“Ouch, I had that when I was around fourteen. Extremely painful, and you can’t do shit for six to eight weeks afterward.” He shuddered. “So, what’s the story?” he asked with a smirk.
“I went to my friend, and neighbor, bitched about Marvin, and he told me to finish training Samson. It took a couple of weeks, but we finally were able to connect, and we flew over the track.”
“What took so long?”
“The weight difference.”
“Excuse me?”
“Between me and the other jockey. Remember, I said that the weight restriction on race day was between one fifteen, and onetwenty-seven, while also taking into account the seven pounds of equipment?”
“Yes, what about it?”
She sighed as she drove for a few more miles, sipping her coffee, and remembering. Shay almost thought she wasn’t going to answer when she spoke next.
“Jackson, the other jockey wasn’t training properly.” She looked at him with a shake of her head. “He might have thought he was doing everything right, but legally, he wasn’t.”
“What was he doing wrong?”
“He weighted one hundred and twenty-seven pounds, without his equipment.”
“Shit, so that would put him seven pounds over the legal limit.”
“Correct. His reasoning was that if he weighed at the max, and raced with the equipment, and he could get the horse to go fast with the extra weight, he would diet, and come in at the proper max weight on race day, making the horse go even faster.”
Shay shook his head, and stared out at the passing scenery. Thinking about what she had just said.
“I’m not being sexist or a stupid male here, but I have a question.”
“Ask.”
“What is the ideal weight a jockey should weigh without the equipment?”
“One hundred and nineteen pounds.”
“But that would put you one pound under.”
“Yeah, and believe you me, the racing commission counts those ounces.” She looked at him as she said that and saw his scowl. “Think about it. That is a one-pound difference, one pound is made up of sixteen ounces. You can weigh in a few ounces over the one nineteen, as long as it doesn’t put you overthe total of one twenty-seven. I’ve never done it because I’ve been this size since I was fifteen years old. But some jockeys, both male and female take laxatives to get their weight down to that one nineteen.”
Shay shook his head trying to picture what she just said, and couldn’t. Instead, he changed his line of questioning. “What were the results of you riding the new horse?” He sucked in his breath when she looked at him with a grin. Her entire face lit up with happiness.
“I trained for two months, and we entered the next Triple Crown, well, the first race of it anyway, there are three races, hence the name. Anyway, I won, came in first with a photo finish against Chocolate. We moved forward, so did he. At the end of it, we won, and Chocolate came in third. The next year same thing, I won, but this time, Chocolate came in fifth.”
They both remained silent for several miles, and at one point, he laid his hand on the seat, and when she laid hers over his, he turned his over and entwined their fingers.
“Are you doing okay, do you need me to stop? Do you need a pain pill?”
“No, I’m good. I’m trying to wrap my head around something, and I don’t know how to broach the subject with you.”
“Shay, we’re both old enough to speak our minds without thinking of any repercussions of our words, or at least I am.”
“Yeah, so am I. I’m sitting here wondering if you’re a millionaire?” he blurted out.
Faith blurted out a snorted laugh. “Kinda. That first million, from Chocolate, I bought my house, paid my bills, and made sure my parents were taken care of. They were still alive then, but I lost them both five years later, within six months of each other. They both had cancer, and after they passed, I paid off their medical bills. The second time I won, I got another million,but this time, I took the uncashed check to a financial advisor and we invested the entire thing. I still have that, I haven’t touched it in eighteen years.”
“And the last million?” he asked when she didn’t say anything for some time.
“There was a guy at the track that was a real douche bag. He wasn’t an owner, nor was he a trainer, or a jockey.”
