The Horsewoman(5)

“I can do something else,” Maggie said.

“No,” her mother said, “you can’t. And neither can I.”

They couldn’t afford a horse like Coronado on their own, no matter which way Caroline and the accountants ran the numbers.

A friend of a friend had told Caroline about the horse. A barn owner in Lexington had run out of money and decided to cash out. He was banking on Coronado, his best horse, to bring top dollar. Caroline and Maggie had worked Coronado out, fell in love with him the way they had his bloodline. Found a deep-pockets partner in Steve Gorton, a New York hedge-fund guy with a place in Palm Beach who’d followed his Florida friends into horses.

Caroline Atwood had explained to Gorton that she thought the horse had a chance to be special, and proposed a fifty-fifty split, even knowing that it would be a scramble to come up with her end, going into her savings, still needing help from the bank, feeling no different than a desperate bettor at the racetrack.

“You’re the expert,” Gorton had said, then asked, “And what exactly do I get for my half?”

“Half the profits,” Caroline had said.

Most people, Maggie had observed, were intimidated by her mother. Not this guy.

He had laughed suddenly. The sound reminded Maggie of glass breaking.

“I was born at night, Caroline,” Gorton had said. “But not last night.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” she’d said.

The joke on Wall Street, he’d said, was that nothing was more limited than being a limited partner of Steve Gorton. Take it or leave it: he’d take care of 60 percent of the asking price, and she could take care of the horse, and decide who rode him.

When Caroline resisted, Gorton had simplified the terms. If she didn’t like the deal, she could find somebody else to write her a million-dollar check.

Maggie had watched them debate, but knowing the finances of Atwood Farm as well as her mother did, this particular movie had only one ending. Caroline and Gorton had finally shaken hands.

Gorton, Maggie knew, had no love for horses, only for money. When she started winning right away on Coronado, Steve Gorton happily envisioned the pot of gold the sale of the horse would bring him.

Maggie thought only of a gold medal. The one she’d been dreaming about her whole life. That and a dream horse. She’d never thought she was owed a ride like Coronado. She knew sports didn’t work that way. Her sport certainly didn’t.

She had never been much of a party girl in high school, or college at Florida Atlantic, just up the road from Wellington. She liked boys well enough, had never had much of a problem keeping a boyfriend, at least until she’d lose interest and move on to the next one.

That was until Jack McCabe came along. Jack, the funny, smart, cool young New York lawyer. Different from the riders she’d dated. They’d fallen in love and gotten married too soon. Then she’d gotten pregnant.

But all she really wanted to do was ride.

Jack had even taken a year off from his father’s law firm in New York to travel the circuit with her, content to play Mr. Mom while she was competing, in Kentucky or North Carolina or Canada or DC or in the Hamptons. But as with many couples driven to be the best in their chosen professions, they drifted apart.

She was riding in the Hampton Classic, out on eastern Long Island, when they took a walk on the beach as a way of trying to clear the air. But suddenly they were standing in the dunes toe to toe, as if fighting for the title.

He finally told her he was leaving in the morning. Becky was three at the time, back in Florida with the nanny. Jack said he’d explain to her what was happening as best he could when he flew down to pack up his things.

“You’re not even going to stay for the Grand Prix?” she’d said.

It had been the big event to cap off the week. Even then, her mind had gone right back to the ring.

“You’ll be fine without me,” he’d said, before adding, “But then you always were.”

She’d won the next day, one of her biggest career victories to that point.

She’d nearly made it to the Olympics in London with Lord Stanley, until the horse came up lame in the spring of 2012. She’d accumulated enough average points the previous year to have already made the short list of ten elite riders trying to qualify for the US Olympic team. That list would eventually be shortened to four, three rider–horse combinations and an alternate after they’d competed the next year at a certain number of what were called “observation events.”

After what happened to Lord Stanley, Maggie feared that her best shot at the Olympics had come and gone. But she’d kept at it, teaching Becky along the way that the right combination of hard work and talent would bring good results. Maybe even great ones.

She had always believed that. Until now.

The nurse poked her head in. “How are we doing?” she said.

We, Maggie thought. Like they were a team. Like Maggie and her horse.

“Fine,” Maggie said.

“Are you sure you don’t want something for the pain?”

“No, thank you,” she said.

She’d seen it happen too often with other injured riders who would have taken anything except engine fuel to get back up on their horses.

The nurse closed the door. Maggie closed her eyes and listened to the night sounds of the hospital.