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most of the trainers who stabled horses at the training center preferred the low key feeling, much quieter than the larger and more modern Palm Meadows, just one exit up the Florida Turnpike.
    Gianni drove through the gate and down the dirt road that led past the training track, a mile-long oval with a pond in the center of the track. On the opposite side of the road were six barns, all painted pale yellow with maroon-colored tin roofs. Gianni pulled up to the second building and parked alongside a row of four palm trees that bordered the end of the barn.
    GIANNI WAS A FREQUENT visitor to the barn the morning after a race, and he was surprised to see Stu Duncker therewhen he drove up to Willard’s barn. Unlike Gianni, Stu rarely saw his horse except on a race day. He was accompanied today by a large man, at least six feet tall with a round belly spilling through the suspenders that held up his chino work pants. He had a balding head, a rotund and ruddy face and a generally odious demeanor.
    “Morning, Anthony,” Duncker said. “I have someone I would like you to meet. This is Chester Pawlek. Chester, meet Dr. Anthony Gianni.”
    The big man had a pronounced stutter, not consistent, but awkward when it appeared. “Stu tells me you’re one of the best s-s-surgeons in New York City.”
    “Stu is very kind,” Gianni said.
    “Chester is in the construction business in New Jersey,” Duncker said, “and he has a growing stable of thoroughbreds. He’s bought some damn good ones in New York, as well as in Florida and Kentucky.”
    They were standing in the shedrow. In one of the stalls, a groom held a horse’s halter while a blacksmith braced the horse’s foot in a hoof jack and nailed a shoe into place with a rhythmic “whack, whack, whack.”
    Alison McKensie emerged next from a stall further down the shedrow. “Congratulations, Dr. Gianni,” she said. “How about our boy there!”
    “Fantastic, Alison, and due in large part to your hard work in the morning.”
    “I love that horse,” she said, “though I must say, the older he gets the harder he is to handle. Do you know we only have one groom who will go into the stall with him?”
    Stu and Chet walked off across a grassy area in the direction of the training track. Alison raised her chin toward the large man. “Get a load of him,” she said.
    Gianni took a bag of carrot pieces he had brought and offered a piece at a time to Chiefly Endeavor. The horse took each piece from the palm of Gianni’s hand, crunching and swallowing a few pieces at a time, then following each swallow with a grunt and a strong pull on the nylon covered chain that stretched across the top of his stall door. When he grabbed the chain with his mammoth teeth, the whole door shook and the chain clanged.
    “What do you mean?” Gianni asked.
    “The fat guy,” she replied. “I heard them talking to Jeff earlier. He wants to buy a majority interest in the horse, and he was throwing some pretty big numbers around. I don’t know, Doc. I just get bad vibes from the guy.”
    Chiefly Endeavor stretched his neck out of the stall, then turned his head to the side, as if imploring for more carrots. Gianni obliged.
    “Well, my share’s not for sale. It doesn’t matter what the offer is.”
    “I know that. You’re the only partner I’ve actually seen around the barn. Anyway, go in Jeff’s office and look at the photo of yesterday’s win in the
Daily Racing Form
. It’s a great shot.”
    “I’ll take a look right now.”
    “And I have to keep moving, Doc. Lots to do yet.”
    “I know, don’t let me hold you up.”
    She yelled something in Spanish to one of the hotwalkers, and the fellow ran off into one of the stalls. One of the other Hispanic men taunted the first, yelling “
Corra, corra
.”
    “
Usted tambien
,” Alison yelled.
    The first fellow howled.
    Gianni was increasingly curious about Chester. He had thought him to be rather unctuous after their brief exchange. He