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 Targeted Age Group:: 16 and up
After the unexpected death of her mother Marilyn, Dahlia is left with only a guilty conscience, boxes of her mother’s memorabilia, and a cottage on her grandparents’ horse farm. When her grandparents take on a dangerous horse that responds only to her, Dahlia is pulled back into the life she tried so hard to escape. Before she knows it, Dahlia has a rag-tag stable of neurotic Thoroughbreds, a bulimic jockey, a party-girl BFF, and an unexpected romance with Steve, the sexy son of her nemesis – legendary trainer Bill Bassett. When Dahlia stumbles upon a forgotten videotape among Marilyn’s possessions, it threatens her precarious relationship with Steve but reveals a way that she can make amends to her mother.
Can Dahlia achieve her mother’s dream without losing the man she loves?
Link To Racetrack Rogues: One Woman’s Story of Family, Love, and Loss in the Horse Racing World On Amazon Kindle Unlimited
What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
The unexpected death of my mother, Anne Bradshaw, who was a horse racing super fan and a two dollar show bettor. She went to Saratoga every year, kept scrapbooks of her favorite horses and recorded every major horse race. I was overwhelmed by just how much memorabilia she had collected – everything from racing programs to books and magazines to Secretariat’s tail hair. Like my main character Dahlia, I had a hard time coping after my mother’s passing. It was my mother’s passion for horse racing that incited me to become a trainer. She passed away in March of 2018 and to this day I can’t watch a horse race on TV without expecting the phone to ring the second the horses cross the wire and hearing my mother’s commentary on the results. Only by writing this book was I finally able to work through my pain.
How Did You Come up With Your Characters?
See above for how my main character Dahlia was developed. As for my horse characters, they were all based on real racehorses that I used to train.
Book Excerpt/Sample
Most girls celebrated their twenty-first birthday by drinking margaritas and gyrating the night away on the dance floor. Not me – I was stuck slogging across Garden State Park’s main track, frozen rain machine-gunning my slicker, soupy grit splashing my legs. I squinted up at the tote board. Seventy to one. Yup, that’s about right. Giant Speed, aka, Lughead hadn’t fared better than fifth in all seven of his previous starts and I didn’t expect tonight to be any different. On the upside, he had a chance of repeating that fifth-place finish, especially now that every trainer with a brain scratched out, leaving a field of just six sad horses that have never won a race. I glanced over at the grandstand. Empty. No wait, there’s my old friends, the Dirty Dozen. Of course they’re here, they’d bet on the cockroaches running around the trash cans if given the chance. Nights like these, I envied the big trainers in their fancy suits, chatting up their owners with a drink in hand while their grooms did all the dirty work. Lucky bastards only had to saddle their horses and leg up their riders before dashing off to their cozy box seats.
We’d reached the paddock. I steered Lughead toward the number one saddling enclosure where two valets were already waiting, tack in hand. They know I’m a one woman show. Pat, a sixty-something ex-jockey turned valet gave me a toothless grin as I handed him Lughead’s lead shank. “Think he’s got a shot, Dahlia?” he asked, fishing for a tip.
“Yeah, if the other five horses fall down.”
The other valet draped the number one saddlecloth over Lughead’s withers, added a foam pad and finally, the tiny racing saddle. Lughead never moved, even when I buckled the undergirth. He just stood there, head low, ears flopped sideways.
“Hey Dahlia,” Pat chuckled, “I think your horse’s fallen asleep.”
I sighed, buckled the overgirth, took the shank from Pat and saw that Lughead’s eyes were indeed closed. I slapped his neck and hissed, “Hello? Anybody home?” Lughead yawned and placidly followed me out to the walking ring. Round and round we walked so that the Dirty Dozen could get a good look at the horses before pissing away their money. Based on looks alone, a few might even be tempted to bet on my horse, a well-muscled tungsten gray gelding. Fools.
The jockeys filtered out into the paddock. Since I’ve never met Lughead’s jockey, I scanned the silks for the daisy covered atrocity that belonged to his owners. I’d wanted Logan but he’d wisely shot me down to ride the race favorite instead. So, I got stuck with a jockey desperate enough to wait around until the last race just to ride a seventy to one shot in a rainstorm. All I knew about my mystery rider was that I couldn’t pronounce his name and that he’d never won a race – just like Lughead. A perfect match. A smiling boy wearing puke pink silks emblazoned with daisies trotted over, stuck out his hand and said, “Hi.” My jockey. He didn’t look a day over thirteen.
I shook his hand. “Gorgeous night, huh?”
He gave me an empty smile. Right. Since my sarcasm obviously was lost in translation, I went into trainer mode: “Giant Speed is a kind horse, very willing but lazy. You really have to work on him to keep him interested, chirping, clucking, scrubbing the reins on his neck that type of thing. Ok?”
Another blank smile.
“Wait, you do speak English, don’t you?” I asked. Nothing, not even a “Si.” Shit.
“Riders up!” the paddock judge yelled.
When Pat reappeared to leg my jockey up for me I asked, “Hey Pat, you speak Spanish, right?”
Pat looked from me to the kid and back at me. He smirked, “Sure Dahlia but it ain’t gonna be much help.”
“Why not?”
“Cuz that boy’s Haitian.”
“Screw my life.”
Pat legged my jockey up onto Lughead’s back. As I led my sleepy horse and non-communicative jockey out of the paddock, a staticky recording of “A Call to Post” played over the P.A. system. Even the damn bugler didn’t stick around for this lousy maiden claiming race. When we reached the track, I said, “No pony,” and cut Lughead loose. Not that the kid understood me. Not that Lughead even needed a pony. Not that I would waste fifteen bucks to provide him with one. The kid clucked Lughead into a jog and didn’t fall off when he responded. Good enough for me. I turned and fled into the semi-heated comfort of the grandstand. Once inside, I grabbed a cup of the char posing as coffee. Just hot enough to return minor circulation back to my drenched feet. I flopped down in a hard plastic chair underneath one of the TV monitors and tried to think positively as the horses were loaded into the gate. Only have five horses to beat and the rail’s playing fast tonight…
“And they’re off!” the announcer yelled. Five horses sprang out of the starting gate. Three seconds later, Lughead decided to join them.
I sprang to my feet. “Dead last. Shit.” I tossed my coffee in the trash and stomped out to the apron. Icy rain stung my cheeks as I climbed up onto a bench and peered out at the debacle. Lughead was ten lengths behind his closest competitor. Dumbass probably fell asleep in the gate. The Daisy Ladies are going to be pissed when they hear about this. Good thing they didn’t come to watch this fiasco in person. The front runners rounded the far turn and I closed my eyes, pretending that Lughead had suddenly morphed into Secretariat and was flying past his competition onto a glorious victory. I opened my eyes. Nope. Still last. A slowpoke like Lughead could never make up all that ground he’d lost at the break but to his credit he only finished two lengths behind everyone else.
The kid wasn’t smiling anymore when he jogged Lughead up to me after the race. I took hold of the bridle and he jumped off and unbuckled his saddle. He slid the saddle from Lughead’s withers, muttered “Piece of shit,” and clomped off. My mouth fell open. That son of a bitch spoke English after all!
Author Bio:
Dawn LeFevre began working on the backstretch of Atlantic City Racecourse at the age of sixteen. After graduating from Cook College of Rutgers University with a B.S. in Animal Science, she spent the next thirteen years training and racing horses in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware. Her first novel, BACKSTRETCH GIRLS, won Best Horse Racing Fiction book at the 2021 Equus Film & Arts Festival. Dawn currently works as a contributor for www.PastTheWire.com and her articles have been published in Equus, Weird NJ, the Pacific Coast Journal and The Press of Atlantic City.
Dawn lives in South Jersey with her husband Mark, Australian Shepherd Domino and her cats Tribble and Wonder. You can catch her latest news and read her Tales From The Wine Trails blog at www.dawnlefevre.com.
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