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Overview
When Christian promises his father that he’ll race the colt, he’s plunged into the underworld of horse racing. To navigate his way he naively hires Ed Price, a heartless Miami trainer. And when his colt shows potential — a surprising resemblance to Secretariat — a dubious wealthy sheik wants to buy him, but Christian vows to keep his promise to his father. With a sizable debt still owed on the horse, Christian is forced to take out a loan, his only recourse, Vince, a New York mobster. If the money is not repaid on time, Christian’s life and that of Allie, his colt’s trainer, are threatened. To add to his rollercoaster of troubles, he faces fraud charges since his father illegally registered the colt, and he is being stalked by a psychotic ex-girlfriend.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781608090945 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Oceanview Publishing |
| Publication date: | 10/18/2013 |
| Series: | Christian Roberts Series , #1 |
| Pages: | 280 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.20(d) |
About the Author
Susan Klaus, a native of Sarasota, Florida, has a long and extensive history of working with animals. She's managed and co-owned a horse farm, breeding and racing thoroughbreds for the past thirteen years and is currently raising rodeo bulls. Klaus is the author of four sci-fi novels and is the host and co-producer of Author's Connection a radio show with listeners in 148 countries. Secretariat Reborn, Klaus's first thriller novel, reflects the expertise of her personal immersion in the world of thoroughbred breeding and racing.
Read an Excerpt
Secretariat Reborn
A Novel
By Susan Klaus
Oceanview Publishing
Copyright © 2013 Susan KlausAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-60809-094-5
CHAPTER 1
Florida, Present Day
The trainer stood on the lush Bahia grass, several yards from a semi horse van. A cigarette dangled from his lips, and his blue eyes squinted in the hot August sun. Hank Roberts, though middle-aged, still had his rugged good looks and trim frame. He spoke with a soft southern twang, yet had an edgy manner that was short on words and short on patience. But when it came to horses, Hank was as cool and calm as the azure sky. He took a last puff of his Marlboro and crushed it under his boot as he watched Juan, his young groom, lead a two-year-old Thoroughbred to the loading ramp.
The sleek bay filly snorted nervously at the monstrous van and flung her black mane. At the loading ramp, she put on the brakes and planted her spindly legs on the grass. Her wide, shifting eyes betrayed her terror as she twitched her ears, listening to the men; one on her right flank, another at her rear, and Juan halfway up the ramp with her lead rope.
"Easy, girl," said Juan, shaking a bucket of sweet feed to coax her inside the trailer.
"That's it, Juan. Don't tug," said Hank. "She's ready to jump out of her skin." He slowly walked to the filly's left side and stroked her neck. "Good girl," he whispered. "There's nothin' gonna hurt you." He gazed into her startled eyes and waited until they became serene. More relaxed, she took a bite of food.
Hank ran his hand over her shoulder and down the front leg. "Pick it up, baby," he said, applying slight pressure to her ankle. The filly lifted her foot as if for hoof trimming, and Hank gently set it back down on the slanted ramp. She withdrew her hoof at once from the unsettling rubber padding and placed it back on firm ground.
"Let's try again, girl," Hank said and repositioned her foot on the ramp. She nibbled the feed and left the hoof in place. "All right, Larry, set her other foot on the ramp."
Larry, a stout man with a piggish face and personality to match, had worked for Hank only a few days. He picked up the filly's front leg and let the hoof plop down hard on the ramp. The filly spooked, rearing and pulling backward.
Juan dropped the bucket and struggled to hold the horse's lead. "Easy, girl, easy," he called as the other men leaped clear of her crushing body and flying hooves. Twenty feet from the trailer, the frightened filly settled with all four feet on the ground. Juan petted and calmed her.
Larry shrugged in Hank's direction. "Ain't my fault that Thoroughbreds are nuts."
Hank shook his head and grumbled, "Goddamn idiot." He called to Juan, "Bring her back around. We'll try again."
Juan walked the filly in a wide circle and led her back to the ramp. The men retook their positions.
The van driver, standing at the horse's rear, added, "Mr. Roberts, I've got some tranquilizers in the cab."
Hank studied the filly. "Naw, she's already sweaty and excited. Instead of helping, it might turn her into a fearless drunk, a bigger problem. Let's give her more time."
A half hour passed with no success. "Time for a new approach," said Hank. He got a blanket and slowly wrapped it around the filly's head, covering her eyes. Taking the lead from Juan, he pulled back on the halter and gently pushed against her chest. "Back, sweetie, back."
No longer able to view the scary trailer, she allowed herself to be guided backward up the ramp, but stopped halfway. "Okay, guys, push," Hank said, goading the filly back with the lead as the others pressed against her chest. The horse kept stepping back until she was finally inside. Hank walked her into a stall, attached the crossties, and removed the blanket.
"Good girl," he said, patting her neck. "Next time won't be so bad." He locked the stall gate and stepped down from the trailer ramp. "One more, but this colt shouldn't take long. He's on a layoff from the track. Been loaded plenty."
"Good, I'm ready for a beer," said Larry.
Hank raised an eyebrow and growled, "Drink on my farm, boy, and you're out of here." He turned to Juan. "Fetch that dark colt in the third stall."
Juan jogged to the long barn and soon returned with a flashy sable colt trotting alongside. "Want me to take him right in?" he called.
"Give it a try," said Hank.
At first the colt seemed ready to leap into the horse van with Juan at his side, but at the ramp, he, too, refused. "Come on, boy," said Juan, pulling on the lead. "There's a pretty girl in here."
Hank ran his sweaty hands over his threadbare jeans and wiped his damp forehead with his sleeve. "Going to be one of those days. All right, Larry, let's lock hands behind his butt and shove him in. He isn't afraid, just being stubborn."
Hank placed one hand on the colt's rump and with his other hand, he reached for Larry, but before they could clasp hands to muscle the colt in, he kicked out and struck Hank's hand.
"Son of a bitch!" Hank examined his injury. "It's always the one you never expect." He glared at the colt and thundered, "Son, you better get your ass in there." The colt, sensing trouble, bounded up the ramp, and Juan backed him into a stall.
The men gathered around Hank and looked at his bloody fingers.
"Jesus, Mr. Roberts," Larry said. "That horse nailed you. Those look broke."
The trailer driver nodded. "You need to go to the emergency room."
Hank cringed, trying to move his fingers. "Think you're right. Can't budge them." He glanced at the driver. "Get going, Joe. Don't want those horses overheating."
"Okay, Mr. Roberts, got one more pickup, but I'll offer them water before I head south." He slid the ramp up and closed the doors.
Juan said, "I'll get you a clean towel from the tack room."
As the semitrailer took off down the long drive, Larry asked, "Want me to take you to the hospital?"
"I'll drive myself," Hank said. "Just help Juan feed and finish up. He's in charge while I'm gone."
The husky white man scowled at the smaller dark-skinned Juan entering the barn. "But, Mr. Roberts," Larry said, "he's Mexican. I don't take orders from them."
"You'll take orders from Juan or collect your pay and be gone."
As Juan approached them, Larry put out his foot and tripped him. Juan hit the ground, but in seconds was on his feet with fists raised.
"Leave it, Juan," Hank said. He straightened, facing Larry. Although slighter than his helper and with an injured hand, the trainer had a no-nonsense attitude that could intimidate most men with a glance. "You're about to spit teeth. Now get off my place."
Larry backed away. "Fucking wetbacks," he snarled and strode to his pickup.
Hank drove to the hospital in his tired truck using the wrist of his injured hand to steady the wheel as he puffed a cigarette and glanced at the bloody towel serving as a bandage. How am I going to train horse with only one hand? Hell, a couple of splints, some stitches maybe, and it should be healed in a few weeks. Managed with worse horse injuries.
At the hospital, Hank learned that his broken index and second fingers would require more than splints and stitches. After X-rays, the emergency room doctor said, "The bones are shattered, Mr. Roberts. You'll need surgery."
Hank next met with a surgeon who examined his injury. "I'm scheduling you for an operation tomorrow," the surgeon said. "You'll be too groggy to drive home, so have someone accompany you."
The following morning Hank and Juan sat in the hospital's waiting room. A nurse explained to Hank that it was standard procedure to take a chest X-ray before surgery.
"You're just padding my bill," he complained and followed her.
Shortly after, he reclined on a gurney in the operating room. The surgeon entered and Hank lifted his head. "Let's get this over, Doc," he said with a nervous grin. "I got horses that need tending."
The surgeon placed his hand on Hank's shoulder. "Mr. Roberts, I have bad news. It's your chest X-ray."
CHAPTER 2Christian Roberts's lanky body rested comfortably in the seat as he tapped the steering wheel of his SUV in sync with the classic rock blaring from the radio. The song "Last Chance" came on. He shuddered, shaking his sun-bleached hair, taking a deep breath. Even after the tune changed, the lyrics played on in his head, making him focus on the purpose of his trip.
He pushed his Ray-Bans up against the bridge of his nose and massaged his chin. "Fuck," he muttered.
Until the day before, Christian's life had been good and uncomplicated. He had youth, looks, and brains and was cruising in a new red Ford paid for with his flourishing boat business. And he was dating one of hottest chicks to grace Sarasota nightlife.
Then the phone call came from his mother, telling him the bad news. His father was dying from lung cancer and wanted Christian to drive up. Now, after four years, he felt old insecurities kicking in, bringing memories of being unwanted, unloved, and a disappointment to a man Christian had idolized.
He exited I-75 and drove past rolling green pastures dotted with oak hammocks and horses. He gazed at the mansions and well-kept barns with paddocks and exercise tracks that screamed "horse money." If not for the humid air and an occasional cabbage palm, he could have been in Kentucky, but this was Ocala, the only place in Florida where horses outnumbered cattle.
At Citra, a tiny town north of Ocala, he turned off the main road onto a narrow side street. After a mile of potholes, he saw the familiar yellow sign: Make a Wish Farm. He slowed and turned into the entrance.
Six-foot-high dog fennel grew around the faded sign and in the ditches along the drive leading to the house and barn. The pastures, too, were overgrown with weeds. He moved on and noticed that most of the four-board fencing on both sides was either broken, warped, or completely down.
This place has gone to hell, he thought, glancing at the dilapidated fifty-acre farm, so out of place with its immaculate neighbors. He noticed the pastures were empty. He wouldn't have sold his horses, not all of them. They meant too much to that miserable old man.
He pulled in front of the two-bedroom wooden house that paled in comparison with the thirty-stall, concrete-block barn farther down the drive.
"Nothing but the best for the nags," he mumbled, and slid out of his vehicle. Pushing the sunglasses up, he turned his sapphire-blue eyes on the rundown track that surrounded a small lake, used for exercising young Thoroughbreds. A gentle wind tugged at his Tommy Bahama shirt and blew his shaggy locks off his collar. As he stared at the sandy track, he recalled the day when his world collapsed and he gave up winning his father's love.
Christian had been only ten when he sneaked into the stall of a promising gray colt and put on the tack. He had led the colt from the stall and hopped on. His hope was to make his father proud, showing him that he could handle a Thoroughbred as well as any hired help. He guided the colt down the path leading to the track where his father stood at the railing, watching two exercise riders put their horses through the paces.
As Christian approached the open track gate, he saw the two horses and riders making their last turn, and they were breezing, a full-out gallop that was clocked in preparation for an upcoming race. As they came in his direction, he felt his colt's body tense and hump up as it prepared to dash after them. "Whoa, boy, whoa," he said, gripping a handful of the horse's silver mane.
"Christian!" his father screamed from fifty yards away.
Christian immediately recognized his error. Although he had started riding at age three on the gentle teaser pony and later on his father's quiet quarter horse used to lead and calm the high-strung Thoroughbreds, none of his riding experience had prepared him for a thousand pounds of hard muscle moving like a launched rocket. The colt, believing it was bursting out of a starting gate, took the bit in its teeth, and left Christian with no control.
His father yelled again. The colt lunged forward, and Christian tumbled off its back, crashing to the ground. Dazed, he lifted his head from the dirt and saw the departing hooves of the gray colt that charged down the track after the other horses.
"Pull him up, pull him up before he hits the rail!" his father had yelled to the riders.
Christian sat, holding a throbbing arm, and watched one of the riders grab the runaway's reins and gallop him slowly to a stop. The rider hopped off and held his mount and the gray.
"Is he all right?" his father had hollered to the man and jogged onto the track without a glance at his son or his welfare.
Only after the colt was examined and led back to the barn did his father hotfoot it to Christian. "Goddamn you, boy," he cursed. "What the devil were you thinking?"
Christian, in tears, scrambled to his feet. "My arm hurts, Dad."
"I don't give a shit! Do you know how much that colt is worth?
Your ass is about to hurt."
Lucky for Christian, his mother had heard the commotion and raced onto the scene. "Look at his arm, Hank!" she screamed. "It's broken! You care more about a lousy horse than your own son. I've had it!"
That day marked the end of his parents' marriage. Before the cast was off Christian's arm, he and his mother had left the farm and moved 150 miles south to Sarasota and her relatives. Six months later, his parents were divorced.
During the summer, Christian would stay with his father, but over the years, the visits became shorter and less frequent, realizing he couldn't compete with the horses for his father's time or affection.
His mother married a wealthy lawyer, and Christian spent the later part of his childhood on the snow-white beaches of Siesta Key with Sarasota Bay his backyard and playground. He became an avid sailor, fisherman, diver, and surfer. In his late teens, he stopped going to the northern horse pastures. His childhood devotion had faded, replaced with resentment, and every discussion with his father ended in an argument. As an adult, he closed his mind to a father who never cared.
Now, a familiar man's voice came from the house and snapped Christian out of his reflection. "Christian?"
Christian put the Ray-Bans in his shirt pocket and turned. "Hi, Dad," he said and walked toward the porch.
"Nice ride. Is it a rental?"
"No, it's mine," said Christian, swiping the blond hair back from his forehead, "Bought it a few months ago."
"Don't you know buying new is a waste of money?"
Christian bit his lip, feeling the squabble coming. Quickly, he changed the subject. "Mom called and said you weren't doing too well." Opening the screen door, he lowered his head to conceal his shock. Gone was the vibrant fifty-year-old with the lean, muscled frame, fiery eyes, and thick brown hair. Even his low, subtle voice, the one that commanded respect among men yet could seduce any horse and most women, was listless. His father resembled a corpse. At six-foot-two, Christian now towered over the pale, emaciated man with sunken eyes. The cancer had ravaged him.
"Yeah. Go figure. I went to the hospital with broke fingers from a horse kick and walk out learning I'm dying of lung cancer." Hank forced a dry smile. "Well, I'm glad you drove up. We need to settle on what I'm leaving behind." He coughed for nearly a minute and clutched the back of a porch chair for balance. "Come in, come in," he rasped and shuffled back inside the house.
"There's nothing the doctors can do?" Christian asked and followed him.
"Been through radiation; it didn't help. And I'm not about to spend my last days bedridden and sick with chemo." He glanced toward the kitchen. "Can I get you somethin' to drink?"
Christian saw how difficult it had been for his father to greet him at the door, and instantly his animosity toward him lessened. The heartless dictator was now a pathetic old man. "Sit, Dad. I'll get it." His bitterness began to be replaced with pity, and he vowed there would be no sarcasm or quarreling on this, perhaps his last, trip to the farm.
Hank nodded and collapsed in his overstuffed chair. "I get pretty winded these days."
The small kitchen had cluttered counters, dirty dishes piled in the sink, and an overflowing trash bin. In the refrigerator, Christian found open cans of soup, containers of spoiled food, and meager supplies. "Dad, are you getting any help here?" he asked, removing a couple of Cokes.
"Oh," Hank called, "sorry about the dirty dishes. If I'd known you were coming today, I'd have asked Juan to help me clean up."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Secretariat Reborn by Susan Klaus. Copyright © 2013 Susan Klaus. Excerpted by permission of Oceanview Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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