Twenty to One

Have you ever had a premonition?

I have - once.

The sixth time Rover jumped the fence and ran full pelt down the street I experienced something like déjà vu, except that instead I knew it would happen again. I knew too that I wouldn’t be on my own next time.

I chased him as far as the edge of our rocky drive. From there, all I could do was watch him run; there was little use chasing something on four legs pulled taut with muscle. My parent's horse took a hard right and kicked up dust as he took off down our burgeoning street.

Pomegranate Estate. Do you think they could’ve come up with a better name for the area? Our house had barely been built when we moved in. Third house on the street! (It’s not often you get to say that in the twenty-first century.) We were basically living in the county though. Number four Wentworth Street was a two minute drive from the tiny town of Jindy, which was about fifteen minutes from the border city of Albury. With its wide open spaces and friendly neighbours, it was the perfect place to set down roots.

I remember thinking Rover was fast as I stood there, leaning on our recently erected metal gate - but then, what did I know about horses?

I texted my husband’s mobile. Rover’s roving again. I could feel myself smiling.

It took a minute or two. Rover had reached the end of the street when my phone vibrated with a reply.

Not AGAIN. I could almost hear my husband sigh; a heavy sigh, like the one my father used to do habitually. I’ll see if they can cover my classes for the rest of the day. Just keep an eye on him.

Will do.

I grabbed my bike from the garage and reached the end of Wentworth street in good time, especially considering I was several months pregnant.

Rover hadn’t really gone roving. There were two horses in a pen at the end of the gravel road and they had come over to the edge of their enclosure to greet him.

Poor thing, I thought, watching how Rover followed their every move.

Laurie, the owner of the place alongside his very talkative wife Wilma, had been standing on his front porch. He waved, taking to the stairs. I watched him approach, trying to guess his age; he had short greying hair and a well rounded pot belly, as well as leathery skin. His horses came towards him as he entered their pen and followed him back to the fence near the road where I stood next to Rover.

“Escaped again, eh? You might need some higher fencing.”

I smirked. “Maybe.” I indicated at his two white stallions. “He really seems to crave their company.”

“Do you blame him?"

"They are very beautiful,” I allowed, nudging Rover with my elbow.

Laurie reached through the fence and patted Rover’s face, running his hand gently over the wide blaze that ran the length of it. “I’ve seen him run a few times now. Ever thought of putting him on a track?”

I looked into Rover’s dark eyes. He had lashes I would kill for. “Does that mean you could start pulling your weight around here?” Rover only blinked at me. “He’s not ours,” I added belatedly. “My parents have gone for a trip around Australia for a few months and we said we’d look after him.”

“That’s a pity. He runs like the wind.”

****

As I traipsed from our room, I noticed the car was gone. The hatchback was the only car we had. I figured Aaron had gone to church or something but it was still quite early, so he couldn’t have been up for long. I flicked on the TV and threw two eggs in the pan. I was almost ready to eat when the weather man was interrupted by breaking news. Almost in the same moment, my husband turned in our drive.

“Hey Aaron - you’ll never believe it,” I called out, glancing at the TV as he came in the back door. “There’s a horse running loose in Melbourne.”

He was puffing when he reached the edge of the kitchen. “Rover’s missing.” From the state of him, Aaron had been searching for hours.

I turned back to the TV as a closeup of the horse filled the screen. It was really grainy for an instagram story but now the horse was unmistakable. “Oh my God... Rover…”

****

I’d been to the races for the first time when I was nineteen. My uni friend Kyra had been obsessed with all things horses - she still was, for all I knew, but I hadn’t seen her since my wedding day a little over a year ago. She’d even been a member of Randwick race course.

I’d never understood the complaints people made about white people being the richest in Australia, until that day; almost every person in the members section was European. I'd never felt the class difference in Australia till that day either. I was dressed in my nicest cocktail dress at the time - a pretty rose lace dress - but I still had a serious case of imposter syndrome. I’d gone to the bookies with two dollars - it hadn’t been a prank. The guy after me had handed over five hundred. That had made me feel pretty small, until a drunk man had collapsed next to me half way through the day, moaning about losing no less than seven thousand in a single race. The only winning I’d managed to make was on the very last race, and I’d only bet because I had one last dollar in my pocket; I'd figured there was nothing to lose. The odds on my horse had been twenty to one and it won; I managed to win back all the money I'd bet that day.

It took three and half hours to get to Melbourne. We’d gone via the M31 to get there as fast as possible. It was just past ten by the time we rocked up at the police station to say we’d lost a horse.

“Oh.” The large policeman the secretary had turned to for help with our query looked at us aghast. “We captured it more than two hours ago. but we thought it was some kind of rogue racehorse. We just assumed it had escaped from Flemington.”

Aaron managed to find a park several streets away from the race course.

The engine had just gone off when I threw open the car door. “You know Laurie is here.”

“Our neighbour?” Aaron frowned at me as I turned to climb out.

“His horse is racing today.”

There was a pause. “You don’t think…?

“Yeah,” I said, nodding as I slammed the car door. “I think Rover followed him.”

“All the way from-?” My husband cut himself off and shook his head incredulously. “This is not how I thought this day would go.”

****

We’d both reached the end of our tether after unsuccessful an hour of searching for Rover in the stables of the enormous race course. All the beauty of the place was lost on me in my frustration.

“We’ve searched every bloody stall!” Aaron ground out, collapsing in the wooden seat beside me. “He’s nowhere.”

“Maybe it was a different horse…” I was staring at a horse being led past by its trainer. From the excitement of the man, I thought it was pretty safe to assume it had won its race.

My phone buzzed suddenly.

“It’s Laurie,” I said, reading the message. “He says he hopes we’ll forgive him for entering Rover in a race...”

“What?”

“One of the other horses pulled a shoe. He says Rover’s in the next race and that we should hurry if we want to place a bet. He’s placed him by the name of ‘Wind Rover.’”

****

“A thousand dollars on Wind Rover,” I gushed, feeling frantic. The race was about the start!

The bookie looked down at me with some amusement. “Are you sure? That horse is at twenty to one. Terrible odds. I don’t think it’s ever done a race-”

“One thousand,” I repeated, still struggling with my credit card. The silly plastic wallet I had attached to the back of my smartphone never gave up any of my cards without a fight.

The bookie now looked at me with pity. No doubt she could see I was totally new to this, and was probably about to waste every cent. Still, I had a feeling…

She lifted her pen and wrote in the small black notebook she had pulled from her breast pocket. Then she typed the amount into the PIN pad and held it out for me to swipe my card.

My hands were sweating as I punched in my pin.

As soon as the machine beeped, I turned and fought my way through the crowds to find where Aaron was watching.

I hadn’t gone five meters before the horn sounded and thunder of hooves could be heard in the distance.

****

As Rover crossed the line, I felt that feeling again - like I’d been in that same moment before. Time seemed to slow as something grabbed hold of me and sent my heart deeper into itself. I recalled the previous day with deep clarity, of seeing Rover run and knowing something was coming...this something. It was like being on a time loop, or in the movie Groundhog Day. The strangeness of the moment snapped and I was once again swamped with the noise of the crowds, along with the wonderful realisation that Wind Rover was number one on the scoreboard.

It had been so close at the end. I still couldn't really believe it but apparently neither could everyone else around me; Aaron found me cheering on my own.

“One thousand dollars?!” he gasped, setting me down. “Why on earth did you bet so much?” Aaron’s eyes widened before I could answer. “...You know what that means?” His shock transformed into a wide grin. It was the first smile I’d gotten out of him all day, and the largest I’d probably see in a long while.

The bookie appeared beside us, interrupting our embrace, and held out a generous wad of hundreds. “You were the sole winner,” she said, clearly impressed. “That was some bet.”

She marked something off in her little black book as I slowly closed my hand over the money.

Twenty thousand dollars.

It was the largest sum I’d ever held.

Even though I’d known something was coming, this part was totally unexpected...