LEAVIN’ ON A JET PLANE

LEAVIN’ ON A JET PLANE

By Sean Clancy

Tom Garner walks into the paddock at Percy Warner Park on a humid afternoon in Nashville, Tennessee. Garner smiles the best a jockey can muster minutes before ignition and leans toward Cool Jet’s camp.

Like he’s holding the nuclear code, Garner almost whispers, “I’m not letting that horse get an easy lead. Nobody else can go, nobody else can lay up with him. I’m not going to do anything that aggressive, but he’s not getting an easy lead.”

I nod. A jockeys’ conviction with minutes to the off is a jockeys’ salvation. The only thing I can do now is instill doubt. I nod again.

The Green Pastures, a 2¼-mile stakes and part of a stellar Iroquois card, enticed six entries Monday morning. Garner wasn’t on Cool Jet, a horse he partnered to finish second at Queen’s Cup two weeks earlier. Graham Watters, first call in Jack Fisher’s barn, was on Cool Jet.

By Wednesday, the 2021 champion, hurting from a sore back suffered the week before, finally succumbed to an MRI. A broken vertebrae and a broken dream. He’s out. Garner is back on Cool Jet. None of this is talked about.

Fisher gives Garner a leg up on Cool Jet. The 7-year-old lopes into a canter toward the backstretch of this mile and a half oval, the Belmont Park of steeplechase courses.

The Hero Next Door, undefeated in two front-running gems so far this spring, breaks sharply from the outside. Freddy Flintshire, Going Country and Proven Innocent melt away from Sterling Young’s flag. That leaves Cool Jet, the bridge between the pace and the pack. Garner starts fingering the nuclear code.

Lightly, I think. Subtly, I implore. All in my mind as I watch from a spot discovered long ago when I was a writer searching for the potential winning trainer. That usually swung to Jonathan Sheppard. The Hall of Famer would watch from this spot, solitary, away from owners (writers!), deep in his thoughts, binoculars the only conveyance long before big screens and pop-up tents. Flatterer…Mistico…Divine Fortune…Arcadius who went out on his shield.

The Hero Next Door leads. Cool Jet tracks. The others are content to watch the back-alley brawl.

I begin to announce the race, binoculars homing in on the action playing out just as Garner had promised.

“…The Hero Next Door leads…Cool Jet tracks him from the inside…Proven Innocent…Freddy Flintshire…Going Country last of all…”

I take a deep breath.

“…The Hero Next Door rolls down the hill…Cool Jet menacing from the inside…”

Another deep breath.

“…Midway down the back…The Hero Next Door and Cool Jet locked together…”

Deep breath.

“…They continue to climb…Cool Jet puts a head in front…around the turn…Cool Jet…The Hero Next Door…”

I inch closer to the last hurdle. At some point, I go from race caller to commentator, I guess when I know it’s over. The two protagonists are on fumes now. Chugging. Slugging. Heartbreak Hill etches another notch.

“They’re coming to the last…we’re going to be second…a good second…a gallant second…”

The Hero Next Door pins his ears, gradually opening a length, 2 lengths. Cool Jet pins his ears, grinding, scouring. The last fence the only slide still to show. David England steadies The Hero Next Door, sees a spot, starts to launch, then stutters.

“He fell…He fell…”

Sensor screams into the phone, “Oh no, he fell….”

“No…No…Not us…Not us…”

I cringe as The Hero Next Door crashes, a hard fall, and Cool Jet, for a stride, suspends…oh don’t fall over him…don’t fall over him…don’t fall over him. Cool Jet lands and jinks to the right, a 1,200-pound animal, after 2 and 3/16 miles of soul searching, shifts, a linebacker becoming a ballerina in a cauldron.

“He’s going to win…He’s going to win…He’s going to win…”

But he’s not running, not really running. He’s on memory now. Up and down. The final fumes.

I scan back to the others…they’re on fewer fumes. Hold it together Cool Jet. Hold it together. I see The Hero Next Door rise, England rise, that’s what counts, victory and defeat are bedmates.

I start running. A sidestep slide, and finally, celebration. One moment in time. One moment in sport.