The Black Stallion

Raceway; the rest was up to Tom and the colt. The job ahead of them would be the most difficult of their short racing careers.
    They left the Reading Fair Thursday morning in Sadie with Uncle Wilmer sitting quietly between them. They trailed Miss Elsie and the two big vans from Roosevelt Raceway. Miss Elsie had taken the news of their going with no apparent surprise or concern. She was all business again. The only thing that mattered to her was getting her black filly to the raceway and winning the championship race. Whether or not she felt that Bonfire would provide any competition for her Princess Guy was not evident in her manner or face. She said only that Tom and George could follow her to Roosevelt Raceway, for she had made arrangements with the two raceway drivers at Reading to follow them, not knowing the way herself.
    "It's four hours to New York," George said, when they left the fairgrounds behind, "and about another hour more to Roosevelt."
    "We ought to be there by three o'clock then," Tom said.
    And that was the extent of their conversation for hours and the many miles that passed beneath Sadie's smoothly worn tires. George had to push Sadie right along to keep up with the fast-rolling vans ahead.
    Within two hours they left the farms and cultivated fields behind and moved speedily along a four-lane highway. The traffic became faster and heavier; they were still a long way from New York, but already they could feel the rapid beat of its city heart.
    The country and fairs were behind them and Tom couldn't help feeling a deep sense of remorse stealing over him; the feeling heightened with every mile that brought them closer to the city and farther away from all he had grown to love so much. While he watched Miss Elsie's trailer and the speeding vans ahead, he very often thought of the leisurely, relaxed way he and George had driven through rolling countryside from one fair to the next.
    He and George and Uncle Wilmer and Bonfire were going far afield, and he wondered what would be the outcome of this penetration of the city and raceway. He had all the confidence in the world in the speed of his colt, but he had learned also that a race wasn't always decided by speed alone. And night driving would be as foreign to him as to Bonfire.
    Finally they were moving along narrow, traffic-congested streets, threading their way toward the tall skyscrapers far in the distance.
    "There's the Empire State Building," Tom said, pointing a finger toward the long, slender needle, much higher than any of the other buildings, that pierced the sky.
    George only gripped the steering wheel more grimly and said nothing; neither did Uncle Wilmer, whose eyes never turned from the street ahead as he sat tense and straight.
    Suddenly they were going down into a deep black hole of a tunnel; Uncle Wilmer unclasped his hands and put one on Tom's knee and the other on George's.
    Tom muttered, "Holland Tunnel… we're going under the Hudson River."
    The lights of the tunnel flashed by in quick succession; the wheels and motors of cars and trucks increased to a deafening, shattering roar that blasted their ears. When they emerged from the tunnel and were out in daylight once more, there was no relief, for spread before was the heavy traffic of downtown New York.
    No one spoke after that, not even Tom.
    Across narrow one-way streets and up crowded avenues they followed Miss Elsie and the vans ahead. And when that was over, they found themselves high on a bridge, crossing the East River to Long Island. Then came New York City suburbs and, after an hour more, cleared fields that skirted the highway; occasionally they saw a small truck farm.
    The vans ahead slowed down and turned left off the highway. Not far away was the green-and-white-painted arched entrance of Roosevelt Raceway; beyond rose the mammoth grandstand, its many flags flying in the afternoon breeze.
    George drove Sadie through the entrance behind the others.
This was it
! Everything they had known was behind them, and George and Uncle Wilmer looked upon it all with new eyes, as did Tom.
    They passed the gate to the track and saw the flashy green-and-white awnings of the paddock. Beyond was the racing strip, and within the racing oval was still another track; around it many horses were having a workout.
    They left it all behind to go to the barns, and never in their lives had they seen so many stables and horses.
    Only then did George speak. "There must be at least five hundred