"Twas the night before Xmas
And all through the house
Not a creature was stirring
Not even a mouse..."
That's because the cat ate them. He's over in the corner gift-wrapping the bodies. I'll try to act surprised in the morning. And such is life on a farm...my farm anyway. So after the turkey and gravy, my traditional purple mashed potatoes and too much cheer, I relax by the fire and dream improbable dreams. Things like cheap hay, self-cleaning stalls and mares whose ovaries produce more than mediocrity and despair. But no, I get this instead:
Fast Rudy
nce upon a time, in a faraway land,
a young lad named Jack was sent on an important family matter. Wearily trudging through the countryside,
Jack hoped to trade his last bag of magic beans for a $5000 claimer. Jack’s mother, who trained some runners at a
local track was having a terrible season.
In fact, she was down to her last horse, a sad looking gelding named
Fast Rudy, who had never been able to get in a race because of a red spot on
his butt. It really wouldn’t have
mattered in most cases, except that it had been overlooked on his registration
papers, a discrepancy that the evil Sheriff of Nothinghappening happened to
notice, who coincidentally moonlighted as a racetrack identifier, duly
appointed by the governor to rob the poor and stop those 2-5 favorites from
walking away with a race. He also had a
‘thing’ for Mrs. Jack, who was widowed after her husband stepped on a land mine
in Cambodia. There was also this bony
appendage on Fast Rudy’s head, but so far everybody accepted the notion that it
was simply a training device – like a run-out bit, only bigger and uglier.
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| Fast Rudy's Odd Appendages! [image:flickr] |
Fast Rudy had been a tremendous disappointment for Mrs. Jack. The best he could do was run for a $2500 tag,
but even so, he couldn’t pick up a check if he couldn’t run. Plus, he was coming back from a training
injury, had coughed all summer and was on the steward’s list for erratic
running. By now, it was December and
Fast Rudy’s prospects for picking up any kind of check were almost as good as
his chance for getting a meal.
Zero. But for some reason, Mrs.
Jack still believed in him.
Meanwhile, Young Jack was having his own problems. The search for a $5000 claimer ended at a
small shack. The owner, a wizard named
Obi Wan something or the other, gave him the grievous news. Voice crackling like a broken welder, the old
fellow spoke: “Yes son, all of them have
gone. Gone away to run for big money at
a place called Santa Anita. Can I
interest you in a Millennium Falcon?
Low mileage, recently overhauled. Your girlfriend would really like the color."
“Santa?” And I don't have a girlfriend."
“Just a coincidence,” the old wart answered. “What about the Falcon?” This thing'll get you lots of girlfriends!"
Depressed, Young Jack moved on. Someone
was following him, though. After a few
miles, the stranger caught up with him.
“Hey, pilgrim,” the tall man said.
“John Ford is shooting a movie around here, and well, I can’t find him
anywhere. Ya happen to know where the
Monumental Big El Dorado and Rio Bravo Big Monumental Valley is?”
“Well, no. I’m trying to find a
race horse.”
“Ah, hell, give Mickey Rooney a call.
He’s done a lot of those pictures; little guy, lives in LA.”
“Okay. Say, where’s LA?”
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| A mysterious stranger... |
“I’m sorry sir, but they haven’t been invented yet.”
♣
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| The fairytale unravels... |
Young Jack’s thoughts were immediately interrupted by the appearance of old
man Scrooge himself. Bundled against the
cold by an over sized down jacket, only his lips peered out at Young Jack. “So, you want John Gotti burned, huh? You must be Lucky Lasagna from Jersey.”
“No sir, I need some hay. I have
to feed my horse. A ton in exchange for
these magic beans. Oh, and I need some
liniment.” Young Jack held out his hand,
showing the six multi-colored beans.
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| [image:digginfoods.com] |
“Magic?” old Scrooge inquired,
his face creeping out of his coat. “Just
what kind of magic, dear boy?”
“With these beans,” Young Jack whispered.
“You can meet Julia Roberts.”
“Really! She your girlfriend?" Scrooge said. His smile gave away the value of the
trade. “All right young man, I’ll give
you nineteen bales of hay and a half bottle of liniment.”
“Nineteen?!”
“They’re heavy bales, my boy.”
Scrooge countered. Take it or
leave it. If you don’t buy it, I’ll sell
it to the Russians. They’ll buy
anything.”
“But sir, Russians haven’t been invented yet.”
♣
In the meantime, Mrs. Jack was trying to figure out what to do
next. The race meet was scheduled to
close on December 24th, a mere five days away. The final race of the card, The Last Gasp
Handicap, run at 22 furlongs, looked to be the spot that Rudy had always
needed. With a purse of five golden
rings, three French hens and a bird in a pear tree, a victory would save Mrs.
Jack from the poor house. Eat the birds,
hock the rings. Real simple.
But there was still the problem with the red spot on Rudy’s derriere. Once again, she confronted the assistant
identifier, a one-legged hunchback related to the wicked Sheriff by
marriage. His name was Quasi-Forget
It. And boy, did he smell bad.
“Forget it!” he said bluntly.
“No, no, no, never! Not in a
million, zillion years!”
“Is that your final word?”
“No, this is. Forget it!”
Crushed, Mrs. Jack led Fast Rudy back to his stall. There were no oats for his dinner, no hay and
hardly enough straw for his bed. Knowing
how hungry he must be, she went to the adjoining tack room and searched vainly
for something to feed to him. In her
haste, she dislodged something from a shelf that fell into Rudy’s feed tub. Soon, she heard the horse thrashing about his
stall, a sure sign of colic. Rushing to
his door, she arrived just in time to see him fall to the floor.
Summoning Dr. Gauze, the kindly veterinarian, the prognosis seemed
grim. “When you eat fruitcake, you pay
the price,” he said. “It doesn’t look
good.” He left Mrs. Jack with three
cases of bute, a gallon of Banamine, electrolytes, a flu shot and
a can of hoof dressing. He promised to
stop by later. Fast Rudy only groaned. "Say, did your boy ever find a girlfriend? You know, he's gettin' on 25 years now...should have a girlfriend. Looks kinda funny otherwise...you know, light in the loafers."
Tears rolling down her cheeks, she slowly walked back toward the tack
room. Her progress was stopped by the
sight of Young Jack pulling up with a cart full of what appeared to be blue hair. Young Jack looked miserable as a toad.
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| Blue hay... [image: atooms.com] |
Young Jack’s face drooped even further.
“What’s in the cart, son?”
“Hay, or at least it used to be.
It got rained on. I’m afraid
that’s all I have to show for the magic beans.
I thought we could at least feed Rudy, but now¼where is he?”
As Young Jack jumped off the cart and ran to the stall, Mrs. Jack was
interrupted by her favorite jockette, one S. White and her seven agents. While the group of bickering agents
surrounded Mrs. Jack, S. White slipped into the stall where Young Jack was sitting,
Fast Rudy’s head cradled gently in his lap.
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| [image: 123rf.com] |
“Poor Rudy,” she said, her eyes beaming down at Jack. “Maybe this will help.” Leaning down, she kissed Fast Rudy on the
forehead. As Jack’s eyes me S. White’s,
the world seemed to come to a stop.
For
a brief second, they were in Paris, sitting
at an outdoor cafe, drinking red wine and eating escargot, not realizing that they were snails.
Outside the stall, Mrs. Jack had finally beaten off the seven agents
with her broom. S. White wished Mrs.
Jack well, slipped Young Jack a card for a motel in Stockton and disappeared into the
darkness, leaving Young Jack with some throbbing things and a very sick horse.
But things change fast in a fairy tale.
Four days later, Rudy was able to pass the fruitcake, and while one
stall cleaner ended up hospitalized, the horse was on his feet, the fire once
again dancing in his eyes. And to
everyone’s astonishment, the red spot on his butt was gone – vanished!
“Quick!” Mrs. Jack shouted.
“Let’s get him to the identifier before it changes. We only have an hour till race time!”
Arriving at the test barn, they were once again confronted by the wicked
little assistant identifier. “You
again?!” Forget-It yelled.
“But the spot is gone!” Young Jack countered.
“Ask Frosty.”
Forget-It spun around, not knowing that Frosty, the overweight, albino
steward had been standing there the whole time.
“Well?” Forget-It inquired sarcastically.
Frosty, sweating profusely, looked closely at Rudy’s butt. No red spot could be seen. “Boy, it’s warm,” he said. “Don’t you guys think it’s warm? I think it’s warm. Whew, it’s almost hot¼”
“Oh, that thing. Anybody got any
ice. Ah hell, it looks fine to me. The horse can run. I gotta get out of here. It’s too hot to stand around and worry about
it.”
“Waaaal, pilgrim, I reckon you got a race. I could sure use a cigarette, but I guess they don't have any in this movie. How come you don't have a girlfriend, pilgrim? Most of my movies had one, but shoot, I always ended up with a noisy sidekick and my horse...he was a goodn'
Young Jack spun around, but all he saw was a tall guy who walked like he had
something wrong with his hips.
The starter, one Claus Krinkle waited patiently while each horse settled in, waiting for a fair start. “There they go!” the announcer yelled as Krinkle sprung the gate.
Fast Rudy broke on top and quickly took command of the lead, Donner was
second with Cheese Blintzes a close third.
As the horses disappeared into the fog shrouded backstretch turn, the
racetrack suddenly went dark. Out in the
middle of the track sat the starting gate, its electric motors frozen in the
fog and pitch-black night.
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| [image: paulickreport.com] |
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| And the red spot slipped over a distant horizon... |
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