2008 Winner: The Song

by Peggy Davis

It was over. Eric felt slightly stunned as he viewed the headline on the Web page. Hard to believe. A setback had been mentioned yesterday, but there had been setbacks before. He didn’t know whether he wanted to read the article or not, decided not, and clicked off the news page. Someone in accounting needed help with his or her new spreadsheet software, and Eric went back to work, glad for the diversion.

Eric brooded during the evening bus ride and was still preoccupied on the walk home from the stop. Why? He wondered. It was only a horse. Why was he so concerned about somebody else’s valuable animal? 

He pushed open the door to his building and walked down the dingy hallway to the stairs at the end. Up two flights and into door number 329. Unlocked, as usual. Roommate Gary was a casual guy. Casual about his appearance; casual about his possessions; casual about Eric’s possessions, too. He wouldn’t think about locking a door until he was robbed at gunpoint of his Wii remote. He was frying things as Eric entered. Ground beef in one pan, sliced potatoes in another and Eric wasn’t sure what in a third. A small box fan was sitting on the counter beside the stove blowing the cooking smoke out the window; they had a very sensitive smoke detector.

“Hey,” said Gary with a wave of his paring knife. “Hey,” answered Eric as he began to remove his coat. He glanced at the open window and thought better of it. He wandered into his room, tossed his case on the bed, wandered back to the living room, and plopped down on the couch. 

“Your horse,” said Gary without bothering to turn around, “was on the news. They had to put him down today.”

“I know,” answered Eric. Gary scooped all the fried foods onto two plates, handed one to Eric, and sat down on the other end of the couch with his. After a moment he got back up, opened a drawer, and obtained two sets of mismatched silverware. Three seconds after sitting down, he rose again, went to the refrigerator, and pulled out two beers, one of which he tossed to Eric. Eric waited until Gary had settled down for a third time before asking if he’d turned off the stove. “Yeah, I did,” grinned Gary, quite proud of his accomplishment. They ate in companionable silence for about 12 minutes. 

“I thought he was going to make it,” said Gary.

“I did, too,” answered Eric.

“Someday, we ought to get a table,” observed Gary as he fished between the couch cushions for a sliced potato. Eric agreed with a smile.

There was one knock on their door and then it opened.  Their friend Sybil entered, closed the door behind her, questioned why their apartment was so cold, cursed, shut the window, grabbed a fork, sat between them, and made short work of their suppers. 

“Your horse,” she said to Eric as soon as she swallowed the last potato, “was on the national news. Eric, what happened? I’m so sad. Aren’t you sad?”

“Yeah, I’m sad,” he muttered, a little defensively. “I don’t know what happened. He’s not my horse. He was just my Derby pick.”

“But you were right! You were right and he won and then he got hurt, but he survived then, and made it this far and then they couldn’t save him and it’s just so unfair and I’m so upset now!” Sybil’s face had reddened and her eyes were damp with tears that hadn’t spilled over yet. Suddenly, she turned to Gary. “Get some candles,” she ordered. Back to Eric, “Get your guitar. We’re having a memorial service.”

“You’re an atheist,” stated Gary while fetching candles nevertheless. He was a little afraid of the bleached blond dynamo.

“You don’t need to be religious to commemorate a noble soul,” said Sybil. One tear had escaped her eye and trickled down her cheek. Waterproof mascara, thought Eric. Good girl. For someone so passionate, it had taken Sybil a long time to discover waterproof mascara. She was much more attractive without black streaks running down her face.  

“Eric, your guitar.” Eric shook off his musings on eye makeup, and obeyed.

The guitar was tuned and the candles were lit. The January evening was dark and still. The apartment was even beginning to warm up. 

“Now what?” Gary wondered. “Hey,” he said, answering his own question, “play ‘Amazing Grace,’ that’s a good song for a memorial.” Eric hunched over his guitar and started to play. He had a good ear and some skill. For some reason he had Gospel singers in his mind and he followed where they sang. He played just the notes for the first verse while Sybil and Gary sang along. Then he added chords for verse two and finished the third with an arpeggio flourish. Gary was right; it was a good memorial song. Eric felt tension he didn’t even know he had leave while he played. His friends smiled at him.

“That was beautiful,” sighed Sybil.  “I want you to play it just like that at my funeral.” Eric looked her over. Was she paler? Thinner? He knew she liked her alcoholic beverages; could out-drink Gary, in fact, and although he never saw her using, rumor had it that she was nursing a cocaine habit.  

“You mean, like, 68 years from now, right?” he asked. She just grinned at him. 

Eric found his Kentucky Derby program from the simulcast they attended, and with the help of the printed lyrics they all sang “My Old Kentucky Home.” After some experimentation, Eric came up with the call to the post. “It’s all a B flat chord, see? I don’t have to move my left fingers at all.”

“You can’t go wrong with B flat,” stated Gary.

“I feel better,” Sybil stood and gathered up her coat and purse. “Thanks for dinner, guys, and the memorial. See you.” The door closed, leaving Eric and Gary sitting on their floor looking at each other over a couple of candles.  

Eric did not have his mind on his work the next day. Marsha in payroll had to snap her fingers under his nose to get his attention, after stating his name three times failed to do so.

“Are you okay?” she asked with concern.

“Yeah,” he answered as he rapidly typed code into her non-responsive computer. That was embarrassing, he thought. The payroll computer put up a ferocious fight, but finally decided to submit to Eric the Master. 

“Thanks,” said Marsha as she gratefully began paying employees again. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Yeah,” he repeated, “I just have something on my mind.”

Marsha studied him for a moment, smiled, handed him a glazed doughnut, and advised him to remain in the present.

As he munched on the doughnut and walked back to his cubicle, Eric found he was unable to take Marsha’s advice. He’d watched the press conference from the New Bolton Center on one of the morning news shows and couldn’t stop dwelling on the horse’s owner’s words regarding grief and love. How true. How profound. The lady was a poet. Eric wondered if she’d always been one or had become one as a result of recent circumstances. He had tunes in his head, sung by blues singers and balladeers. He had fleeting thoughts of action, triumph, and tragedy. And always those words.

He made it through his workday and the bus ride home. He declined supper with Gary, went straight to his room, tuned his guitar, and started to play. At first he fooled with chords, the call to the post, and a couple of phrases from “Amazing Grace.” Then the balladeers and blues singers coalesced and he played what he heard them sing in his head; a song he ¬¬didn’t know. He followed them once. After the second time, he had the tune memorized. On the third pass, he improvised some harmony with the melody. His neck and hands had stiffened by the end of the fourth time through, so he stopped to rest and shake his aching joints.
“That’s pretty good,” came Gary’s voice from the doorway. He was leaning on the doorframe, a bowl of fried chicken nuggets in his hand.

“How long have you been there?” asked Eric, angry about being spied on yet perversely pleased that Gary had liked the song.

“About 40 minutes. Boy, can you one-track it. I could have had strippers dancing out here, and you wouldn’t have noticed. What song was that?”

“I don’t know,” answered Eric. “It was in my head, so I played it.”

“So you wrote it?”

“Probably not,” replied Eric, “but I don’t know who did.”

“Could you play it again?” asked Gary.

“Yeah. Oh, yeah.” Eric cracked his neck. Man, he was stiff. Gary offered him some nuggets and Eric hadn’t realized until then that he was famished.

Gary wanted Eric to record his song before they both left for work the next morning. He claimed he wanted it on tape before Eric forgot it. He claimed he wanted it on tape so he could listen to it while he drove around town on his courier job. He thought getting it on tape was just a good idea. Eric felt a little foolish, but had no good reason to refuse, so he tuned up and played the song through. He hadn’t forgotten it. It came back to him so easily; it was as if he’d been playing it for years. After he finished, Gary thanked him, extracted the cassette from the little recorder, swore because he was late, and bolted out the door. Eric put the guitar away, picked up his briefcase, locked the apartment, and went to work. 

He returned that evening to find Gary and Sybil sitting in the hall against the locked door. Gary cussed him out for locking the door, and Eric cussed back wondering why Gary just didn’t keep an apartment key on his car-key chain. When the profanity-laced exchange subsided, Sybil spoke up.

“Gary said you wrote a song. Can I hear it?” she asked.

“Can we eat first?” countered Eric irritably. Gary obligingly fried up a bunch of eggs and sausage and the three of them sat on the couch while they ate dinner and drank beer. After the meal, Eric played the song for Sybil.

“That’s pretty good,” she said when he finished. “You ought to write it down.”

“I can’t,” he answered. “I mean, I can kind of read music. Slowly. I know chords, I can play what I hear, but I don’t know what notes I’m playing when I’m playing them.”

“I know somebody who could do that,” said Gary. “Notate, I mean, if that’s what you call it. Angry Steve. I’ve seen him write stuff down on music paper like he was writing a letter. He could do it.” 

Eric was appalled. Angry Steve was mean. He held court in the seediest club in town, partook of any illegal substance within reach, considered himself the second coming of Jimi Hendrix, and hated Eric’s guts—for no reason that Eric could ever figure out.

“I couldn’t play in front of him,” protested Eric, “he’d hurt me. Besides, he’s only awake between 12 and 4 a.m. and I have to work.”

“Ah,” said Gary profoundly as he reached into his pocket, “I have a tape.”

Things were gathering in Eric’s head again. He was able to keep them at bay while he was working, but gave in to them during lunch. He thought again about the poet lady and her husband. He thought about the vet who gave all those press conferences and admitted that it hurt to come to work and find the stall of his famous patient empty. The news people who reported the demise of a horse without the slightest hint of cynicism; all the people nationwide who sent flowers, cards, carrots, and apples to a vet clinic; the horse himself, big and leggy and elegant and stoic. 

Eric completed his second session of inspired composing, laid his guitar down, and looked to Gary, leaning again on the doorframe and asked, “Did Sybil just walk by my door naked?”

Gary swore, extracted his wallet from his back pocket, and paid a blanket-clad Sybil her wager winnings. She scampered off toward the bathroom with her clothes slung over her arm. Gary glared at Eric, removed a cassette from his little recorder, and headed for the living room while remarking that dinner would be ready soon.

After they finished the pile of fried rice, Eric asked Gary why he was recording the song.  Gary countered with the question, “Why are you writing it?”

Eric thought about it. He didn’t know for sure; he just had singers in his head, things on his mind. After he’d worked them out on the guitar, his mind left him alone for a while. It wasn’t a satisfactory explanation, even to him, but that’s all he could come up with. Sybil declared that maybe he was a genius. Eric didn’t think so and neither did Gary. Then Sybil demanded to know why Gary was recording.

“One, it’s pretty good,” he answered. “Two, he could forget it,” Gary brought the rice dish to the sink, rinsed it out, and turned back to Eric. “And three, I’m feeling off this week, and I didn’t know why, but you’re explaining it.”

Gary and Eric, along with a few other friends, were enjoying the three-for-one Thursday Happy Hour at their nearby bar. Sybil had vanished after supper, as she often tended to do. The gang shot pool, watched ESPN, and drank beer until they were full. And tight.

Friday morning was difficult for Eric to face. So was the bus ride to work, the diesel fumes doing things to his innards. He had to refuse Payroll Marsha’s offer of a doughnut and found himself the object of concern of all the women in the office. He wanted to believe they were worried about him personally, but reckoned they were all computer users whose machines might fail at any time. They had to keep him alive.

He survived work, the bus ride wasn’t bad, and the walk home in the clear, winter air was refreshing. He felt almost good as he entered his building.

“Are you ready for your session tomorrow?” asked Gary as Eric cleaned up after their evening meal.

“What session?”

“You’re recording your piece, all of it, in one whack, on a CD,” Gary brought his ice-cream dish to the sink. “We talked about it last night. Don’t you remember?”

“No,” admitted Eric. Gary looked disgusted.

“You used to be able to drink a keg of beer with no adverse effects,” he stated. 

Gary’s good opinion of his beer-drinking capacity was important to Eric. “It might have been the shots,” he suggested.

“You did shots? When? How many?” Gary asked.

“I don’t know,” Eric replied, “but, Gary, I can’t afford any recording-studio time.  I’m going to have to cancel.”

“We’re doing it here,” said Gary. “Lin’s bringing some sound software and a mixer. You’re playing into it, it’s plugged into the sound card on your computer and then you can burn it onto a CD. You and Lin said it would work.” 

Eric was thinking that he should never do shots again.

Lin showed up early in the morning with a little sound-mixing box. Sybil stopped by for moral support. Eric tuned his guitar and Gary fried up a large amount of hash browns and walleye pieces for breakfast. After the meal, Lin and Eric discussed logistics and they were ready to roll.

Lin was a fascinating creature. Eric didn’t know if Lin was male or female. Every time they met, Eric thought he’d figure it out. It hadn’t happened yet.

Whatever Lin was, he/she was also a sonic notable in the community, teaching voice and acting, working as a sound engineer for two recording studios, and even helping national acts on request when they came into town. Gary had saved Lin from a beating years ago, and they’d been buddies ever since. Lin and Sybil often shopped together. Gary introduced Lin to Eric shortly after Eric had moved into the apartment.

Eric picked up his guitar and twiddled around while Lin, wearing earphones, adjusted some knobs. Finally they were ready.

It was tough going. Eric had two sessions of music and ¬didn’t know what order to play them in. He tried one way, and then the other. Then he decided to mix things up more, but wasn’t happy with that. Gary had a coughing fit in the middle of one take that was working, so it had to be done again. Sybil left, was gone for an hour, and returned ¬obviously juiced, which distracted and worried Eric. The sun began to set. He ¬¬couldn’t believe Lin’s patience. Take after take and Lin remained calm, sensible, and in control. Lin wrote copious notes, gently requested that Gary and Sybil leave the room, which they did, had a beer with Eric, and recorded two more takes before suggesting that Eric was tired and they should quit for the day.

Eric was tired. And sore. And frustrated because he thought he’d failed to convey what he meant on the entirety of any take they’d done.

Lin sat at the computer, tapped a couple keys, highlighted some things on the screen, and burned a CD.

“It’s pretty good, Eric,” said Lin with a smile.¬¬“Don’t listen to it until Monday. Take Sunday off, relax, and clear your mind. I think you’ll agree with me Monday. If you want to tighten it up, just call.” Lin unplugged the mixer, packed it up, squeezed Eric’s aching shoulder, and departed.

Sybil and Gary came back into the apartment and Gary started to prepare supper. Sybil placed her hands on Eric’s shoulders without a word and began to knead. Eric wanted to snap at her and tell her to get lost. He said nothing. He didn’t want a druggie friend. But oh, could she give a back rub!

Sunday was a good day. He got outside. A snowy walk in the morning; a game of broomball around noon; and the Super Bowl on the big screen at the watering hole that night.

Gary wasn’t home Monday evening. Sybil arrived at 6:30 with a bouquet of roses and baby’s breath.

“It’s the one-week anniversary,” she explained, while filling a drinking glass with water. She spent some time arranging the flowers in it, then paused and asked, “Where’s he buried?”

Eric explained that no decision had been made yet; the horse had been cremated and several beautiful places were vying to be his burial spot. She seemed to take comfort in that.

Without further ado, Sybil lit a candle and dimmed the lights.  Eric stuck the CD into the player and played it.

Eric was afraid it was going to be a piece of trash. Things inside the head never sound quite the same out of it. He’d been tense all through recording and just wasn’t sure of himself. The CD played for about 17 minutes.

It wasn’t bad, admitted Eric to himself with relief; it wasn’t bad at all. And yet.

“Eric, it’s beautiful,” said Sybil. She was peering intently at him. “You look so disappointed. You can’t be! It’s really very good, what’s wrong?” She looked almost ready to cry.

“Whoa, Sybil! I’m fine with it, really.  It’s just ...” He flipped the remote and went back to the part that was bothering him.

“Here,” he said as the music started again, “it’s really sad here and it doesn’t sound sad enough. I can’t make that guitar sound any sadder, but this part needs more.”

Sybil listened then said, “The saddest instrument in the world is a cello.”
“I can’t play the cello,” Eric pointed out.

“No …” drawled Sybil.  Eric could almost see the wheels turning behind her eyes, “but one of the kids from the Resireine School could.”

The Resireine School was a block and a half away, next to the Ethiopian deli. It was a music school for kids who couldn’t afford lessons, presided over by Madame LaFrenier, who had some sort of an in with the local government, a musical background, and the mindset that a child distracted by the wonders of music could not get into trouble. Actually, it seemed to be working. Kids toting instruments were going in and out of there all the time, neighborhood crime was down, and every year they had a Christmas show and a performance on Memorial Day. Eric thought Sybil might be on to something.

“There’s a little girl with a really big violin in our apartment,” announced Gary on Tuesday evening as Eric climbed the stairs. “And Lin’s back with the mixer.”

Already? Thought Eric. He was very surprised at the sight of the very small, very young redhead sitting coolly on a stool in the middle of his living room, her three-quarter-sized cello in front of her, and the bow in her right hand. “My gosh!” he said to Gary, “she’s only eight years old.”

“I am seven,” she replied with aplomb, “and I want to be called Ming.”

“Okay ... Ming. Hey, Lin. Uh, I’m sorry ... Ming, but I don’t have any music for you to play today.”

“Yes, you do,” said Gary, presenting Eric with a folder filled with numbered pages of neatly notated music, “courtesy of Angry Steve. He said the piece was pretty good, and you’re a lousy guitar player.”

“You didn’t tell him it was me, did you?” asked Eric with alarm.

“Of course not,” answered Gary, “Angry Steve just said, ‘This is a pretty good piece of music, but that bleeping guitarist sucks bleep.’ ”

“Angry Steve did not say ‘bleep,’ ” replied Eric. Gary indicated the small child in the room.

Eric looked at the sheets and back at Gary, “He didn’t do this for free,” he stated slowly.

“No,” said Gary.

“What did you have to pay him?”

“I gave him a bag of Dutch Haze pot and a bottle of 15-year-old single-malt scotch.”

Eric was touched. Gary kept going way above and beyond for him. He hoped he could return the favor someday, somehow.  He found the part he wanted sadder—near the end—and gave the pages to Ming. She studied them while Lin finished setting up. Then she picked up her bow, and on Lin’s nod began to play.

The tiny savant was good, thought Eric, very good. The mellow voice of the cello was exactly what he needed.

Ming wanted to practice a couple times more before the “real” performance. Lin recorded them all. They ended up with four good takes that satisfied everybody. While Lin was packing up, Ming kept reading the music sheets.

“This is pretty good.” she said, “May I play it for my recital?”

“Sure,” said Eric, startled and a little flattered.

“Who did you write it for?” asked Ming.

Great, thought Eric, now a little kid is going to think I’m a goof.

“I wrote it for a racehorse,” he finally answered.

“The Derby winner?” she asked avidly. Eric nodded. Ming looked down at the sheets of music again, reading them through. She looked back up.

“That’s just how I feel, too,” she said.

Eric lay on the floor. Gary reclined on the couch, his head on Sybil’s lap. Sybil daintily sipped a glass of red wine. The CD finished playing.

“Oh, no,” said Sybil, correctly reading Eric’s expression. “What now?”

Eric was a little annoyed with his inability to be satisfied himself. He sat up and punched the remote back toward the middle of the piece.

“Here,” he said, “this should be louder than one guitar. This is where the jock pulls up and the people in the stands are shocked and not watching the race anymore, and then they load up and get escorted to the vet clinic. Some people were crying, remember? And some were speechless. I need ... anguish. I need a siren.  I need ... ”

“McKeegh!” said Sybil and Gary in unison.

The veteran of the first Gulf War looked through the sheets of music as he filled his pipes with air. McKeegh was the neighborhood lost soul. He was a worn-looking, 36-year-old, unemployed man who had been taken in for the winter by an eight-member Kuwaiti family living across the alley. Everybody knew McKeegh, who would arrive home, drink half a bottle of whiskey, and blast away on his bagpipes at any time: day or night. Lin put on the headphones and turned the volume way down. Sybil wore her pink earmuffs; Gary sported Styrofoam earplugs.

“I’m ready,” said McKeegh, looking first to Eric then to Lin. Lin nodded to him and McKeegh’s ruddy face reddened still more as he blew into the pipes. The drones began to hum and then McKeegh started to play.

Eric wanted to be polite, but found he had to clamp his hands over his ears to save his hearing. Bagpipes were made to be played outside. In Scotland. Not inside an 800-square-foot apartment. He knew the neighbors had to be pounding on his floor and ceiling and walls, but there was no way he could hear them. He hoped nobody called the cops on them.

McKeegh finished, and in the blessed, lovely quiet, he paged through the music sheets again. “I’ve felt this way,” he said softly. “Often.”

The door slammed open and a man Eric didn’t know stomped in.

“McKeegh!” bellowed the crusty-looking guy. McKeegh squinted back at him. 

“If you have to play that damn thing, that’s the best song you do. It’s pretty good.”

“Then I’ll play it again,” said McKeegh. And he did.

“He can’t play them any softer,” said Lin later, listening, turning knobs, looking at the computer screen, and pecking at the keyboard, “but I can turn the volume down.” Lin frowned in concentration for a while, and then turned to Eric with a smile, “If you want a lament, you’ve got yourself a lament.”

Eric gave his perfectionism Friday off. He went to work. He and Gary went to Happy Hour—no shots were downed—and a movie. It was a nice break.

After Saturday’s supper of chicken-fried steak, Tater Tots, and breaded mushrooms, Eric plugged in the CD and he, Sybil, Gary, and Lin sat back on the couch to listen. The guitar started to play, and Eric decided Angry Steve had been a little harsh. He didn’t suck that bad. And it wasn’t likely that Angry Steve would be willing to play guitar on any CD of Eric’s anyway.

“This part sounds like the wind; like the wind blowing across a field,” smiled Sybil. Eric smiled back at her; that was exactly what he meant. The “pasture music” segued into a couple phrases of “My Old Kentucky Home,” then came the call to the post.

“Hey,” said Lin, looking across Gary and Sybil to Eric, “this is about the Kentucky Derby winner, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” answered Eric self-consciously.

“I didn’t catch that before, when we were recording,” mused Lin, sitting forward, forearms on knees, listening intently.

The Derby was over and won, then the Preakness gates crashed open with multiple chord changes and the race built in excitement until it slammed to a sudden halt. A moment of silence and then the bagpipes faded in. Eric remembered watching the simulcast with his friends, remembered how bad he felt when he saw the end of the limb dangling and knew the horse was doomed. The pipes reflected despair and anguish, and then they changed. Nobody gave up. There was the trip to Pennsylvania with a police escort, people hanging signs from overpasses the whole way there. McKeegh continued to play a lament, but it was for what had been; a future was still possible. The bagpipes wound down, and the guitar came back in with a sprightly tune. Eric and the singers in his head had months of pictures to write about here, slings and recovery pools, interest in girls, grass eating, a white-marked face peering out of a card-laden stall door, stiff walks. 

“He lasted a long time,” said Gary thoughtfully. “I thought he was going to make it.”

Ming’s cello began to play. Too many things had gone wrong; there was nothing more anybody could do but make the right decision. The cello mourned for the valiant horse; for the owners, trainer, and stable help who loved him; for the vets and the clinic workers who fought the good fight; for the thousands of bystanders like him who had hoped for a different ending.

The melancholy cello finished and so did the CD. Sybil wept quietly into her hands until Lin gave her a napkin.

“Good God, Eric,” swore Lin respectfully. Gary beamed like a parent whose kid just won the talent show.

“You have got to be okay with that,” said Sybil as she mopped her face and dabbed at her eyes. “You just have to.”

Eric was okay with it. He was still kind of sad, but it wasn’t unbearable anymore.

“Do you think,” he hesitated, “do you think I could send a copy to the owners? In a card? I wouldn’t want to invade their privacy ... ” It was a dumb idea.

“I think they’d like it,” said Gary, “it’s pretty good.” The others agreed and suddenly Eric felt calm and at peace, for the first time in two weeks.

He had a gift for the poet lady. And the singers in his head were going to give him a break. They were planning a vacation—probably to Cabo—but they promised they’d be back. They galloped off on his inspiration, and Eric had a brief vision of a flowing mane, a cloak-like black tail, and a blanket of roses.

About the author

Peggy Davis, winner of the Eighth Biennial Thoroughbred Times Fiction Contest for “The Song,” has worked in the Thoroughbred industry for more than two decades, but the ownership of horses is what helps give the lifelong resident of Minnesota inspiration and cause for concern.

“I own Morgan horses, I trail ride, and for a suburban kid in Minnesota, I guess you could say I’ve ridden for a long time,” said Davis, a resident of suburban Minneapolis-St. Paul. “I don’t own racehorses, but I know how it is to be a horse owner and worry about them and love them.”

When she is away from her horses, Davis works as clerk of the course, placing judge, and live program coordinator at Canterbury Park in Shakopee, Minnesota, which annually runs its live race meeting from early May through early September. A racing official at Canterbury Park since 1985, Davis also has worked in various positions at Oaklawn Park, Tampa Bay Downs, Hoosier Park, Lone Star Park, and The Woodlands during her career.

Davis drew plenty of inspiration for “The Song” after the death of Barbaro, winner of the 2006 Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (G1) who suffered injuries in the early stages of the Preakness Stakes (G1).

“Right when Barbaro was put down, a lot of friends of mine were asking each other if they were sad and things like that,” Davis said. “Then the contest came up and I started thinking about people from all different walks of life that were touched by the story. So I just sat down, used a couple speeches I had heard, and put the story together.

“All the characters are people I have met some place or another, or people I went to school with.”

An honorable mention selection in the 2000 Fiction Contest, Davis said she writes as a hobby and has no formal training other than “taking a creative writing course one time.”

“My mother loves all my stories that I write and show her. It’s just a hobby,” said Davis, who holds an associate’s degree in animal science from the University of Minnesota-Crookston. “The only people besides my family that have seen my stories are you guys at Thoroughbred Times.”