Second Chance Ranch

Real Value
A true story of chance, hope, and commitment

Written by Douglas S. Johnson

Jump to Part II

I have just done something perfectly insane.  I realized this very suddenly as I prepared myself to watch the on-line streaming video of the last race at Santa Anita on April 3, 2008:  a $20,000 Maiden Claiming event that, I was certain, made not so much difference to anyone in the world as it did to me.

 It also occurred to me that I very well may have had staked more on it than anyone else who had wagered on this race.

 This was not a characteristic move on my part, a person usually quite conservative with money, and I certainly would not recommend anyone doing the same in similar circumstances.  But on this particular day, my reaction to potentially terrible news was to do something drastic in an effort to steady my suddenly shaken world.

 My youngest daughter, Gretchen, had a difficult birth and a troubled first week in the world.  Underdeveloped and poorly functioning lungs caused her to have to be revived several times during her first four or five days.  There had been much worry about her on several different accounts and occasions, all due to her developmental difficulties, but she seemed perpetually strong and resilient and determined to thrive. 

She was a little more than a year and a half on April third, just getting to her feet to stumble around a bit, not yet having uttered her first word.  Yet she was sociable and energetic and good-tempered, an engaging straw-blonde enigma. 

“Beckwith-Widemann Syndrome,” my wife, Mary, forced out through tears of worry and that strange illogical sense of guilt all mothers feel when something is wrong with a child.  “The doctor said she has signs…her tongue…that thing with her ear.”  (Gretchen has a low-slung right ear with a tiny hole which looks exactly like a clean piercing squarely in the lobe where one would be.)  “It’s a genetic thing.  And she might have it.  Kids who have it can get liver and lung tumors.  They have to be scanned every three months.  And some die.” 

I blinked, hiding my shock. “Might is might,” I tried to sound strong and sure.  “Might is not have.”  I hoped she couldn’t tell my voice was shaking.  I hoped I could conceal the fact that, suddenly, everything was shaking.  It felt like the whole world was shaking. 

I hugged Mary and tried to console her as best I could.  But what really could be said?  How could it be made to go away?  What if it really was true? 

Mary went up the stairs of our moderately middle class home in Auburn, Washington, carrying the baby towards naptime.  Our six-year-old daughter, Laura Isabel, trailed afterward, clearly having caught the contagious sense of terror that suddenly permeated the air. 

Might is might.  I tried to reassure myself with my own words of intended comfort.  Might is not have.  It was about one o’clock in the afternoon. 

Like many men, my reaction to shock and stress was the need to be alone for a while, so that I could regain and maintain my calm and be able to try to share it with my wife later, for whatever circumstances we would have to face. 

I sat down at my desk in my office/library, surrounded by classic literature and horseracing memorabilia.  We were in a reasonable place financially—enough money in the bank and next to no debt—an unusual circumstance these days, Mary, a credit union employee, was always telling me, but we were far from loaded and, I began to think in a panic, that one calamity could seriously upset our lifestyle.  What if might turned out to be have after all?  Thoughts of medical bills and costly therapies that might or might not be covered by insurance danced in my head like devils. 

I had been picking up extra spending money on the horses for nearly two years.  An avid racing fan and always one for side ventures, in June of 2006, I read a book that detailed a system for wagering on horseracing, using principles of stock market investing:  “whether betting win, place, or show, always look for real value,” was the advice given over and over, and, with time, I found that if I did the homework and devoted enough concentration and mental energy, I could make a few extra bucks, and sometimes more than just a few. And the Internet availed me of nearly 300 races a day!  And it was fun.  And gratifying.  I don’t make anything like a fortune teaching college English—who does?—and this made me feel like I was contributing a little more.  We bought new furniture for the downstairs, remodeled the baby’s room, retiled all three bathrooms, built Laura a playhouse in the back yard, bought more expensive shoes and clothes than we might have otherwise—all on what I was able to make with my “second job.” 

“Horse Money,” was what it is known as in my house—and everyone in our little family has plenty of things purchased with this special equine currency. 

Santa Anita was just beginning an eight-race card.  Why was I watching racing on a day like this?  When I knew my wife was upstairs weeping and worrying?  Then I knew.  I had to make it better somehow.  I had to do something to lighten the load.  Medically, I was powerless.  And as to knowing just the right thing to say to comfort my wife…Oftentimes I came up lacking in that venue.  But maybe the financial end.  Maybe a bit of security against a storm…Before I really knew it, I found that I was looking for THE RACE.  What I was suddenly calling in my own mind MY LAST WAGER.  A big, bold, capital-letter investment that would pay off like none I had ever imagined.   

Crazy.  Foolish, even.  I see that now.  An all-or-nothing, for-all-the-marbles venture that no sane person should attempt.  But my mind was feverish with fright.  The unknown haunted me.  This was the known.  Horses and jockeys and dirt and sunshine.  This was familiar. 

I was set on Santa Anita, the only track with races that day whose betting pools would bear a huge wager without the odds going down so far as to destroy the ultimate payout on the investment. 

I seriously considered Dr. Au Jus in the fourth race.  Michael Baze was aboard, and the Santa Anita handicappers had this one billed as the “Bet Of The Day.”  I had a lot of money left in my wagering account, and I was ready to use it all.  I came so close to making the wager that I trembled.  Then I balked.  Dr. Au Jus won and paid $6.40 to win.  I got up and paced, cursing my indecision and inability to act. 

Then there was Behindatthebar in race number seven.  David Flores was aboard, and he was having a great year.  This seemed like a sure-thing.  But Behindatthebar was even money, no real value here, especially if I added significantly more to the win pool, which would, of course, drive the odds down even lower.  I shook my head and passed on it, as sure as I was of this horse.  Flores took Behindatthebar through a scorching stretch run which left all other contenders in another time zone. 

Why had I passed on Dr. Au Jus?  $6.40!  That was real value.  That was a real opportunity, now gone forever. 

I saw nothing else until the last race:  a Maiden Claiming event for fillies and mares.  I began the usual ripping through Internet sources, handicapper’s advice, on-line racing journals, racing blogs—and, to my surprise, they all said the same thing:  Warren’s Sassy Cat. 

This was her second time out.  She had stumbled at the gate in her first race, getting away last, and then had rallied to be third.  And the competition here was anything but hot—13 other horses who had yet to show anything like greatness. And she was in the very capable hands of veteran jockey, Martin Pedroza, who had ridden her in her first outing. On paper, she seemed like an obvious pick, and she was at 7/2.  7/2?  Now this was value! 

I went over and over everything I could find on this horse, right up until two minutes before race time.  I was shaking, and my heart was pounding.  What if she stumbled again?  What if something went wrong?  What if something totally unexpected happened?  I had seen such things often enough.  There would be no “making up the loss,” no second chances.  I was violating two major rules of intelligent wagering:  never bet out of want or need, and never bet all your winnings on one event. 

I placed the wager:  an obscene amount, everything I had left of my winnings from the past two years, more than half of the total in the win pool for Warren’s Sassy Cat.  I noted the difference my bet made on the paramutual odds and prayed they wouldn’t go down any more.  It would be an enormous win or a huge loss.  A sane person would have taken all the money and put it in the bank as a modest umbrella against a rainy day.  But I had done something perfectly insane. 

They seemed to linger in the gate forever.  My heart skipped a beat as my girl bounced backward in the box.  If the bell sounds now…then…  Then she got right again.  I swear, if she wins, this is it…  The last time…  This is for everything. 

Suddenly, something that I can only describe as a wave of warmth and calm spread over me.  I knew everything would work out—everything would be just fine.  The bell rang.  I heard the familiar British twang of Trevor Denham’s voice as he called the race: 

“And away they go…”  This was it.   

Titan Queen and Black Spot burst from the gate and tore through the opening quarter, It’s Noon Somewhere trying to keep up with them.  Pedroza was practically standing on my horse to keep her out of the early fray, a distant fourth.  The blistering pace was soon too much for It’s Noon Somewhere, and she peeled off and fell back.  Titan Queen and Black Spot kept at each other in a merciless speed duel.  They simply couldn’t keep this up forever, I told myself. 

“It’s Black Spot and Titan Queen at the three-eights pole… But here’s Warren’s Sassy Cat, coming on smartly to take them on…”  My girl was flying up behind them as Pedroza gave her her head, and she flew effortlessly by to take the lead.  She went a little wide on the turn, but Martin quickly got her in toward the rail as they rounded for home.  She looked clear, but then suddenly a closer came in to make a race of it. 

“Warren’s Sassy Cat…taken on now by Groovy Lightning…”  My stomach flipped again. But Pedroza urged her and she kicked in the afterburners, holding her rival at bay.  I could see we had it all but won, but it just wouldn’t come to an end.  Was Groovy Lightning gaining now?  Anxiety rose up again.  This was only six furlongs!  Where was the line?! 

Then, finally…  “…Warren’s Sassy Cat…  Warren’s Sassy Cat has won it!...” 

When I had won $100 bets before, I had jumped up and down and cheered.  Now, after having risked exponentially more and coming out on top, I simply sat, still tensed, almost disbelieving what had just happened, but allowing myself a real feeling of relief and hope, waiting for the results to go official.  Pedroza had split horses at the top of the stretch, but it had looked clean.  After about two minutes, it went up:  Warren’s Sassy Cat  $6.60…     $6.60!  Even better than Dr. Au Jus!  And with all my money in there to boot! 

At first, my wager log showed $0.00, and my heart was again in my throat.  Could I have bet on the wrong horse?  The wrong race?  I checked.  Number 7, Race 8.  Santa Anita.  It was all correct.  I hit the refresh button on the browser…and the numbers came up and I calculated my win:  $49,830. 

I sat in disbelief for a long moment.  Then I bolted upstairs.  Mary sat with Gretchen and Laura on the bed, her face still filled with fear.  “I just won $50,000!” I exclaimed, and, as if understanding all that I meant and intended in that simple declarative, my wife broke down and cried.  And all at once, I was seized with more insight.  “You’ll see! We’re going to remember April 3, 2008 as a happy day!” 

We did.  Further testing showed that our daughter did not have Beckwith-Widemann.  (And the money will sit safely in the bank—except for what we will spend to take the girls to Disneyland…and Santa Anita Park.) 

Over the next couple of weeks, it sank in.  My daughter was not seriously ill, as we had feared.  The joy I had felt at that $50,000 paled by comparison.  My family was all right.  Tragedy and loss had been averted.  Love was intensified. 

Real value.  I had had no idea of what it actually was until now. And here, in this home, with these people, is where it had been all along.  Here was the only place it could be found. 

There was this year the thrill, the thwarted anticipation and the controversy surrounding Triple Crown wannabe Big Brown, the stunning upset by Da’ Tara in the Belmont, the tragedy of Eight Belles in the Preakness—but I will remember 2008 for a plucky little filly who proved game in the stretch in a $20,000 Maiden Claiming event at Santa Anita.  Warren’s Sassy Cat—My Last and My Best—the horse who helped me discover what life’s best payouts are all about. 

                        One Year, Ten Months Later…

Not many things in life work out the way they are supposed to.  What is it Burns said about the best laid plans of mice and men?  “They gang agley”?  Yes, that’s what it is.  “The best laid plans of mice and men, they gang agley.”  But once in a while, something goes just the way it should…

 I am ashamed to say how long I waited--and watched.  Watched with pain, disbelief and bewilderment as the horse that won me fifty grand was pounded through an unbelievably grueling race schedule that, at the end of a year and a half, had rendered a beautiful fine descendent of Secretariat and Alydar a perpetual also-ran at lowly California state fairground events.  In fact, after breaking her maiden at the $20,000 level at Santa Anita, quite an accomplishment for a second time out, she never made better than a place showing ever again, even at embarrassing claimers against competition she could have annihilated at full strength. 

Even toward the end, it was still there, that sweeping move through the backstretch which always made me think of her great-great-grandsire’s dynamic power play in the Preakness back in 1973.  But hitting the track at often absurdly long distances for a six furlong sprinter, every two weeks and sometimes with only nine or ten days rest, she had nothing left in the stretch, too exhausted to last it out.  One time she almost got there again, but not quite…it is a testament to her incredible heart that she was able to go out and give it her all under the conditions she was asked to do it for as long as she did. 

But in the last two post parades, it was evident.  She was shot--nervous and tired and sick to death of racing.  I worried that something catastrophic would happen in the last one--there was an ominous feel to it and the way she shook her head and looked around, as if for a way out.  But she made it through--again. 

Then she disappeared altogether.  And I mean disappeared.  She didn’t turn up for a race or even a workout for two months, and I tried to find out what had happened to her, fearing the worst, but I could not find anyone who knew where she was--or who would tell me, anyway.  FINALLY, I had decided to buy her out of racing, and God knows I had all the money in the world to do it, and had all along, thanks to her, but I couldn’t buy her if I couldn’t locate her or her owner--who, as it turned out, had left the country for six months to do business. 

And that’s just how long it took me to find her:  six months.  I had great help and advice along the way, particularly from Katie Merwick at Second Chance Ranch, a rehabilitation and retraining center for retired racehorses here in the state of Washington, my dear friend Patricia Clark at Serenity Equine Rescue and Rehabilitation out of Maple Valley, Washington, and the absolutely wonderful Priscilla Clark from Tranquility Farm down in California, who had information and insights without which I could never have pulled off this project. 

In fact, it was Priscilla who got the final key in the final lock, she and a fortuitous friend.  The co-owners of Warren’s Sassy Cat both apparently had unlisted numbers.  Searching everyone on the Internet with the same last name or anything close, and anyone of the same nationality who lived in the Sacramento area, or anywhere close, I finally stumbled upon a man who turned out to be the nephew of one of the owners.  This man, of course, didn’t speak English. Now I do speak fluent German--but, naturally, that wasn‘t the right language either.  This was par for the course at this point.  The “conversation,” as you can imagine, was quite brief, to say the least.  Of course, at this point, I didn’t even know that I had hit upon a family member of my horse’s owner, but I somehow had a hunch. 

I called Priscilla and told her of my strange encounter and the feeling I had concerning it.  By a remarkable coincidence, a charming woman named Olga, who is a friend of someone who sits on her board of directors, spoke exactly the language we needed.  She made the contact, found out that I had, in fact, found a family member, got the number of the uncle, contacted him, and then he contacted his English speaking partner, who got in touch with me. 

Then the negotiations began.  The original asking price left me not knowing whether to laugh or cry.  It was ludicrous.  I countered with an offer that I knew was far above what he could ever get for a five year old racehorse with one win two years ago who had fallen down so far through the ranks that she would never get back up again.  Counter offers came--still ridiculous.  I stood fast.  I knew my price was high and that no one would outbid me.  More counter offers.  Still ridiculous.   

I can be an assertive person when I know I am in the right.  “Twenty-four hours,” I said at last.  “Then it goes down another $1,000.”  (I knew that even then my bid would be far and above what anyone else would pay.)  No answer for the rest of the day.  The following morning, I called Priscilla, unsure now that I had done the right thing in leveling a threat.  She said “sit tight and let him stew.  You will get your price.”  She was right.  In the matter of the hour, the phone rang, and we had a deal. 

It took a few days to sink in.  I had bought Warren’s Sassy Cat, the horse I had never seen but fallen hopelessly in love with, the being who had won hope and happiness for me and my family on a day when everything seemed lost, a horse who was as revered in my house as Seabiscuit, Secretariat and Man O’ War all rolled together, the horse I had thought of and thanked God for at some point every day…   

And there was more.  Once she is retrained, my eight year old daughter, Laura Isabel, and eventually her younger sister, Gretchen (both mad about horses, by the way) could ride the 17 ½ hand tall, big beautiful red descendant of Secretariat and Alydar.   

She was mine…

 Which was only appropriate.  I had been hers for nearly two years. I have waited forever during the past ten days.  And she finally comes tomorrow---Valentine‘s Day.  It’s a couple of months late, perhaps, but I feel like a child the night before Christmas, and not just  any ordinary Chrismas--the Christmas when a real miracle occurs--when you get exactly what you wanted, when you wake up from a wonderful dream and find out it’s all more real than you ever could have imagined.

And it’s Warren’s Sassy Cat, coming on smartly now into the final turn and headed for home…she’s drawing away clear and gaining momentum, far and away the best… 

And so we all come away winners.  We all hit the finish line together.  It ends perfectly. 

 Just don’t tell Burns.

PART II - coming home

Six Days Later…

 [Let it be duly noted that since much of what took place in the following addendum to the story of what turned into, to my mind, more of Warren’s Sassy Cat’s rescue than purchase, much of what was related or told to me was rendered by congenital liars, con artists, persons who spoke broken English or practically none at all, and some suffering from all three maladies.  Thus, I will be using the word APPARENTLY throughout, if for no other purpose, to show the utter confusion and dishonesty that arose in the final stages of this saga.  DSJ]

 The Valentine’s dream was ready to transpire.  I had even written it into the final copy of the second part of the story.  Then Burns’ words began to ring in the air…  “The best laid plans of mice and men…”    “They gang agley…”  “Gang agley…”  “Agley…”  I suppose it is an early Scottish rendition of Murphy’s Law, but there’s something more ominous to them, especially after Steinbeck’s treatment.  Yes, Steinbeck.  And maybe I was Lenny, innocently pondering the peaceful times to come, the great dream, only about to get my head blown off in the process.

 Well, it all began with what seemed a minor, if annoying, problem, especially considering all the anticipation everyone had felt, and the Valentine’s Day vision…  The transport broke down in Barstow.  (If you ever break down, it should be in Barstow.)  I was told by my driver that if he couldn’t get up and running that day, he would rent another truck.  Long and short--that didn’t happen.  The day passed,  and then another.  Now February 16th was the new due date.  Then it was the 17th.   “One more hour.”  Then “One more day.”  I heard it everyday and was starting to get jaded.  A wonderfully sunny week my kids had off from school was quickly getting away.  Every minute of good weather seemed precious.  I cancelled, and then uncancelled classes I would be teaching at various times when she was supposed to be arriving.  It was really starting to get irritating.

 Now my wife may contradict this, but I will claim to have a long fuse--that burns quickly toward the end.  I had left several messages for my driver, inquiring as to the state of the truck on the evening of the 16th, having been told he would be on the road at noon of that day.  Nothing.  On the morning of the 17th, I expected the same old excuses I had been getting every day for several days:  the driver blamed the mechanic, the mechanic blamed Moses, Moses blamed Adam, Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the snake, and the snake just stood there (he had legs to start, remember?) smiling.

 All night long, I had been rehearsing what I was going to say, and let it be said that, if I have any talent with words at all, I also inherited my father’s poetic ability with long strings of gracefully placed obscenities.  I was all set to get my driver’s voice mail ONCE AGAIN and (loudly) say my piece and engage another transport company.  Fortunately for all, he answered the phone, actually on the road and headed for Reno before doubling back to Lincoln, California for my horse.  He had “forgotten to call” to let me know he had finally got going.  Thus, one of the great tirades is lost to history.

 And let this be said too:  during that eternal wait while he was broken down in Barstow,  I wasn’t pleased with my driver, unfairly so, if he tells the story, and that may well be.  But this I assert fervently:  he played the hero the night of the 17th (if a well-paid one), taking on the roles of international diplomat, lay interpreter, cop, and psychiatrist for the perpetually insane.  In short, he earned his money and then some…

 And now it gets interesting…

 But first, we must ask:  “Why do things so often ‘gang agely‘?”  Well, I have my own theory of evolution to explain a good deal of it.  Some many millions of years ago, Homo Erectus stood upright for the first time, and, finding himself exposed, invented pants.  The back pocket soon followed.  Then he found that he needed something to put in the back pocket.  He crafted the first wallet.  Then he needed something to put in the wallet and drew little pictures of famous cavemen on leaves to fill his new invention and put it all in the back pocket of his pants.  Circumstances followed that brought about an end to evolution, and the world has been headed downhill ever since…

 And so it is our story continues…

 Let me introduce “Slick” (not his real name, but rather a verbal rendering of his personality).  Slick was the person who called me, claiming to be the owner of the horse. 

 Now, from previous installments of this ever-growing story, you will remember that I accidentally ran across a nephew of the owner, who had contacted the uncle, who, unbeknownst to me, had engaged Slick as a go-between for a sale, since the owner did not speak English very well and APPARENTLY had…well… “other issues” with the state of California that interfered with his ability to deal directly in the sale of racehorses.

 Slick’s English was broken, but understandable when he spoke slowly, and, a little more than APPARENTLY, he had some less than honest intentions from the get-go.  As I wrote before, what he was asking for the horse was ridiculous.  I had been told that she had a slightly bowed tendon on the right back and that breeding was dead in California due to the economy and that $1,500 would be a fair price for this worn-out mare.

 To avoid all the details of the bidding wars, I will simply say that I started at $2,000, a few hundred above what I had been told she would be worth, and at last gave an offer of $4,000, what she would have cost me if I had claimed her at her last race.  This price, plus $100 for “boarding.”  (It turned out, of course, that the horse was not on Slick’s property at all.  He claimed that the horse was entirely under his care, quite APPARENTLY a bald-faced lie, and he had actually asked for $200 in “board” for the few days she would remain at home.)

 So the deal was struck on February 5th, and everything seemed great.  Slick asked for a money transfer…into his girlfriend’s account…which did make me wonder a bit, but, anxious to get things finalized, I did what this APPARENT owner asked.

 I was elated when I learned that my driver was on his way, and he was scheduled to pick up Warren’s Sassy Cat at four in the afternoon.  My eight-year-old daughter, Laura Isabel, and I counted down the seconds, heralding four o’clock in the afternoon on the 17th as a holy hour.  I assumed everything was going according to plan…

 But Burns had more in store for me…

 I was in the middle of teaching a night class, discussing gender and ethics, when my cell phone rang.  I saw it was Slick, and I asked my class to excuse me for a minute so I could see what was up.  Slick was babbling, and fast, something about the horse’s papers.  The trailer was there and APPARENTLY, Slick was having trouble laying hands on the papers. I told him to keep looking, that I needed them for the horse to ship and that he needed to get them to the driver.  I explained I was at work, hung up and went back to my class. 

 Two minutes later, the cell rang again.  It was my driver.  I didn’t want to interrupt the class again, so I let the voice mail get it.  Thirty seconds later, it rang yet again.  The driver.  Something was wrong.  I excused myself once more.  I was already perturbed that the transport was four and a half hours late to pick up the horse…but there was more bad news.  “No papers…  No health certificate, no Coggins release, no Jockey Club registration.  Nothing.”

 I told my class to go home and that we would resume on Monday. Thus began a four hour Tchiakovskian opera that no one would believe without having been there.  And here begin the APPARENTLY’s in earnest…

 APPARENTLY, there was a major con-job afoot on Slick’s part.  APPARENTLY, the owner had, in fact, authorized Slick to conduct business with me however he saw fit and trusted him to get a fair price.  But APPARENTLY, Slick had made the deal with me, hidden the money in the girlfriend’s account and led the owner to believe that no sale had actually come about.  APPARENTLY, Slick had intended to take everyone by surprise and then lie at the last minute about the price of the horse.  Or maybe he was going to claim the horse had been stolen by pirates…I still can’t figure out this part.)  But, APPARENTLY, he had some slippery plan that involved taking money from me, shipping the horse without papers, and not telling the owners…

 APPARENTLY, someone suspected something when the transport showed up in the field, and thus began the opera…and, like most operas, it was long, there was lots of high-pitched screaming, and it was not in a language I understood…

 Between 8:30 and 10:30, I made exactly 173 calls, half (86 ½) to Slick, begging him to look harder and faster for the “misplaced” papers (still thinking he was the owner), and the other half to my driver, begging him to stay “just a few minutes more.”

 I had prodded this latter’s conscience early in the going, reminding him that I had waited several days for him.  After two hours, conscience was not enough.  He was starting to threaten to go, stating that it was simply getting too late.  “Time is money,” I have always heard; thus, I figured, by some Einsteinean equation, that money must also be time.  “I will give you $100 more, if you see this through.”   It worked.

 Another 173 calls passed back and forth, and somewhere in the night, someone who was APPARENTLY the wife or friend or agent of the owner (she held the papers, and APPARENTLY, fairly tightly) arrived on the scene, got my number from either Slick or the driver, and called my cell phone.  APPARENTLY she spoke exactly 17 words of English.  APPARENTLY, she was not going to give up the papers until she knew how much Slick had gotten for the horse.  APPARENTLY, Slick had told her that he got $1,000 and had “forgotten to call” her about the sale.  (Funny how things like that happen.) 

 APPARENTLY, and fortuitously, one of her 17 words was “four,” and I was able to convey to her that I had paid just that many times more than Slick had APPARENTLY told her.

Then the phone was passed again to Slick.  At LONG LAST, I got to use the obscenity poem I had crafted the night before.  I also let it be known that no matter how crazy he was, I was crazier and that I was prepared to find lawyers to sue him and that I would have the police at his place that night, if necessary.  (Even as I was leveling these threats, I was secretly sick at heart, fearing frightfully that my beloved horse--and my $4,100--were gone for good.)

 Slick stammered something incomprehensible and hung up.

 A minute or so later the APPARENT owner’s wife/friend/agent called once more.  “Problem, me!” she was crying.  “Problem, me!”  Now this was APPARENTLY a reference to something I had (loudly and with much language God must have frowned upon) told Slick.  “Your [words deleted] money problems and whatever [words deleted] you owe her are [words deleted] not my [words deleted] problem!!!”  APPARENTLY, she was trying to tell me that SHE DID have a problem, namely that Slick owed her/her husband/her friend/the person she represented (I am pretty sure she had a direct interest and was probably the owner’s wife) money, and she needed to hear again how much I had paid.  “You honest man…” (She seemed to want to believe there was still one left.)  “You tell me truth…”  (Now somewhere in this mess, I did hear a pretty wild account of the matter of the outraged woman, who she was and what she wanted, from Slick, but APPARENTLY, this was an elaborate untruth, as I did hear from the true owner the next day, and he clarified most of it--though I never did get entirely clear about who the woman was.  The owner did define Slick‘s role, however:  “he a crook.”)

 Once more, I assured her that the horse had been sold for $4,100 (I said it very slowly and several times), and APPARENTLY, “lawsuit” was also one of the 17 words, because I assured her that if she needed to file one against Slick, I would write an affidavit, stating the amount I had paid.

 This did the trick.  She gave the papers to my driver…and he ran for the door.

 More or less twenty hours later, she arrived, the only horse left in the trailer.  “Warren’s Sassy Cat!” Laura called out as it came up the drive to the paddock.  A loud horse cry that must have meant “YES!  IT IS!  NOW GET ME THE HELL OUT OF HERE!” issued through the metal walls.

 In moments, into the night’s chill and the deepening dark, a sweaty, dirty, worn, underfed--and hopelessly beautiful--17½ hand mare named Warren’s Sassy Cat…Warren’s Sassy Cat…actually mine at last!--very cautiously stepped onto Washington soil for the first time.

 What can I even say about this moment?…  Something fundamental changes in a person when he can say “my horse.”  Charles Howard could say “my horse.”  Mrs. Tweedy could say “my horse.”  And now I could too.

 And so it was that my own Jenny Geddes had beaten Burns again--and just at the wire.

 “I feel like I have pulled her out of hell through a keyhole,” I wrote Katie Merwick at Second Chance Ranch at 2 a.m. on February 18th, “and that what started with a miracle has ended with one.”

 And it is a perfect miracle:  I can see her every day now at the small ranch where she is boarded.  And as I walked her around the grounds today, I had to laugh that I once gathered a handful of Santa Anita soil, simply to have a bit of the place where she had won for me.  Because now, here she was, Warren’s Sassy Cat-- My Sassy Girl herself-- here with me, clip-clopping alongside with her beautiful, noble head bobbing at my right shoulder.  “My horse…”

 Everyone who hears this story says “it sounds just like a movie…”  Well, perhaps one whose script was written by a romantic poet who was descending rapidly into schizophrenic madness by the time he got around to the final act…  Still, a happy ending makes it all right once the final credits roll…

 But what to call it?  “My Sassy Girl”?  Already taken.  “All’s Well That Ends Well.”  Hum.  That sounds familiar too.  We could do a musical and call it “Singin’ In Ukraine…”

 Well, we’ll figure it out…
 

"Coming to a theater near you…”  Tickets go on sale on Valentine’s Day, 2011...