I stood as they rounded the backstretch with Rocky in the lead, and everyone was roaring. The far side of the track looked hazy in the rain. Rocky lugged into the rail, slowing, and the pack began to gain. The three-horse, running wide, found a last-minute kick and passed the whole field on the final stretch. Rocky barely held on to third. The betting father hugged his son and pushed him out of the stands to collect at the window.

I sat down on the wet bleachers, and my father dropped his hand on my knee. “What’re you crying for?” he asked.

“We lost Rocky,” I said. “I lost Rocky.”

He squeezed my shoulders. “All right,” he said. “All right.” He pulled away so I’d look at him. “I’ll still get to watch her run.”

The rain was coming down hard, and the stands where we sat were empty. I was wet and my nose was running, but I didn’t want to move.

“If you don’t chase me out of the rain,” he said, “I’ll have to do it myself.”

I choked back a laugh. “Get out of the rain.”

“That’s better,” he said, and we dragged ourselves out of the stands.

We stayed for the stakes race Rocky would have been in. Betting was light. Provincial Lady stumbled in second place, throwing the jockey into the infield, and had to be taken off the track in a van.

My dad went to the backside to see Rocky, and I signed papers in the race office, giving her over to the new owners. Then I stood alone under the dripping shade tarp, among the blue picnic tables, holding a folded check drawn on a Wyoming bank. The race steward came by, but he didn’t meet my eye and I didn’t want to talk to him.

Bettors headed out through the mud, dropping losing tickets on the ground. Two little girls in jeans and matching turquoise rodeo shirts hurried to the parking lot with rocking, cowboy-boot gaits. Connell, in his racetrack jacket, ducked under the shade tarp with me.

“The best-laid plans,” he said.

His hair was wet from the shower, and he smelled like soap. Behind him I could see my father coming from the paddock, carrying Rocky’s win blanket from the week before.

“You can ride her for the new owners,” I told Connell.

Connell frowned, then shrugged. “I guess I can,” he said.

We said good-bye at the gate, and my father took my hand and squeezed it tight. “You take it all too personally,” he said. I followed him to the parking lot, through the muddy rain.

In the morning my father was picking up rocks in our field because the pastured horses were getting stone bruises. I tried to convince him to go back inside. He said he would after I helped him clean up the hay by the feeder.