Free The Black Stallion's Sulky Colt by Walter Farley Page A

thing like that?” he added thoughtfully.
    â€œAlec …” Henry began. But he didn’t get a chance to finish, for Alec had turned toward him, his eyes bright and searching.
    â€œHenry, didn’t you once tell me about …”
    â€œHalcyon?” Henry asked.
    Alec nodded. “Then you’re thinking about the same thing I am,” he said.
    â€œIf it’s Halcyon, it is,” Henry answered. “He was the only running horse I know to wear that kind of a blinker hood. Years ago it was, on a New York track.”
    â€œDidn’t you tell me that the eyecups on that special hood could be opened and closed just by the jockey pulling a cord he held in his hands along with the reins?” Alec asked.
    Henry nodded. “As I remember, the eyecups were controlled by small springs. So they worked like a shutter or a Venetian blind. The jock could open and close them as he saw fit during a race.”
    â€œCouldn’t we do the same thing?” Alec asked eagerly. “Use a hood on Bonfire with just the right eyecup, and have the cord come back along the lines to me? Couldn’t we, Henry?”
    â€œWe could if I can get to New York and find the right man to make such a hood for me.”
    â€œWhat’s stopping you?”
    â€œNothing,” Henry said, getting off the tack trunk. “I’m practically there now!”
    Alec watched Henry go toward the parking area where his car was parked. It was a long chance they were taking, but a good one.

F OLLOW THE L EADER

7
    Henry didn’t return that night or early the next morning. Alec took care of Bonfire but postponed eating breakfast, hoping that Henry would arrive and join him. By nine o’clock there still was no sign of Henry, so Alec ate alone.
    Returning to the stables, he took Bonfire out for a walk, and then let him graze. The colt wore a light sheet, for the sky was a dull gray and there was dampness in the air. Horses and drivers went by on their way to the training track but they held no interest for Alec. He thought only of Henry. Had he found a man in New York who could make the special hood? Henry knew his way around. He’d spent half his life in New York. But even if his trip were successful would the trick hood work on Bonfire?
    A large horse van passed. Alec watched it come to a stop before the nearest green-and-yellow sheds. The side door was lowered and heavy fiber matting laid over it so the horses to be loaded wouldn’t slip. It wasn’tdifficult for Alec to identify the horses and know where they were going.
    They were all three-year-olds bound for Goshen, New York, and the Hambletonian. Silver Knight was there, his large gray head held firmly by his groom.
If it hadn’t been for him
, Alec thought,
things wouldn’t be as bad as they are for Bonfire or Tom
. Yet how could he blame Silver Knight? It was the breaks of the game.
    Eight other horses followed the gray colt into the van, their legs carefully bandaged, their bodies blanketed. Alec recognized Lively Man, who’d won the race that first night, and several others, including Victory Boy, who’d finished second. It was a valuable cargo the van was carrying. Every colt in it would soon race for a purse of well over a hundred thousand dollars.
    The trainer-drivers supervised the loading of their colts. They were young men for the most part, men who were physically able to stand the strenuous demands of long days and still longer nights at Roosevelt Raceway. Alec could well understand why older men like George and Jimmy Creech preferred to race at the fairs. He turned toward Bonfire.
    â€œMister,” he told the colt, “you’ll be going to Goshen yourself pretty soon now.” But he didn’t feel as confident as his words implied. He kept wishing Henry would get back.
    It was more than an hour later when Henry’s car pulled into the stable area. Bonfire was back in his stall, so Alec