Horse Race by Bonnie Bryant Page B

“Someone needs to walk that animal and it’s sure not going to be me.” He lowered his voice a little so that Toby wouldn’t hear. “And remember what we talked about, or we’ll have to have another little discussion very soon.”
    The girls scurried to get away from Garvey and catch up with Toby. “Want me to lead him?” Stevie offered, reaching for the horse’s lead line.
    Toby nodded and let her take it. “Thanks,” he muttered, shooting a glance back at Garvey, who had turned to watch the action on the track. “I wonder what that was all about?” He reached down and pulled a long, thin whip out of the side of his boot. As they walked, he tapped his hand with it rhythmically.
    “I don’t know,” Lisa said. She wished they could tell the friendly jockey the truth, but they couldn’t—not as long as they thought he might be in cahoots with Garvey. “He must have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed or something. I’m sure you were just trying to help.”
    “Thanks,” Toby said, glancing at her gratefully. “It’s nice to hear you say that. I only wish Garvey would realize it, too.”
    Carole was thinking about what the jockey had said. “What did you mean about the lead changes?” she asked. Being riders themselves, she and her friends knew all aboutlead changes, when a horse switched from beginning its stride with its left front leg to its right or vice versa. But Carole hadn’t realized that racehorses needed to be able to change leads on command, and she said so.
    Toby nodded. “That’s a fair question,” he said. “It’s actually pretty logical. The lead foot takes a lot of pounding when a horse is running at full speed, so we like to make sure they change leads at least a couple of times during a race so one leg doesn’t get more tired than the other. And since racehorses run counterclockwise around the track—in this country, at least—it makes sense for them to lead with their right leg during the two straight stretches on the course and switch to a left lead going around the turns.”
    “I get it,” Stevie said. “That way their left leg sort of leads them around the curve.”
    “Right,” Toby said. “Sometimes a jockey will have a horse switch leads when he’s running down the homestretch, too. A fresh lead can give the horse an extra bit of energy when he’s tired.”
    “That’s really interesting,” Carole said. “I’m surprised I never noticed the horses were doing that in the races I’ve seen.”
    “I’m surprised, too,” Lisa said with a laugh. Seeing Toby’s puzzled look, she added, “Usually Carole notices every single thing about every single horse she sees.”
    As Carole was starting to protest, another horse approached, led by a man even shorter and wirier than Toby.He was leading a gray filly, and the girls immediately recognized Leprechaun. “Hey, Toby,” the little man called. “Are you ready to lose in the second race this afternoon?”
    Toby grinned. “Not on your life,” he replied. He quickly introduced the girls to the other jockey, whose name was Mack.
    Mack nodded a polite hello and then winked at them. “I beat Toby every time we run together,” he said. “He just hasn’t learned to admit it yet.”
    “Ha!” cried Toby, a twinkle in his eyes. “Don’t listen to him, girls. I’ve left him in the dust the last ten or twenty times we’ve met. The only reason he’s still getting mounts is that he’s so small he never has any trouble making weight.”
    Carole smiled. She knew that each horse had an assigned weight to carry in a race, which included the weight of its jockey and tack. No trainer wanted his or her horse to carry more than the assigned amount, since it would slow the horse down, and that was why jockeys were so small and thin. Looking at the tiny Mack, Carole could imagine that no weight assignment could possibly be too low for him. In fact, he probably weighed no more than she did.
    Mack grinned. “The day you