It is five o'clock in the morning just outside Toronto when nineteen-year-old Julia walks onto the backstretch at Woodbine Racetrack. Despite knowing little about horses and even less about racing, Julia is eager to start her first day at her new job. She is in a dilemma as to where her life is heading. Desperate to make enough money to enter a university and escape a suffocating relationship with her boyfriend, she throws herself headfirst into life at the racetrack. She soon discovers, however, that she is terrified of the high strung animals and even worse, that the other workers have little patience for an inexperienced woman. Even as the high stakes, male-driven world of racing threatens to destroy her and her dreams, Julia perseveres and finds solace in two new friends, who encourage her to fight back. As Julia moves up in the ranks, even her friends are unable to save her from the worst threat of all. Julia is forced by a man she trusts into a world of deceit and illegal treatment of the very animals she has grown to love, and she may have to sacrifice everything in order to free herself from his grasp-before it is too late.

No Safe Bet

By Gail Sinclair

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2010 Gail Sinclair
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-7009-0

Chapter One

The air was vibrant with tension. Julia adjusted the tight seatbelt, shifted restlessly in her seat, and glanced apprehensively at her boyfriend Ken. He had made it clear that he wasn't impressed with the early hour. Yet he had insisted that she needed a job. Julia had also wanted a job, but had been procrastinating for weeks. The ultimatum had landed in her lap last night. Financially, Ken was unable to support them both. Get a job or get out. Julia peeked out the window and watched the dark buildings and streets glide by as Ken drove silently. Their recent argument was still ripe in her mind. Ken hardly ever shouted, but he had come close. Julia really did want to get out, to leave him, and perhaps she had given him some indication of this fact. Ultimately, she knew that he would be furious with her plans.

"Horses!" Ken had fumed. "Why can't you get a real job, like the pizza joint on the corner? Why does it have to start in the middle of the night?" Reluctantly, he had agreed to rise at the ungodly hour.

It really was a glorious morning. The sky was clear with a hint of blue, as the glow of the sun lay just below the horizon. The grass cast long shadows in the still early morning light. Five in the morning was the coolest time of day, and the heat of a typical Toronto August afternoon had not yet warmed the grass, trees, and paved surfaces. The outside air was dry and crackled in anticipation of the rays of scorching sunshine.

Eager to be free of the tension in the vehicle, Julia jumped from the Jeep Cherokee as it rolled to a stop just inside the backstretch gate of Woodbine Racetrack. She glanced at the ominous bulk of the grandstand in the distance, nearly a quarter of a mile away. The slight early morning breeze caressed her brown hair as she pushed a few strands back from her face. Her lips parted in expectant excitement as she glanced at Ken. He nodded at her.

"Shall I leave you here, hon?" he asked carefully.

His words were clipped, anger and disappointment hidden under the endearment. She knew that this change in her life would seriously compromise their life together. This was a good thing.

"I'll be fine." The off-hand reply escaped her as she surveyed the backstretch in the gathering light. "I'll call if I need you." Hoping to relieve some of the stress of their drive, Julia smiled at him with a warm glow in her soft brown eyes. "Thanks for the ride."

The man reluctantly put the Jeep in reverse and waved. The dust gathered as he turned and left.

Friends at the stable where Julia rode had warned her about what to expect; yet she still felt eagerness and some trepidation about a morning of new experiences. Her friends had also given her a rundown of a typical early morning at the racetrack.

Work in most barns on the backstretch started at 6 a.m. and 5.30 a.m. in some of the bigger establishments. A steady flow of vehicles arrived and moved through the gate toward the barns 300 yards down the road. The security guard in the booth simply waved most trucks and cars through the gate. The workers called their morning greetings over steaming cups of Tim Horton's coffee.

Julia stared at the stream of workers heading towards the barns for morning training. They added to the aura of a country atmosphere in the midst of a metropolitan city that bustled and buzzed with vigour around them. The tall and lean ones were the grooms and hot-walkers, her friends had said, and the short and compact ones were the exercise riders. All appeared muscled and incredibly fit to work with the high-energy racehorses. Julia was in awe.

"Something you want, Miss?" a voice asked gruffly behind her.

She wheeled around towards the man in the security uniform. He had just come out of the security trailer, a mobile home permanently set by the roadway leading toward the gate.

"I'm here to meet with Roger Dongals, the personnel manager."

The guard nodded to a trailer at the far end of the parking area beside the gate. It appeared closed, locked, and deserted. "That there is Dongals' trailer. Should be here 'bout five minutes from now."

Julia nodded her thanks and wandered slowly toward the trailer. Much smaller than the security trailer, this off-white trailer was only about 15 feet long. The entrance door was padlocked and set in the centre of the trailer in the long shadows cast by the rising sun. Unlike the busy gate only a few feet away, this quiet corner of the parking lot was devoid of people and activity. Julia sat on the concrete slab that fashioned a step to enter the trailer. She gazed longingly toward the barns, which were just beginning to bustle with activity.

Julia let her mind wander back to the last couple of weeks. Finished with Grade 13, Julia had been unable to decide exactly where her life was heading. Ken had been pushing her to find employment to help pay the bills, but Julia desperately wanted a job to make enough money to enter university, and escape Toronto and the suffocating relationship with her boyfriend. They had been together for nearly four years, and, at the age of 19, Julia felt that it had been a lifetime. Ken had been kind to her and she had been eager to move in with him last year, but she now wanted to experience life beyond the four walls of their tiny Etobicoke apartment.

During the last few weeks Julia had learned to ride a horse at a local stable. Enthralled with the country atmosphere surrounding the stable, Julia had begged them for employment that was different from the usual teenage summer jobs. Financially unable to grant her wish, the owners had suggested that she talk to Roger Dongals at the racetrack if she was that keen to work with horses.

So here she was, leaning back against the cold metal of the trailer, gazing out over the early morning grass. Although she didn't have a clear idea of her future or her long-term goals, Julia knew that she craved excitement and the unknown. Her dark brown eyes gazed toward the sun creeping over the horizon. Sometimes she felt old beyond her years; the long-term relationship with Ken had protected her from the harsh realities of life. Things had been comfortable. Her parents had moved north last year, and Julia had moved in with Ken. Disappointment had ultimately surfaced, as the mundane day-to-day reality of life had forced Julia to think seriously about her decision. Similar to other teens fresh from high school, she was naive in her romantic outlook on life. What had happened to the spark, the fire, the always wanting to be together?

A small brown Mazda drove into the parking lot and stopped beside the trailer. Coffee in hand, a plump man in his 60s opened the car door and stepped out. Slamming the door, he reached in through the open window to retrieve a dog-eared leather folder. With keys dangling below the folder, the man strode over to the trailer, nodded to Julia, and unlocked the padlock on the trailer door.

"Good morning," he said, smiling.

Julia moved off the cement step to allow Dongals to pass into the trailer. He dropped his folder onto a small metal desk across from the door, and coffee still in hand, turned to face Julia.

"May I come in ... sir?" Julia asked, forcing a smile.

"Of course, my dear. Don't be shy." Dongals leaned back against his desk. "Your name?"

"Julia Reinhardt."

She stepped into the trailer and gazed around. Dark and dusty, the tiny trailer held just a small metal desk cluttered with...