The Project Gutenberg eBook of Replace the horse
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Title: Replace the horse
Author: Laurence M. Janifer
Release date: July 20, 2026 [eBook #79141]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: Ziff-Davis Publishing Company, 1958
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79141
Credits: Tom Trussel (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REPLACE THE HORSE ***
Replace The Horse
by Larry M. Harris
[Pseudonym of Laurence M. Janifer]
=Lots of people think they can beat the races. Willy Dunstan knew he
could. But in the long run, no nutty inventor’s gimmick is going to
be able to=
=Replace The Horse=
The only trouble with Willy Dunstan was that he was a scientist.
Of course, things wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d only been a
fair-to-middling scientist, or even a downright poor one. But no. Willy
had to be a good scientist. That was what ruined him, and ruined me,
too.
My name’s Arthur Holly, and by profession I’m a trainer. It’s my job to
see that the horses are always in shape, always ready to go at whatever
track happens to be open. And I’m pretty good, too. If I hadn’t been
good I’d never have had the idea of going into business for myself, and
none of this would have happened.
But, you see, I got the chance to buy this plug....
A plug is a decrepit horse, of no use to anybody and damn little use to
himself. Naturally, the animal wasn’t described to me as a plug. Greg
called him a Business Opportunity. “This is your chance to start your
own stable,” he said. “This horse is a winner, going at a sacrifice
price--confidentially, the owner doesn’t realize what he’s got and he
just wants to get rid of the animal at a good price.”
Naturally, that made me suspicious right from the start, and when I saw
the horse I was more than suspicious; I was sick. Greg had done his
best to spruce the poor thing up, but you can’t disguise a swaybacked,
emptybellied, crosseyed old plug enough so I can’t tell what it is.
“I tell you the horse is a terrific buy,” Greg whispered to me behind
his hand. The animal was up for auction, of course. Not that there were
many buyers. I was there with Greg, a couple of small owners were there
trying to look smart and calculating, and a tall, thin guy with glasses
and no hair was there, too.
“He’s a terrific buy for a glue factory,” I said, and sat on my hands.
I watched the horse go, at last, for one hundred and thirty-five
dollars, and I thought no more about it. I’d wasted an afternoon, but
it was my own fault. I should have listened to that little voice inside
that starts to talk to me whenever Greg comes around.
I did notice that the buyer was the tall, thin guy with the glasses and
no hair. But what was that to me? Nothing.
* * * * *
Until Greg came along a couple of days later. “I know a guy who’s
looking for a trainer,” he told me.
I was clocking Blue Joy at the time, and I didn’t answer him until
she’d crossed the finish line: a beautiful mare, three years old with
the wind and staying power of a colt. A winner if I ever saw one.
I pushed the stopwatch shut and turned around. “I’m _working_ for a guy
who needs a trainer,” I said.
“This guy I know,” Greg said, “he wants to make his trainer half-owner
of the stables. Would I come to you if it wasn’t a good deal?”
Well, of course he would. I reminded him of the plug I’d gone down to
buy.
“Now, that’s a funny coincidence,” Greg said, and I laid back my ears
and got ready to run. Greg’s funny coincidences are the only things in
the world that mean more trouble than his Business Opportunities. But
Greg didn’t notice; he went right on. “Remember the guy who bought that
plug?”
The tall thin guy with the g. and the no h. Sure, I remembered him.
“Well, he’s the guy who wants a trainer-owner,” Greg said.
Oh, fine. I didn’t want to work with the plug I’d seen, and any guy
who’d buy that one probably had a stable full of equally sad animals.
“He’s a scientist,” Greg said. “He’s got some new ideas.”
And that didn’t make me feel any happier, let me tell you. I know
enough of those college-trained characters; we have had them as
stableboys and walkers, and every notion in their heads is just more
sawdust and nonsense. Never saw a college boy yet who made a good horse
handler. Never expect to see one. And a scientist with lots of new
ideas didn’t sound good.
“At least come down and see him,” Greg said. “What can you lose?”
“An afternoon,” I said. But I came.
Why?
God only knows. I know this much: I wish I hadn’t.
* * * * *
The guy who’d bought the plug was a scientist, all right. For a track
and stables he’d bought an old sinkhole of a place the former owner
had been trying to get rid of for ten years; the ground was rocky and
got kind of swampy during wet weather. He had five animals, all of
them horrible plugs like the one I’d seen him buy. He led that one
out to the track, saddled up, climbed on and handed me down a pair of
binoculars. “Follow the horse with these,” he said.
“I’m standing trackside,” I said. “What do I need with binocs?”
“Don’t argue,” he said. “Follow the horse with these. Time me if you
want to. But keep the glasses trained on the horse.”
And he started off. I figured I might as well humor the guy, and I
watched him through the binocs as he went around. He was a hell of
a jockey. He sat straight as a poker in the saddle, with a kind of
frightened expression on his face, and he kept one hand on the reins
and one on his glasses so they wouldn’t fall off. It was something to
see.
Only it wasn’t funny.
That plug, carrying a jockey who weighed maybe a hundred and sixty,
sixty-five pounds, a full saddle, and weight distributed all wrong
because the guy was sitting so stiff, went around the crazy, stony
track like a piece of the wind.
By my clock, he beat Blue Joy’s time.
I didn’t believe it. But it had happened.
When the tall thin guy climbed off the horse he was beaming, and he
looked a little relieved. He was also winded, and it took him a second
to catch his breath. Then he said: “Want to join me? How about it?”
I said: “What kind of dope are you using, mister?”
“No dope,” he told me.
Greg was standing nearby. “I told you this was something big,” he said.
“It’s big, all right,” I told him. “And it’s pretty illegal, too.
Thanks, but I don’t want to spend the next ten years in jail. I have a
job, and a trade. I want to keep them.”
“There’s nothing illegal about it,” the tall thin guy said. “By the
way, my name is Dunstan. Call me Willy.”
“I’m Arthur Holly,” I said, “and I’m leaving. Call me a taxi.”
“Don’t be that way,” Greg put in. “Listen to the man.”
“The secret is in the binoculars,” Dunstan said. “They are really a
setup for beamed power transmission. It’s built into the barrels of the
binoculars.”
I blinked. “You mean you put electricity into the horse?” I said.
“Not at all,” he said, and grinned at me. “There’s a printed circuit
under the saddle. The beam powers it.”
“Printed circuit?” I said.
“Antigravity,” he said.
Brother!
* * * * *
But there wasn’t any doubt about it. Willy Dunstan, glasses and all,
really had something. He’d invented antigravity, but he didn’t see why
he should give it to the government or something, and not make any
money out of it. With the patent laws the way they are (anyhow, this is
the way he explained it to me) he probably couldn’t even get a patent
on the thing, since it was only a new application of existing art. Or
something. So he had to figure out some way of making money out of
antigravity without letting anybody know what he had.
Horseracing was the answer, of course.
Put the circuit under the saddle, using printed stuff so it doesn’t
bulk and cause embarrassing questions, power it from a pair of binocs
in the stands, and the saddle doesn’t weigh a thing. Neither does the
jockey. The horse is running free, unweighted.
No wonder the plug made time.
And no wonder Greg was excited. This was a way to win races.
* * * * *
“I wanted a trainer to avoid suspicion,” Dunstan told me. “I’ve got
to make this look good. I can talk about new scientific methods of
training to explain why my horses win.”
“Sure,” I said. I felt kind of blank.
“But I needed a man I could trust,” he said. “Greg, here, told me you
were that man.”
“What does Greg get out of it?”
“A commission from me,” he said, “for providing me with a trainer.”
I couldn’t understand why Greg would be content to take a commission
and get out. Not then, I couldn’t. I’d figured I had a pretty good
deal: no work to speak of, and a half-ownership in the surest stables
this side of Mexico City. Greg grinned at me and--God call me down for
a stupid idiot--I grinned right back.
It was a little later, when we were alone, that I managed to convince
Dunstan to hire a jockey. He was all for riding the plug himself but,
as I pointed out, he did not look like a jockey, he had no license,
and there wasn’t a chance in hell of his getting one. He agreed, and I
called in an old friend of mine named Teddy Wills to take the job. He
got one look at the plug and swore up and down that he would never be
seen in public on the thing, but I fast-talked Teddy, too, and after
all we were old friends. He trusted me.
We spent a week just getting things ready, readjusting the machine to
Teddy’s weight, and then we entered the plug (which we’d named First
Hope, after a lot of discussion) in a California race.
The odds were thirteen to one going in, and they rose right up to
thirty to one as soon as the public got a look at poor swaybacked First
Hope. They were on their way out of sight when the board closed.
I sat in the stands with Dunstan. He had money down on the race, of
course, though I didn’t; as half-owner, the profits on the stables were
half mine, and betting on the horse you train is bad luck.
* * * * *
Dunstan held the binocs. His hands shook a little and once, before the
race, he turned to me and said: “I hope nothing goes wrong,” which
frightened me a little bit stiff, since I wasn’t figuring anything
_could_ go wrong.
The starting bell went and First Hope was away, leading the pack.
Even knowing what I knew, it was hard to believe my eyes. That
horrible old plug made it in three lengths ahead of a colt with a fine
reputation, and four and a half lengths ahead of the favorite, who
ended in show position.
Naturally, there was an investigation.
But there was no real trouble. Dunstan and his “scientific methods
of training,” my honest face and the fact that there were no visible
gimmicks either on the horse or in his bloodstream or saliva convinced
the track judges. The win stayed on the books.
And we headed out of California for a Nevada track opening.
* * * * *
The reputation of good old First Hope had preceded us, of course. I
wanted Dunstan to use another nag, but he told me that building the
printed-circuit saddles was expensive in both time and money; he wanted
to barrel up a pretty large stake first, and he was keeping the other
horses, meanwhile, in reserve.
So First Hope ran again at slightly lower odds. They weren’t as much
lower as you’d think, though; people just couldn’t believe their eyes
when they saw the animal, and figured the California win had to be a
fluke.
It was no fluke. This time First Hope made four lengths in front of the
place horse, and we were well on the way to becoming rich.
We stayed in Nevada for the last race, living in the stables for fear
somebody would take a notion to examine the gimmicked saddle with more
than ordinary care. Teddy was in on the secret, of course--he had to
be, because antigravity makes you feel pretty funny, Dunstan explained.
Teddy had to know what was going on underneath him.
And he was the most worried of us all. “Something terrible’s going to
happen,” he said. “I can feel it. There’s something terrible in the
air.”
Now, living in the stables, there was only one answer to that, and
I gave it to him. But he wouldn’t be dissuaded. By this time I was
feeling pretty confident, and Dunstan, of course, was on top of the
world.
“We’ll race here tomorrow,” he told me, “and then head East for the
track openings there. Later we’ll take the Derby....”
I just didn’t see any way we could lose. Naturally, I was wrong.
* * * * *
We got into the stands, just before race time, and they were crowded.
First Hope’s crazy reputation had gotten around, and guys who normally
have been at their local bookmaking parlor had come out to the track to
see for themselves. Dunstan found himself next to a big beefy guy with
a red face and blinking eyes, who couldn’t talk about anything except
“that nutty horse out there.” We kept our mouths shut, of course. If
we’d let on that we owned “that nutty horse,” we’d have been snowed
under with questions and comments.
* * * * *
The starting gate swung open.
First Hope swung wide and came out in front. Dunstan was following her
with the gimmicked binocs, and I had an ordinary pair of my own. Coming
around the first turn, First Hope was a length and a half in front of
the pack, and going away. He hit the far turn two lengths ahead of the
favorite, a wonderful horse named Germont’s Love, who was running his
best that day. But nothing could stop our weightless wonder.
“Hey, will you look at that nutty horse go!” the beefy guy yelled. I
felt like yelling myself. We’d sunk all the profits into this race;
with two wins under our belts we felt pretty safe about it.
First Hope came around the far turn, then Germont’s Love, and then the
pack. The distance was widening between First Hope and the rest of the
field.
“Hey, look at that plug!” the beefy guy shouted, and dug Dunstan in the
ribs.
That did it.
Dunstan, off balance, swayed and nearly fell. For one full second the
gimmicked binocs were off First Hope. Mine were trained right on the
animal--but they didn’t do any good, of course. They were just normal
binocs.
Have you ever seen a horse collapse?
All of a sudden, about a hundred and forty pounds landed on First
Hope’s back. The antigravity machine had no power. First Hope felt all
the weight we’d been holding off him.
He actually went on his knees. I could see Teddy looking frantic
and using his whip, but nothing was going to do any good. I got one
clear look at First Hope’s face. I’ve never seen such a surprised and
discouraged-looking horse.
Germont’s Love passed him almost at once. So did the rest of the pack.
By the time Dunstan managed to get his binocs off the infield and onto
First Hope again, it was too late. Run? First Hope could barely breathe.
So we lost our money. So that wasn’t too bad. But this time the
investigation got us. First Hope’s sudden collapse had looked even
funnier than his previous two runaway wins, and the judges took that
saddle apart with a fine-tooth comb. They found the circuitry.
Dunstan’s working for the government now, and wondering how he’s ever
going to make any money on the lousy salary they pay. Teddy’s down in
Mexico City being a jockey, since he was outlawed here.
Me? I’m a trainer. A good trainer.
You ever go out to the amusement park? Take your kids for a ride on the
Shetland ponies?
Say hello to me, next time. Hell, it’s a living, isn’t it?
But if it wasn’t for science....
THE END
Transcriber’s note:
This etext was produced from Fantastic, January 1959 (vol. 8, no. 1.).
Obvious errors have been silently corrected in this version, but
minor inconsistencies have been retained as printed.
New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the
public domain.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REPLACE THE HORSE ***
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