Maybe she was all he had, too.

Not that he was going there.

At the gate, it was a case of move it, move it, move it: When you were trying to stuff fifteen high-strung horses with legs like sticks and adrenal glands that were firing like howitzers into itty-bitty metal boxes, you didn’t waste time. Within a minute or so, the field was locked down and the track hands were hightailing it for the rails.

Heartbeat.

Bell.

Bang!

The gates released and the crowd roared and those horses surged forward like they’d been blown out of cannons. The conditions were perfect. Dry. Cool. Track was fast.

Not that his girl cared. She’d run in quicksand if she had to.

The Thoroughbreds thundered by, the sound of their collective hooves and the driving beat of the announcer’s voice whipping the energy in the stands to an ecstatic pitch. Manny stayed calm, however, keeping his hands locked on the rail in front of him and his eyes on the field as the pack rounded the first corner in a tight knot of backs and tails.

The wide-screen showed him everything he needed to see. His filly was the second to the last, all but loping while the rest of them went at a dead run — hell, her neck wasn’t even fully extended. Her jockey, however, was doing his job, easing her out from the rail, giving her the choice of running around the far side of the pack or cutting through it when she was ready.

Manny knew exactly what she was going to do. She was going to plow right through the other horses like a wrecking ball.

That was her way.

And sure enough, as they came off the distant straightaway, she started to get her fire on. Her head lowered, her neck elongated, and her stride began to stretch.