The Girl Who Rode the Wind

“She can stay home and hit the books, that’s what she can do,” my dad replied. “You don’t become a doctor by racing horses around a track.”

“I don’t want to be a doctor,” I mumbled.

My dad looked hard at me. “Lola, you know what Mr Azzaretti told me? He said you’re the brightest kid in his whole school and if you maintain your grade point average like it is now, you would have the choice of any college you want. You could be a doctor or a lawyer or an astronaut, or the President of the United States, but the one thing you’re not going to be is a jockey. Do you understand me?”

“I didn’t realise being bright would get me punishment,” I said.

“That’s a lot of backchat for a girl who just got suspended,” my dad replied. And I knew I had pushed him too far.

There was no point in getting up early the next day, but I was out of bed by six anyway, and I had all my study done by midday. There was nothing else to do except watch TV. Our TV room had a big overstuffed sofa and I was curled up on it watching a reality show on repeat when Nonna came in.

“Where’s the remote?” She began hunting under the magazines on the coffee table. She looked anxious, which was unlike her.

“Here, Nonna.” I had it under my cushion.

She took it from me and switched the TV to the racing channel.

“Race six at Churchill Downs,” the commentator was saying. “The three-year-old maiden stakes. And the horses are heading into the start gates now …”

“There she is.” Nonna nodded at the screen. “Number four in the yellow and green silks. What do you think, Lola?”

I looked at the horse with the number four on her saddle blanket. She was a big bay with two white hind socks.

“That’s Aces High?” I asked. “The horse that you wouldn’t let Dad bet on?”

“That’s her,” Nonna confirmed.

I looked hard at the TV screen.

“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s hard to tell without seeing her in real life.”

“That’s right,” Nonna said. “You’ve got to be able to look them in the eye, Loretta.”

She had called me by my full name – Loretta – which she never usually did. I had been named after her, but most of the time everyone in the house called me Lola to avoid confusion. I figured it was because Nonna was so busy focusing on the horses, she wasn’t thinking straight.

“I’ve seen this filly up close when she was stabled here at Aqueduct and she is very special,” Nonna told me, staring at the TV. “When she steps out onto the track you cannot take your eyes off her. She’s got perfect conformation. The best I’ve ever seen. And powerful too for such a young horse …”

The commentator had been reeling off facts and figures about the horses in the field and now I heard him say the filly’s name. “Aces High is going into the start gates now. She’s a well-bred filly who got started at Frankie Di Marco’s stables in Ozone Park, New York before she was brought here to Kentucky …”

“Look at the muscle!” Nonna Loretta said. “Lance must have been doing hillwork to build up her hindquarters. She’s even better than I remember her.”

I wondered why Nonna Loretta cared so much. After all, she’d told Dad point-blank that he couldn’t bet on the filly.

“They’re off!” The commentator’s voice barked out from the TV as the barriers opened. Suddenly I felt sick with nerves, although I didn’t quite know why.

“Andare! Aces High!” Nonna shouted. “Andare! Andare!”

She was still yelling at the TV in Italian as the horses swept around the first furlong marker. I could see Aces High halfway up in the pack, pinned in by the railings.

“She needs to get out wide so she can make a move,” I said.

Nonna shook her head. “She’s sitting just fine where she is for now. That filly is a stayer. She has a strong finish in her.”

The fourth furlong marker was the halfway point in the race and by then the horses that had taken the early lead were flagging a little, but Aces High looked like she was cruising along. She was still boxed in by the railing though, and now Nonna looked worried.

“What is that ragazzo on her back doing?” Nonna was clasping her hands together anxiously. “He needs to move now! Andare!”

And then it happened. It was as if the jockey had heard my nonna’s instructions through the television because suddenly he made his move. Not to the outside as I expected, but closer to the rail. A gap opened up there and he saw it and took his chance. With a quick wave of his whip near the filly’s face just to show her it was time to go, he asked her to step up the pace and she responded instantly, surging forward. She was so quick to accelerate that if you didn’t have your eyes on her you would have missed the moment. I saw the flash of brilliance as she lengthened out and began to move and with three quick strides she had slipped through the hole and was powering ahead of the two horses who’d had her boxed-in just moments before. Then she had overtaken them both and was in the clear. There were only three horses in front of her now and three furlongs to go.

“Go, Aces High!” I was screaming at the TV. “Go!”

It was like those other horses were standing still, the way her strides ate up the ground between them, closing the gap, passing the horse in front of her and then the next one until there was just one horse ahead of her coming into the home straight.

“You can do it!” My nonna had her hands clasped together as if she was praying. I was jumping up and down like crazy. “Go! Go! Go!”

“Look at this filly coming up the inside!” the commentator was shouting. “She’s taking it all the way home! Aces High has taken the lead and at the finish post it is Aces High by a full length! Aces High wins the Maiden!”

Nonna Loretta fell strangely silent. She was still staring at the screen.

I heard the front door slam. And then Dad entered the room. His face was flushed with anger. He saw the TV screen.

“You were watching that?” he asked Nonna. He looked like he was going to burst a vein in his forehead. “I heard the whole thing on the car radio. I told you, Loretta! I told you! She won the race just like I said she would! If it weren’t for you …”

“If it wasn’t for me,” Nonna finished his sentence for him, “then we wouldn’t have just won seventy-three thousand dollars.”

Dad was stunned. “What are you talking about?”

On the TV screen Aces High was being led into the winner’s enclosure and a wreath of roses was being draped around her neck. Nonna couldn’t take her eyes off her. “I bet on the horse,” she said. “One thousand dollars at seventy-three to one.”

“You did what?” My dad was confused. “Where did you get a thousand dollars?”

“I pawned the jewellery,” Nonna said, still staring at the TV. “My rings …”

My dad looked at her in total disbelief. “You told me that I couldn’t bet. You said it was the rules …”

“Oh, Raymond,” Nonna said calmly. “Those rules are for you – not for me!”

She ignored his speechless wonder and turned to me.

“Lola,” she said. “I was wondering … since you have no school right now, how would you like to take a trip with me next week?”

“A trip, Nonna?” I said. “Where are we going?”

“We’re going home,” she said.

“Home?”

“Yes.” She had a look in her eye like a kid gets at Christmas time.