A jockey’s horse spooked and broke through the outside fence into a line of trees. The jockey comes to in the hospital and the doctor asks, When was your last bowel movement? Right before I hit that first tree, the jockey says.

After a bad race, a trainer asks his jockey, What happened? And the jockey says, Well, once we hit the seven-eighths pole he started making weird noises. The trainer gets worried and says, What kind of noises? Was he bleeding, or wheezing, or what? The jock says, No, it was more like oink oink — he’s a pig.

They call it breaking the maiden — the first time a jockey wins a race. When a jockey breaks his maiden, all the other jockeys come and strip him and put black shoe polish on his balls — did you know that?

SIX

EVERYTHING MYSELF

People took notice of my record with the Beauregards and started sending me horses to train. I didn’t ever want a big stable because I didn’t want to worry about hiring grooms and exercise riders — I wanted to do everything myself. So I’d train two or three — groom them and exercise them, too — and to make extra money I pulled manes, cleaned sheaths. I ponied other horses to the starting gate for twenty-five bucks a trip. I’d gallop them at eight bucks a pop.

The trainer figures out the horse’s game plan, but the groom cleans the horse’s stall, scrubs his feed tub, does his leg care, brushes him, keeps him happy. A groom knows the horse better than anybody, but the only groom you ever hear about is Will Harbut, groom to Man o’ War. The two of them lived together, retired together, died a few weeks apart. They were buried side by side. It was a love affair.

There’ll be ten grooms in a barn but your horse will nicker at you and nobody else. You talk to them and they listen. They respond. You’re their caregiver. They want to make you happy.

WASHED, BATHED, GOOD CARE

Four o’clock feed, seven days a week. After that you tack them up and get them out on the track. They see the saddle go by and they’re arching their heads and bobbing up and down. While the horses are out, the stalls get cleaned. Water buckets get scrubbed, feed tubs get scrubbed. You don’t put feed in a dirty old tub. You scrub.

If it’s hot you use a hose, but most days you heat up water for a warm bath with a natural sponge and shampoo when they’re done running. You clean their sheath with castile soap if they’re a gelding, or if they’re a mare, you clean their little tits. You might put a light fishnetty fly sheet on them, but typically your nice big squirrel-cage fans will keep the flies away.