Читать книгу Long Shot: My Bipolar Life and the Horses Who Saved Me - Sylvia Harris - Страница 7

Hawthorne Race Course

Cicero, Illinois

December 1, 2007

In an empty stall, at a makeshift altar, I close my eyes and begin my Buddhist chant, Nam-myoho-renge-kyo: “Devotion to the teaching of the mystic law of the universe,” or even more loosely translated, “Devotion to cause and effect.” I chant to quiet my mind in a way that lithium or Haldol cannot. Then I get dressed and head to the paddock.

December in Chicago is brutal. On this snowy Thursday evening, a cold front from Canada is blowing snow and ice into the city, creating dangerous conditions. As I pass through the backstretch, also known as the backside, an area of stables and living quarters for the people who call the track home, little ice pellets stab me in the face, but I don’t really feel it. My mind is on Peg. We have a lot in common, Peg and me: a broken horse and his broken rider. He was sired by Fusaichi Pegasus, who won the Kentucky Derby in 2000, a promising mount that never materialized, and I was the all-American girl from Santa Rosa who had long ago lost her way.

Wildwood Pegasus is a four-year-old gelding who has lost his spirit, but I understand him. When you spend time in and out of mental institutions, questioning your reality and making a mess out of your life, your spirit takes a beating that no anti-depressant or mood stabilizer can fix. Pegasus is arthritic, with a bum right leg shattered during a practice run when he was a promising two-year-old. Together, we are a bad bet. Entertaining, maybe, but a bad bet nonetheless.

When I reach the paddock, he is waiting for me. Jockeys can be superstitious. Many have rituals before or after every race. British jockey Graham Thorner wore the same underwear for every race he rode in after winning the Grand National in 1972. They got so old and frayed that he would wear a new pair over the old ones until he ended his career. Garrett Gomez, one of horse racing’s biggest prizewinners, makes sure he steps out of bed with his right foot first on race day; and top jockey Ramon Dominguez reads a quote from Booker T. Washington that’s taped to his locker before every race: “Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.” Me, I have two rituals. I chant, and then, before I mount the horse, I breathe him in. I know it sounds a little Horse Whisperer-ish, but when I breathe in a horse, it’s as if we are kindred souls. We are one.

I hold Peg’s face in my hands and press my own to his, to breathe my baby in. So there we are, Peg and me, nose to nose; soul to soul. “Peg, my beautiful Peg,” I said. “Tonight, it’s you … you show me. I’m just along for the ride.”

I gulp down the freezing air near the paddock as both of Peg’s trainers, Charlie and Janelle, come over. Their bright, sunny smiles greet me, and suddenly everything is more than fine. The three of us stand in the cold with a light snow falling and with that beautiful smell of horses filling our noses. We have been working with Peg for weeks, and we instinctively know this is his time. Charlie and Janelle both give me a leg up onto Peg, who waits patiently for us to finish. Once my body connects with his, there is only one way to go. As Peg carries me, I feel as if it’s a new day and a new life. I always feel that way when I get on the back of a horse.

Following tradition, we are led to the starting gate by the outrider, Jerry. Life on the backstretch is full of irony. Jerry, an ex-cop, is quite the horseman. Fit and good-looking, he’s partial to cognac, and a few days before we’d had a heated argument in the parking lot of a bar near the track. I don’t even remember what it was about, most likely something petty, personal—that’s the way it can be on the backstretch, the world behind the racetrack. It’s a carnival-like atmosphere filled with runaways, addicts, desperate lost souls, and the rich people who employ them. But when it’s time to compete, everyone does his job. Jerry is no different. He throws me a look that says, Go, Sylvia. I nod to acknowledge it.

Once we’re near the starting gate, I look up to the grandstand briefly to find my family. They’re here visiting me, and for the first time, they will see me ride. I peruse the crowd until I see them looking down at me, wearing mixed looks of pride and concern. They’re like many American families, a cornucopia of dysfunction. My father, Edward Sr., a tough ex-army staff sergeant and recovering alcoholic; my mother, Evaliene, an ex-teacher with Crohn’s disease who for years was a punching bag for my dad; my brother Edward Jr., the minister—let’s just say he’s the good one; my oldest children, daughter Shauna and son Ryan, from my common-law marriage with Riley, an Irish hippie I met at a club. And then there was Mioshi, my youngest, the baby who was conceived during a manic farewell tryst in Los Angeles. They were all there together, and for once it was not a gathering to decide, What are we going to do about Sylvia? A rare occasion.

The weather is changing for the worse, and I can feel the icy sleet pounding my face. I know Peg can feel it too. The track will be treacherous, but it is also perfect for Peg’s old, worn body, where the soft powder of the snow is like a natural cushion for his knee and ailing bones. Finally, someone or something is delivering him the break he so richly deserves.

This is our second outing together. We came in third a month earlier, and with each workout we began to respect each other more. Despite that, on the backstretch, we are seen as lost causes—me because of my age and inexperience, and Pegasus because he had been winless in his last seven starts. Still, he is more than ready. Me? I’m terrified.

Just a few days earlier, three horses went down on the track with their jockeys in tow. The thought of a half-ton bay horse crashing onto my small frame is scary enough. But what is even more frightening to me is the possibility that a manic episode could happen right before or during the race. Skipping your medications is a big no-no in the bipolar world. The meds are supposed to keep me balanced. But in the horse racing world, a jockey can’t take any medications that give him, or her, an advantage.

I’m sure there’s an exception for a manic-depressive like me, but I don’t want anyone to feel I have to take something that gives me an adrenaline boost. I don’t think I’ve ever been manic while racing, but the exuberant feel of riding gives me the same rush. Normally, I would welcome that feeling of superhuman superiority, but not on race day. It’s too dangerous; the chance of losing your focus or miscalculating is too great. This is definitely not the state you want to be in while riding a horse. But when they load me and Pegasus into the gate, I’m normal, or as normal as a nonmedicated manic-depressive can be.

I’m a forty-year-old rookie jockey who’s riding her seventeenth race and has never won. I’m a mother deemed unfit by some to raise her own kids. I’ve been homeless, sleeping in a Jeep, wondering where my next meal will come from.

I am bipolar. And I’m about to win this race.