Maybe he won because he thought he wouldI used to do quite a bit of racetrack work, but I found I was not really suited to it. There are several reasons, among them: 1) Lamenesses often remained a mystery to me no matter how diligently I searched for the causes; 2) I never understood why a horse had to be trained in the middle of the night (what was wrong with 9 a.m.?); 3) I found I disliked finding out that trainers who had me worm five horses the previous day had shipped out overnight, payment having slipped their minds; and 4) many trainers preferred to let the veterinary needle try to take the place of proper training and/or race selection. All in all, the racetrack was a frustrating place for me.
Wallace Givens, now sending his charges to the Big Oval in the Sky, was a trainer. He had been a jockey in his youth but outgrew it and turned to exercise riding. When age became a factor, he became a trainer. Givens was not a bad trainer, nor was he good, and the horses under his care were also neither good nor bad; he made ends meet, but not by much.
Givens hit a dry spell one year when I was doing his veterinary work. He had seven horses in training; one was confined to its stall with a foot fracture, but the other six were sound and racing, but not too successfully. Over the previous three or four months, the six had made a total of 33 starts and only twice had any of them been on the board. None had won.
He tried everything. He tied tongues; he untied tongues. He put blinkers on; he took blinkers off. He put the horses on legal medications; he took them off legal medications. He shod them differently. He switched jockeys; he switched feeds; he switched bridles, bit, and saddles. He had me do blood counts, and he had me jug them. Nothing worked. They continued to run up the track.
One day Givens called me into his tackroom. I went in and he stuck his head back out the door, looked both ways, evidently saw no one, and closed the door. Then he locked it. There were a few small beads of perspiration on his forehead as he came over close to me.
"Doc," Givens whispered. "I gotta win a race. I'm gonna lose my horses if I don't."
I was at a loss as to what to say, so I did not say anything.
He went on. "You gotta help me, Doc."
"Wallace, I can't do anything. Maybe you should drop them a notch."
I can't do that. You gotta help me. Give 'em somethin'."
"Give 'em what?"
"I dunno, Doc. Something." He looked around and lowered his voice even more. "Hop," he gulped.
"Hop!" I said in a normal voice. Givens winced visibly and held a finger to his lips. "Wallace, I can't hop your horses."
He pleaded on, but I stood firm and he finally let me go.
Givens had a three-year-old filly in that afternoon and she ran sixth, only beaten four lengths, but sixth nonetheless. The next morning as I entered the shedrow, he was morose.
"Doc, Mr. Morrison's takin' his horses," he told me. Morrison owned the filly who had run the day before and one other horse, a gelding that had also run sixth about a week earlier. "You gotta help me."
"Wallace, I can't do anything. Maybe they need a break. Maybe you should take 'em out of training for a while, turn 'em out."
He looked horrified. "I can't do that! I got bills. If they're turned out, I ain't gettin' paid."

Jivey
Two days later Givens approached me again. "Doc, I got Jivey in today. Please give him somethin'. " It was a pathetic, lengthed "please," one that probably had four or five extra "es" in it.
Jivey was Jungle Jive, an older gelding that had a little class in his youth but was now a mid-range claimer. The previous year he had won four or five races and brought home nearly $40,000, but this year he was 0-for-5, and his best finish had been a distant fifth.
A brilliant idea struck me. I decided to show Givens that "hop" would not help his horses, that only proper training, conditioning, health, race selection, and genetic makeup would do any good.
"Okay, Wallace," I said in a whisper. "I'll help you." I looked around to make sure no one was near and then pulled him into a stall. Still whispering, I said, "I'll give Jivey something, but no one must know. Understand?"
He beamed. He almost chuckled. "Oh, thank you, Doc! Thank you. Nobody'll hear anything! Oh, thank you!"
I told Givens I would be right back and went to my car. I drew two ccs of sterile normal saline into a syringe and held the clear liquid up to the light.
"It needs some color," I said to myself, and then drew one-tenth cc of vitamin B12 into the syringe. B12 is red and this less-than-a-drop made the mixture in the syringe a delicate, very pale pink. Neither the saline nor the B12 would have the slightest effect on the horse; in fact, the race was not until mid-afternoon, and it was now about 7 a.m., so the stuff would not even be in his system by race time.
I placed the syringe in my shirt pocket and went back to Givens. "Let's go see Jivey," I whispered.
Junior, Given's assistant trainer/ groom/hot walker/stall mucker/ gofer, was with Jivey. "Send him somewhere," I whispered.
"Junior, go get us a bucket of hot water," Givens ordered. Junior walked off.
We went into the stall. I pulled the syringe of pink liquid out of my pocket and showed it to Givens. His eyes got big. "Wow!" he gasped.
"Check outside the stall," I directed. "Let me know when it's clear. I don't want anyone to see this."
Still wide-eyed, he gulped and nodded. He stuck his head out the stall door and looked both ways. "Not yet, Doc," he said in a whisper. A hot walker led a horse by. "Okay, now!" he said.
I injected the harmless fluid into Jivey's jugular vein. "There you go, Wallace. If this doesn't help, no drug will."
Givens was sweating. He was shaking. "And it won't show, Doc?"
"Not a trace," I assured him.
I could not charge him for this. After all, I had used less than a nickel's worth of "medication" that would have no effect on his horse anyhow. "Wallace," I said, "I can't charge you for this. If anyone ever saw a ticket on this, all hell would break loose."
With somber seriousness, he replied, nodding, "I understand, Doc. But don't worry, I'll take care of you."
Jivey would lose again, I believed, and Givens would see that "hop" did not help and he would go back to his training methods. Eventually, his cold spell would end.
Jungle Jive was in a $10,000 claiming race that afternoon, down from $12,500 in his previous start. He was 15-to-1 in the morning line, but the bettors did not think he looked even that good. He went off at 32-to-1, the second-longest price on the board.
And, unfortunately, he won. Easily. Six lengths.
Nothing showed in the post-race tests, of course. Nothing was there to show.
The next morning Givens was walking on air. As I entered his shedrow, he called to me, "Doc, I got somethin' for you!" He handed me a $5 win ticket on Jivey. "I wish I'd a bet $50 for you," he said.
"Me, too," I agreed, and thanked him. Somehow, this had not worked out exactly as I planned.

More "hop"
A few days later, he had a three-year-old colt in. This colt had been okay at two-a couple of wins-and had won his first time out at three, which, until Jivey, had been Given's last victory. Since then, the colt had managed only a third in his last six starts.
On the morning of the race, Givens dragged me into his tackroom and asked for some more "hop." "Well, why not?" I figured. It does not hurt anything, it makes Givens feel better, and maybe he would see now that it does not help, so I gave the colt the two ccs of pink liquid in the same furtive manner I had used with Jivey.
He went off at 14-to-1 and lost by a nose in a photo. Again, Givens was ecstatic and this time had bet $10 across for me.
Enough, though. No more. He had to learn he was doing it on his own merit and that of his horses.
Two days later, he ran a five-year-old mare-sound as a dollar but zero for her last eight races. She had once run successfully for as much as $15,000 but was now down to $7,500.

No more "hop"
Givens asked me again for his "hop." "I'm out of it," I told him. He looked as if I had said his daughter had run off with a 300-pound Hell's Angel named Shark.
"Doc, you can't be! You can't be! What'll I do?" I thought he was going to cry.
I told him I was sorry. He mumbled something about scratching the mare, but ended up running her. Thank heavens, she won. At 10-to-1. He did not have any tickets for me the next day, though.
Given's luck had evidently turned around, but he kept asking for the "hop," and I kept telling him I could not get it, and he kept on running without it. His horses began winning every fifth or sixth time out and even Morrison brought his two back to Givens.
Every once in a while, he would ask me if I had been able to get his "hop," and I finally told him it was no longer being manufactured, which was true because I had been the one "manufacturing" it. "Too bad," Givens sighed.
Yes, it was too bad. I had enjoyed cashing those tickets.
(The names of people and horses have been changed.)