CHAPTER 22He slept until the plane lost altitude over the gently rolling hills of the Bluegrass, the fields platted in shades of green and brown, grass-green, corn-green, panels of white cheesecloth over young tobacco, the brown of newly seeded fields. It was quarter past four in the land of the long white fences.
“Top off your tanks; get set for a fast take-off,” he told the pilot after the smooth landing. “I’ll just leave my suitcase here, in the plane.”
The Keeneland track was only minutes away, across the Versailles pike; he rolled up to the admission gate just as a roar erupted from the grandstand—the “They’re off!” for the start of the sixth.
He reached the Racing Secretary’s office amid the pandemonium of a neck-and-neck finish. The girl in the Secretary’s office suggested that J
