“How did you want it to be, Henry?” he asked.

“What good does it do now? He’s here, isn’t he? We can’t send him back right away or it’d look like we were afraid.”

“I’d still like to know,” Alec said.

The trainer opened the stall door. “Sometimes in this business you can work a deal. He’s a big gate attraction and I thought maybe they’d put less weight on his back if I took him to the West Coast. They go for big-name horses out there.”

“So does New York,” Alec said.

“Sure, but not at the expense of the race itself. They got a handicapper there who’d like to see every race end in a dead heat among the field. He’ll pack the heaviest weight a horse has ever carried on the Black!”

Alec followed Henry out of the stall. He knew Henry could be right and it was one of the things he might have taken into consideration before announcing to the press that the Black was going back to the races. There was no avoiding New York, as their filly was due to run in the rich Belmont Stakes after the forthcoming Preakness.

Henry said with feigned lightness, “Don’t look so glum, Alec. With the filly racing like she did in the Derby we’ve got a gold mine. She’ll put up that barn fast all by her little self!”

Alec closed the screen on the upper half of the Black’s stall door. It would keep out stray flies. Then he turned to the trainer. “I’d still like to enter him in some of the big New York handicaps just in case—” He stopped before the apprehensive look in Henry’s eyes.

“Just in case the filly quits on us?” Henry asked. “Is that what you mean, Alec?”

The boy didn’t answer fast enough and the trainer went on. “You’re a strange fellow, sometimes. After the ride she gave you in the Derby I’d think you’d be so sold on her you could take off an’ fly. Yet the last couple times you’ve worked her you’ve looked—”

Alec interrupted. “If she races as she did in the Derby I believe she’ll be the first filly ever to win the Triple Crown.”

“But you don’t think she will. Is that it, Alec? When you worked her last week she loafed good, didn’t she? An’ that’s what’s troublin’ you. You’re forgettin’ she loafed before the Derby too but I tricked her out of it. I can do the same thing again.” Henry turned away angrily. “If you don’t have confidence in her you oughta have it in me after all the years we’ve been together!”

“But I do!” Alec called at the trainer’s back while Henry strode up the row.

Finally Alec turned to the stall on the other side of Napoleon. It wasn’t really the filly’s loafing through her works that bothered him. And it had nothing to do with her legs, her speed or her stamina. It was her eyes. They told him, just as if she’d spoken, that she was bored with racing, that anything after her glorious win in the Kentucky Derby would be an anti-climax. But how in the world could he have explained that to Henry?

He found Black Minx in a far corner of her stall, dozing. “Behave yourself now,” he said softly, going inside. “Be a lady.” She was quick with her hoofs, this one. It wouldn’t do ever to try to surprise her.