“Don’t look up,” Rocco warned her. “On those heels, you’d wind up in the trauma ward.”

“I think that there are at least three orthopedic surgeons at this party! In fact, why don’t you have them take a look at your back?”

The odor of horses, mixed with leather and fodder, became increasingly strong as the group approached the stables. In the distance, on the left, the light-blue color of a brightly lit swimming pool promised the arrival of summer.

A short, powerfully built man came forward to greet the group. “Here’s Dodò . . . the best groom in the whole valley. Dodò, these are my friends.”

“Buonasera . . .” said the little man. From his wrinkles, it looked as if his face had been folded and refolded countless times, like an old road map.

“They want to see Winning Mood.”

Dodò smiled and raised his right arm, pointing the way. “Over here . . .”

The heels of the guests echoed on the cobblestones. From inside a stall a horse was delivering powerful kicks against the structure. Another horse, farther away, was neighing, perhaps because he’d been bothered by that noise in the night.

Followed by the guests, the groom threw open a double sliding door, and they were all immediately enveloped by the dampness and stench of equine urine. Then the groom turned on the lights, illuminating a long hallway. Every thirty feet or so there was a door with bars. It looked like a wing in a penitentiary. “Winning Mood is in the last stall,” said Berardo Turrini, by this point incapable of further restraining his excitement. “Come on, come on!”

To the right and left, there were sleeping horses, and here and there horses with their heads bowed, munching on the fodder scattered over the floor. A gray stallion pushed his muzzle out through the hatch in the door. He kept his ears back and gazed out at the group of rubbernecking intruders with a blank gaze. At last, Berardo came to a stop.

“Dodò!”

The groom, who had seized a rope, opened the door and walked into the stall.

“Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present Winning Mood!”

At Berardo’s gesture, the little man emerged, leading a bay stallion on a halter.

“Here he is, ladies and gentlemen!”

He was an enormous animal. Gleaming, powerful, with a long mane and strong, muscular legs. His hooves seemed to set the stone floor aflame.

There was a chorus of appreciative “Ohs!” from all the onlookers. Except for Rocco, who knew less about horses than he did about women.

“He’s marvelous!” cooed a blonde matron at the head of the group.

A bespectacled fellow walked up to the horse and started stroking him. “With a horse like this, what’s to stop you?”

“Right,” said Berardo, and he smiled complacently. “We’re going to run him for the first time at Cattolica, at the end of the month.”

“Who are you going to have ride him?”