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were very quiet compared to the Kentucky Derby fans and their eyes were only for the horses. There were no loud catcalls to jockeys, no frantic rushing and shoving for a better view of the start. Instead they talked softly while craning their heads a little higher to watch the field go to the post. It was a good crowd, a polite crowd who knew horses and had come to watch a horse race … not one another or a sideshow. It made sense to Alec, horse sense.
    As the field neared the starting gate, Henry left him.
    â€œShe’s all yours, Alec,” the trainer said with final simplicity. “Good luck.”
    Alec let Black Minx move a little faster and her strides were secure in the mud. She was a fastidious little filly who preferred not to get her feet wet or dirty, but she had no fear of slipping … and that was all-important today.
    Her eyes were on the other horses now and, of course, she knew what it was all about. She had worked well and as Henry had said, “It’s going to be all right. She’s ready today.”
    Alec smiled. She had her crowd. Not as big as the Derby one, perhaps, but her second biggest; all that was necessary to make her go the race of her young life. She’d better!
    Alec knew that it wasn’t going to be a two-horse race as a lot of people figured. It would not be simply a duel between Eclipse and Black Minx. Every horse in the race bore watching just as in the Kentucky Derby.
    He watched Golden Vanity go into his number 1 stall. The California champion had quit during the last furlong of the Derby. But might not this shorter distance of a mile and three-sixteenths be just right for him?
    Black Minx suddenly broke from Alec’s hands, bolting away from the outer rail where he’d been keeping her. He stopped her just before she reached the starting gate but not in time to keep her from lashing out with her hind legs and narrowly missing Wintertime.
    Billy Watts on Wintertime swung his stick at Black Minx, and the starter from atop his high platform just off the track said, “Take your filly back, Ramsay, or I’ll put you outside. Smith,” he called to one of his ground crew, “you’d better help him get her straightened out. We don’t want any trouble here.”
    The crewman took Black Minx’s bridle, leading her across the track toward her number 5 stall.
    Alec stroked the filly’s neck and talked to her, but he couldn’t understand her hostility toward Wintertime.The only explanation he could think of was the humiliating defeat Wintertime had given her in their one workout together. But she had quit of her own accord, so that didn’t make much sense. Alec didn’t have time for any further thought on the subject for Silver Jet reared, refusing to be led by his handler, and came down close to the filly.
    The gray’s handler got hold of the bridle again and coaxed him into the number 2 stall.
    Silver Jet and Golden Vanity were now side by side! Would the two of them set the same blistering pace they had in the Derby? Alec wondered.
    Wintertime went nervously into the next stall, number 3, and Black Minx watched him, snorting loudly. Alec patted her again.
    â€œCome on, Girlie,” her handler said, “that’s no way for a Kentucky Derby winner to act.” The man tried to get her to move toward her number 5 stall but she wouldn’t budge.
    Alec said, “Give her another minute, please. Don’t fight her.”
    â€œWe ain’t got another minute,” the crewman said. “It’s post time now. But I’ll give her another couple seconds.”
    Burly brown Eclipse went into the number 4 stall as if he were going into his barn for a container of oats.
    â€œThat’s the way he does everything,” Alec recalled. “It’s as though he knew exactly how much work had to be done in order to earn his keep!”
    It wasn’t that Eclipse was sluggish. Far from