Man O'War by Walter Farley Page B

same thing, while still others ignored the benches and walked beneath the green shade trees examining yearlings at their leisure.
    The crowd swelled with every passing moment, getting a little noisier but not pushier. Everything was being done in an easy manner. There was no hurry. This was Saratoga.
    Danny, too, found himself caught in the slow, leisurely pace. He was reminded of the war going on by the number of uniforms in evidence, but some men were still dressed in dinner clothes from the night before and others, men and women alike, wore tweeds and silks. He knew that all these people were trying to forget, if only for a little while, the fighting being waged overseas. So, perhaps more than ever before, they were absorbed in the fascinating business of looking at young horses and trying to decide on their potential as racehorses. They were slow about it because they did not want this time to slip by too fast. For a few hours all could escape into the past and a world at peace. Here was quiet, good living, and easygoing charm. And there was no better way to start the day off than by looking at yearlings, with an afternoon of racing still to come.
    Danny understood. And he watched many of the consignors of yearlings, too, go along with the carefree life instilled by Saratoga’s natural charm. The sellers were doing everything possible to attract attention to their yearlings, some having large barbecues alongside their barns with grooms in white aprons cooking lamb and all the trimmings over small log fires.
    Danny noted that the meat was disappearing faster than it took to cook it. There was no doubt that the barbecues were a success, but whether or not they would sell yearlings was something else again.
    He turned back to Man o’ War. “They’re going after buyersevery way they can, Red,” he said. “Everybody but us. We’re sitting tight. Let them come to us.”
    Again he looked outside the stall. There was a crowd milling nearby and it was only a matter of moments before they would ask to see Man o’ War. He studied these prospective buyers of his colt closely as they walked quietly around the yearlings in the adjacent stable.
    Some of the men were squatting while inspecting the colts. Why? Danny wondered. Their reasons must be known only to themselves, for there was nothing they couldn’t see from an upright position. The women in the crowd remained stately, erect, but their eyes were as knowing as the men’s. Danny knew from what he had heard that this year the women were giving the men a lively tussle in the buying and selling of colts. Since he worked for Mrs. Kane, this had come as no great surprise to Danny. He had a lot of respect for women
who understood horses.
But at the same time he couldn’t see Man o’ War as anything but a man’s horse.
    It was a quiet crowd considering the large number of people, Danny decided. They exchanged greetings with one another but their eyes did not leave the yearlings for very long. It was all business, as if every single one of them was looking for the colt that would turn out to be the finest of the sale.
    Not that the best horse would be bought for the highest dollar, Danny knew. Not by any means. Everybody realized that many a colt sold for some sensational price like fifty thousand dollars very often never reached the racetrack. No, the most successful colts sold in the middle range, around five to twenty thousand dollars.
    People waited patiently for others ahead of them to finish examining a colt and then go on to the next one. They were all very polite, Danny noted, and very thorough, too. Theyseemed to have a set pattern of inspection and it seldom seemed to vary.
    Those who were not afraid of horses—and this included the women—stooped to pass their hands slowly and carefully over the knees of each horse. Then they went to the off side of the colt, stopped abruptly, and went back to check the forelegs