The Black Stallion

some day get it back to the fairs, where harness racing belongs."
    That night Jimmy had his bad attack, and he stayed at home resting the remainder of the week while Tom worked the blood bay colt.

Hard Fists
14
    While Jimmy was home in bed, George told Tom, "I know Jimmy must sound awfully bitter to you. He's sick, but y'got to remember he's sincere about 'most everything he says. He's sick to his stomach with that ulcer an' sick to his head when he realizes what's happening to his sport—
our
sport," George added quietly.
    It was early morning and they were cleaning Bonfire after a long workout. "Wipe his nostrils clean, Tom," George said. Going to the colt's tail and lifting it, he sponged the sweated hindlegs.
    Tom was working on Bonfire's small head and couldn't see George. But the man's voice came easily to him.
    "You got to remember, too, Tom," George went on, "that Jimmy and I were brought up in the old days. To sit behind a fast horse and to set out for town in a buggy was like some guy today ridin' around in a blue convertible. On the way to town, we'd never let anyone pass us—not if we could help it. That's how harness racin' started, just tryin' to get to town with your horse before another guy. We lived for our horses and we still do, Jimmy 'specially. I don't do anything but help him. But I understand all right how Jimmy feels."
    Tom ran his sponge down Bonfire's neck, and now he could see George. The colt's tail was hanging over the man's bald, bared head while he went on cleaning the horse.
    "I guess I'm jus' more adaptable than Jimmy is," George continued thoughtfully. "Maybe you can call it that. Anyway, what I mean is I seem to be able to accept a lot of things that Jimmy can't. He's too mad to accept any change in harness racing. Lots of what Jimmy Creech says about night racing, the raceways an' even the Phillip Cox Clothing Company may be true. Don't you forget that," he added emphatically.
    "But there are other things Jimmy should remember, an' he won't. The way I see it, harness racin' has to have its progress jus' like everything else in this world today. It's getting big because a lot of new folks are learning what a grand sport it is. You wouldn't have raceways if a lot of people didn't want to see our horses go. Our sport don't belong only to the farmer and country folks—not no more, it don't. City people who never saw a fair now can watch our horses go at a raceway track… and that's good in many ways. But Jimmy can't see it. Not for the life of him, he can't."
    George came around to the other side of the colt and looked over Bonfire's back at Tom. He took a chew of tobacco before continuing.
    "It's good because it means that a lot more people all over the country are becoming interested in our sport. It means bigger purses than you'll ever get at most fairs. Jimmy in his best years at the fairs never made much more than enough to pay his feed bills and have a little left over. An' that's not right, Tom. Jimmy says it's all sport with him and that's the only way it should be. But I say it's his lifework too, an' he should have more to show for it after fifty years of it than he does!" George's voice rose so high that he swallowed a little tobacco juice. He coughed and then was quiet for a moment while Tom threw the white cooling blanket over Bonfire.
    George followed when the boy led Bonfire outside into the cool November morning. While they walked the colt, George continued.
    "And don't forget, Tom, that with more people interested in our sport it means more and better horses, too, because the competition is a lot keener than it was, and that always means improvement. But it doesn't mean," he added quickly, "that the little guy like Jimmy Creech is bein' shoved out of the picture. With Jimmy's horse sense he's got just as much chance of breeding a champion as any guy with money to burn. Look at Bonfire—there's your answer to that. An' look at Miss Elsie, with all her money, just waitin' and waitin' year after year for the good colt she wants."
    They turned Bonfire around at the end of the row and walked him back again.
    "Maybe this Phillip Cox won't do anything with that forty-eight-thousand-dollar yearling, either," George said. "An' then again maybe he will. It's a gamble for him jus' like it is for the rest of us—Miss Elsie, Jimmy and hundreds of others—whether we're gettin' ready for the raceways or the fairs. You jus' never know when the good colt will come