The Mystery at Saratoga

accusation that still hung over their friend’s head. The smiles left their faces, and they stared at the ground, neither one wanting to introduce the unpleasant topic.
    “Come on, girls. Out with it!” Regan demanded. “Is this a pleasure jaunt, or did you manage to trail me from Sleepyside to Saratoga, too?”
    Trixie took a deep breath, then blurted out the rest of the story: their hunch that Mr. Worthington was connected with Regan’s disappearance; the information in the book at the Sleepyside library; the invitation they’d wangled to join the Wheelers in Saratoga; and, finally, Carl Stinson’s accusations against Regan the day before.
    As he listened, Regan’s face turned almost the same fiery red as his hair. When Trixie had finished, the only sound for a few moments was that of the currycomb against the Appaloosa’s coat as Regan waited for his rage to subside enough so that he could speak. Finally, he threw the currycomb into the equipment box and stalked out of the stable, beckoning the girls to follow him.
    He led them into the office, where he poured himself a cup of coffee from a large urn and gave each of the girls a soft drink from a well-stocked refrigerator. Then he sat down at a battered wooden table, and the girls took chairs on the opposite side.
    “You girls have done a remarkable job of piecing this story together,” Regan began, “but there are a few things you don’t know. For one thing, the race that Gadfly ran when he was doped seven years ago was a claiming race. Do you know what that is?”
    Honey nodded, but Trixie shook her head.
    “It’s a pretty common type of race, Trixie,” Regan said, “because the care and upkeep of a Thoroughbred racehorse is so expensive, and so many things can damage a horse, that owners have to weed out their stables constantly to keep from falling into debt.
    “Here’s how it works: The track announces that there will be, say, a five-thousand-dollar claiming race. That means that the winner of the race can be purchased for five thousand dollars by anyone who submits a sealed bid to the track officials before the race. Any owner who enters the race knows that if his horse wins, someone might claim him.
    “So it becomes a game of chance—and trickery. Sometimes an owner will enter an unsound horse in hopes that it will win and be claimed by someone who thinks it’s worth more than it is. And sometimes an owner will enter a sound horse, one that’s far superior to the other horses in the field, in hopes that it can win against the lesser horses and yet not be claimed, because people will think there’s something wrong with it.”
    “Whew!” Trixie exclaimed. “This is as confusing as watching the workouts at the track yesterday morning. I don’t see how the owners can fool each other, though. I mean, they all know about horses. Surely they can tell whether one is sound or not.” Regan shook his head. “You don’t know the lengths that owners will go to, Trix. An owner who wants his good horse to win without being claimed might bandage one of its legs for days before the race, to make it look as though it’s injured. And an owner who wants an unsound horse claimed will use ice packs, medication, even ultraviolet rays to treat a bad shoulder or a sore knee so that the horse will look good for a few days before the race. And don’t forget, anyone who puts in a bid for a horse is risking paying a lot of money for something that may or may not pay back the investment. I used a five-thousand-dollar claiming race as an example, but it might be as high as twenty-five thousand, which is what Gadfly was entered for.”
    “Whew!” Trixie exclaimed again.
    “But what does the fact that it was a claiming race have to do with Gadfly’s being drugged, Regan?” Honey asked.
    “I don’t know for sure, Honey,” Regan answered. “But the rumors that were going around right before the race put a few other people besides me in a suspicious light.
    “For one thing, there was a rumor that Mr. Worthington was having some financial problems right around the time of that race. He speculates on the stock market, you know, and I heard he’d dropped a bundle. Also, Gadfly had been having a knee problem. Carl Stinson thought it would clear up, but Worthington disagreed. I heard them arguing about it one afternoon a couple of weeks before the race—shortly before Gadfly was entered.”
    “I’m not following you very well,” Trixie confessed.