Boyd said, The horse can’t run like that, he’s got his mind on other things. You’ve got to take care of him. Go grab that thing, you know how to do it. Is that a problem for you?

Well, no, said the greenhorn gal.

She touched the horse’s dick and it jerked up — thump! — on his belly. She tried to grab it and it swung up and hit his belly again. Her hand went back. Oh my god, she said.

Boyd was waving his arm in the air, shouting for everyone to gather around — come on, come see this gal, get over here and take a look at this.

MILLIONS

When we hauled the horses from the training farm in Florida to Kentucky, I rode in the trailer with them to make sure nothing happened. It was a thirteen, fourteen hour trip. No seat belt — no seat, even — for me back there, but the rules get bent when you’re hauling millions of dollars in horseflesh. Every time a horse took a munch of hay, the wind whipped the hay into my eyes — I had to wear sunglasses. If I needed something I was out of luck. When we stopped to gas up I’d get out and stretch.

Finally we arrived. Ransom Farm was beautiful — everything manicured. A huge crew worked seven days a week to maintain the grounds — polishing, clipping, raking, sweeping. There were people who did nothing but dust the stalls. There was a cemetery for the horses with life-size bronze statues on the graves. The barn roofs were all inlaid cedar. At the entrance were the big old iron gates that opened up to let you in, if you were lucky.

IT WAS HARD LIVING

It was the good horses and the big races and the twin spires at Churchill Downs. I thought, This is the Kentucky Derby and I’m here — this is my dream. I started from the bottom and worked my way to the top. But I didn’t have a position like I did at the cheaper tracks — I was working as a groom, not a trainer.

In Kentucky there were dormitories for backsiders but if you lived there you had to follow their rules — no visitors, lights out at ten. I had a lot of friends and I liked to sit around and bullshit by the training track, so instead I lived in a horse stall with a concrete floor. It had a little wall heater, bars on the windows, a big heavy-duty metal door, one outlet. I lived out of a hot pot, an air bed. It would’ve been better if I’d had a car. I should’ve gotten a car.