“Yes,” both of them said as one. Faith waved Shay back to invite Pedro in, and they went to the kitchen for coffee.
“Did I catch you at a bad time?” Pedro asked as he looked around at all the boxes.
“No, well, yes. I’m moving. Shay’s here to help me. I haven’t seen you in ages, what have you been up to? Who are you working for now?”
“No one, I took a couple of years off, and I’m trying to get back into the horse business, but it’s hard to find any good owners to work for.”
“Meaning?” Shay asked as he sipped his own coffee.
“Do you know of Miss Faith’s career?”
“I know she doesn’t push her horse by using a crop on it, I know she hates the enhancement drugs some owners and trainers use.”
“Good, the people I’ve gone to use those. And…” he said with a shake of his head and a look of disgust on his face.
“And what?” Faith asked as she reached out and placed her hand over his. For some reason, this didn’t bother Shay.
“Do you really want to know?”
“Pedro, I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want to know.”
“The world’s gone to hell. At least, the racing world has. If what I’ve seen and been told is really true, we’re all screwed.”
“Oh, my, what possibly could be wrong?”
Pedro drained his coffee, looked directly at Faith, and said, “The owners I’ve been talking to in the last six months say that they have better trainers than what I could do for them.”
“Who, who do they have, because in my eyes, no one is better than you.”
“Thank you, Miss Faith, that makes me feel better. But, no, these owners are using something called AI where they put everything into the computer and expect the horse to perform like this computer program tells it to.”
“What? You can’t do that, the relationship between the horse and jockey, then the jockey and trainer is sacred. No computer in the world can dictate that interaction.”
“You know that, I know that, but these new, younger horse owners don’t understand that. They are adamant that their way is the way of the future, and there is no convincing them otherwise.” He sighed and scrubbed his face as he sat back in his chair. “See, I’ve gone to six new owners. In their previous life, they had something like tech start-ups, sold them for millions or billions of dollars, and now want to try their hand at racing.”
“Shit, they think because they have all that money, then they can join the big boys.”
“Correct. I sought you out to see if you were experiencing any difficulties like I have.” He looked at Shay sadly. “I earned a big salary when I was Chocolate’s trainer. I invested it like Miss Faith, and I finally took a couple of years off to go back to my home country. I was born here, so I’m an American, but my parents came over from Spain. They wanted to see their homeland one more time, and I took them home. They passed away over there, and since they were still citizens of Spain, there wasn’t any nasty paperwork to deal with. They were buried in the family plot.”
“I’m so sorry, Pedro.”
“No, they were in their early nineties, they led a good life. I’m happy I was able to take them home before the end. They died happy because they were able to show me in person the places they grew up in. After their funerals, I toured around Spain to see if I felt a connection. I didn’t. I visited places my parents would talk about, but I wanted to come home to America. I returned eight months ago, after taking two years off. I don’t have to, but I want to work. Being a horse trainer is all I know.”
“Yeah, I don’t know what to tell you, Pedro. I’m sorry.”
Shay slid his chair back and walked away, and then called Faith seconds later, while hitting the wall, making it sound like he had fallen.
“What’s wrong?” she demanded as she ran around the corner at a dead run. She stopped quickly when she saw him standing upright, and not on the floor. “Did you fall?”
“No come with me,” he said as he gripped her upper arm and pulled her down the hall, at the first room he came to, which happened to be the one he had been staying in, he gently nudged her inside, then looked down the hall to yell, “Pedro! We’ll be right out, help yourself to more coffee!” He hustled into the room and shut the door behind him.
“What the hell, Shay?”
“Sh, keep your voice down.” He held up his hands in a surrender motion, then grinned. “I needed your attention. I want you to do me a quick favor.”
“What? I need to get back out to Pedro.”
“I know, but trust me.” When it looked like she wouldn’t cooperate, he grinned wider. “Please.”
