I’m not worried about a thing. Let Joe lead the way.”
That would be the easiest thing she’d done all night. Her understanding of an animal’s spirit was what would make her a great veterinarian some day, her father often said to her. She could sense, in the light dance of Joe’s feet as she leaned forward in the saddle, that the creature was happy to go for a ride this evening. She could sense, in the patient way he waited for her to attend to the details, that he was pleased to share the adventure.
With a gentle heel, she nudged Joe toward the fresh air. He needed no other prompt. They passed through the wide doors and then navigated a few gates, and Joe told her with his confident stride that his heart would be a reliable compass on this sky-lit night.
In the Thoroughbreds, God had married strength and grace and created a magnificent breed that few people could appreciate firsthand. Let’s go for a ride. Beth closed her eyes. There was little for her to see, and her efforts to guide the horse might lead him into dangers worse than mere shadows cast by the moon.
She did as Phil suggested, gave Joe the reins, and trusted the animal’s instincts. In seconds his walk shifted to a trot and then to a canter, and then to a gallop as pleasant as a swiftly flowing creek. Joe was an eagle born to glide above water. The surface of the pastures fell away. She leaned into the horse’s neck and tucked her head and couldn’t remember any sensation as wild and reckless as this.
If she gave in to her urge to grin, the bugs would hit her teeth. The thought of it, the sheer joy of this rush, brought a laugh out of her throat, and then a gasp that invited some witless insect to ride the stiff air straight back down.
The shock jolted her eyes open. Phil should have given her goggles and a mask along with the helmet, she thought. But Joe took no note of her comic sputtering, and after recovering from her coughing fit, she laughed some more. His neck stretched out and so did his stride. Together they picked up speed.
I’ll love you always, Hastings, she thought, but you’re an old British butler compared to this rock star.
She wondered how much faster than this Joe had gone in his youth, on a refined racetrack, with the jockey he trusted most. Next on her list of dreams would be to find someone who might make that experience a reality. Maybe she could arrange some kind of reality-TV career swap with a jockey for a week, or however that worked.
She envisioned a short jockey in all his pink and yellow silks, up to his armpit in the backside of a cow, testing by hand as was traditionally done to see if the bovine was pregnant or open. The image buoyed her good mood.
The horse had reached a pace that Beth understood was beyond her ability to contain. Joe was in charge of her fate now. A flicker of fear passed over her but then flew away from her mind like a rooftop in a high wind. She surrendered to Joe’s confidence, and to the thrill of being out of control.
But Joe’s mood shifted.
Beth noticed it first in a sudden deviation from his course, a quick and not-so-graceful dig into the earth that thrust his weight off center. The angle of his ears changed as he moved off the perimeter of the fence; they stood erect now and resisted the rushing air. And though Beth hadn’t thought it possible on this unrefined terrain, the Thoroughbred accelerated, fueled by