The killer already had six other horses loaded — Dark Side was at the back. The killer said, You’ll have to give me an extra hundred — I’ve got to unload all these others to get him. So Bob gave me an extra hundred and I gave it to the killer.

Dark Side had been ruled off for flipping in the gates. You can get a flipper reinstated, but it’s a lot of work. You have to get reapproved by the starter and you have to have eight clean breaks.

Horses get fractious and bang around in their slots before you kick the latch, so they’ve got headers to hold them. Here’s Dark Side, in a middle hole, with a handler on each side yanking his head straight. On his blind side there’s stamping and whinnying, heavy bodies slamming on metal, but he can’t turn his head to look because the headers won’t let him. That’s when he’d panic and start in with his fits.

Morning workouts are from five until eleven. There’s a lot of traffic. I’d walk him, just halter and lead shank, up to the starting gates to take a look around. I’d pet him and talk to him. I talked to the gate crews. Did a long lot of talking to the starters and headers. I said, Don’t crank him down like that. Let him turn his head a little and look.

Some of the other trainers would say, Get over it, the fucker’s got one eye. You’re wasting your time. They acted like cowboys. They liked me okay but I was still a girl trainer. Everything you do you’ve got to do twice as good.

I found an exercise rider, a good little jockey named Valdez — he took his time with him. We got some clean breaks. Finally the starter says, Okay, he’s reapproved, you can run him — but one more quirk, the horse is off and there ain’t no bringing him back.

I talked to my owner, Bob. I said, Let’s run him next week. It’s a race written for us, I said. So we entered, grabbed the seven hole. It was a lucky slot because it’s a nine-horse field — he’d have just two on his blind side.

Dark Side goes off at twenty-five to one. That’s a fifty-two-dollar winner. Bob said, Can I put some money down? Yes, I said, he’s ready.

The horse seemed to know I spared him. Everyone had given up on him. I’ve trained expensive horses and I’ve trained cheaper ones, but this was one of the best moments — this horse, this race. It turned a lot of heads. I finally got recognition as a trainer.