Raja, Story of a Racehorse by Anne Hambleton Page A

Florida
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    â€œHe sure is good lookin’, ain’t he?” drawled Speedy, the stable hand, towering over his broom, thin and lanky as a whip. Five Jack Russell terriers sat around him on the perfectly swept, dark green rubber-tiled center aisle of the long barn, watching in anticipation as he slowly put his hand into his pocket and tossed a handful of corn-smelling goodies to them. The dogs excitedly raced after them, gobbled them up, and looked up at him once more, tails wagging. A row of well-groomed horses looked over their stall doors curiously at me as Bob led me into the barn and handed me to Oakley, Michelle’s tanned, fit-looking young assistant. Above the polished brass-and-wood stall fronts, a row of brightly colored shiny strips of cloth, mostly blue and red with gold lettering, fluttered in the breeze that was wafting through the barn.
    â€œHe sure is,” Oakley replied, pushing his blond hair out of his eyes and wiping his hands on his breeches before leading me past a row of neatly arranged tack trunks, past a big wash stall lined with bottles of shampoo, brushes and a tidy stack of folded towels and past the curious horses, to a woodsy-smelling stall filled with shavings. Bob and Speedy followed, with the pack of terriers close on their heels. After he put me in the stall, Oakley stood with Speedy, admiring me.
    â€œHe’s huge. And beautiful! Wow! What a powerful looking hind end. I’ll bet he can jump. That’s an interesting marking on his forehead. Like a scythe. I’ve never seen that before. Those are some impressive scars on his hind leg, too. It must have been some accident.”
    â€œIt was a bad one. He’s had time off. Now he’s ready for a new job.”
    Bob cleared his throat as he gave me a lingering pat. “I guess I’d better get going. Good bye, Raja. I’m gonna miss you.”
    Sticking my head over the outside stall door and chewing on a mouthful of the alfalfa that I found in the corner, I watched the van drive away with a frenzied white-and-brown dust cloud of Jack Russell terriers chasing it away, barking furiously.
    Speedy shook his head. “Dumb dawgs are gon’ get smushed, I’m tellin’ ya.”

    That night after supper, my new neighbor, Holzmann, a small, black, athletic-looking horse, struck up a conversation with me.
    â€œWe heard that one of the Sheikh’s horses almost won the Kentucky Derby. Did you know him?” He seemed to know that I was a racehorse. I nodded.
    Max. He was my best friend.
    â€œWell, you won’t ever go that fast again,” exclaimed Holzmann, “but those big timed jump-offs can be pretty fun. It’s nice to see another Thoroughbred in here. I was feeling a bit outnumbered by the Warmbloods. I started out racing myself, you know. I’m very well bred, but I never really liked racing all that much. I hated all of that jostling and bumping and mud in your face. It just seemed rough and it wasn’t intellectually challenging. I’m fast, but I just didn’t see the point.” He paused to scratch his nose, rubbing it on the side of the stall door. “On the other hand, I love being a jumper. Michelle got me because she had one of my half-brothers. Turns out my family are all amazing jumpers. Lots of Thoroughbreds are, you know.” He rubbed his nose again on the stall door. “We horses figure out pretty quickly whether we want to race or not. No one can force us to run. If we’re too slow or don’t like to race, we usually find other careers like showing, eventing, foxhunting, trail riding, even polo.”
    I had no idea there were so many other careers.
    What about the horses that can’t have other careers, the lame ones?
    Holzmann looked at me sadly. “You don’t want to know. Usually they move farther and farther down the line, often getting abused along the way. The lucky ones get adopted as pets, or companions for