The Last Horseman: A (Mostly) True Story of a Midwestern Housewife, Illegal Gambling, and The Big Race

By Robert Mazerov

Inspired by true events, The Last Horseman is a gripping story of a Midwestern housewife who secretly devises an epic gambling scheme to save the career of her alienated horse trainer husband — perfect for fans of Secretariat and The Greatest Gambling Story Ever Told!

Eddie Logan was once the nation's leading standardbred horse trainer. Today he's down on his luck, struggling to survive in a world where rigged races and corruption threaten the future of the sport he loves. As Eddie faces mounting financial pressures, he succumbs to the temptation of cheating, the one-and-only time in his career, only to lose everything—except the love and support of his wife, Jean.

Desperate to save the man she loves, Jean cooks up a lucrative–and illegal–betting scheme. With the help of an organized crime boss, she bets on race after race, risking everything in the hopes of winning enough to restore Eddie's reputation and career.

Jean must stay one step ahead of the law while keeping her scheme secret from Eddie, who would put a stop to it, and the horse racing officials, who would ban her and Eddie from the sport for life. As she walks a narrow line, Jean must decide how far she will go to save the one she loves.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Aug 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9781667899695

Book preview

Wrestling their heavy, oversized purses from the trunk of the car, the two women strain to quickly carry them to the unlit back entrance of the restaurant and the door they’ve propped open. Furtively, they look around as they skulk to a private room. One woman locks the door while the other struggles to lift her purse onto the round table, which tilts slightly under the strain of the weight. The other then swings her purse onto the table with a thud.

The women smile conspiratorially at each other as they remove their light jackets and sit to savor a bite of the blueberry pie they’ve purchased from the restaurant’s cafeteria. They delight in the sweet, decadent indulgence of berries that ooze out of the crust, then slide their plastic forks across the paper plates to catch the last crumbs and sweet filling. One sits back in satisfaction as the other tosses both plates and forks into the trash can.

We don’t have much time before they wonder where we are. We’d better get started.

The women stand and turn their purses over, cascading fifty-, one-hundred-, and five-hundred-dollar bills onto a pile that covers the top of the table, as a few bills flutter to the floor. They bend down to pick up the errant bills, then silently sit down to count the money.

It Began as a Nice Evening

Eddie Logan began this race about ninety seconds ago on a warm spring night along with eleven other drivers and their racehorses. Only in his late forties, Eddie’s face seems much older, weathered from the markings of every grain of sand and dirt that has hit him in thirty years and tens of thousands of miles of driving horses around racetracks. His arms stretch well out in front of him as he holds the reins of his horse, Clancy.

The race moves from the final turn into the home stretch with the thumping of the forty-eight hooves of twelve horses. Some of the horses are in single file against the hub rail, while others use this last bit of the turn to spread outward across the track and go one, two, three, or even four abreast to find an unimpeded path for the sprint to the finish line.

Clancy is a three-year-old colt of average size and speed, dark brown with a blaze of white on his forehead. He’s generally good-natured and doesn’t stand out as noisy or irascible in the barn. But while training Clancy, Eddie found the horse’s hidden talent. If he reaches forward and gives him a slap on his butt, Clancy will burst forth with an explosion of speed that enables him to shoot past the rest of the field. Slap him too early, and Clancy sprints, then tires; slap him too late, and he doesn’t have enough time to catch and pass the other horses. Timing Clancy’s secret sprint is everything. Eddie keeps him mid-pack until he can reach forward and turn Clancy loose. All he needs is an opening.

Clancy is third along the inside, with a horse in front of him, a horse behind him, and another directly next to him. Trapped. There is nowhere for Clancy and Eddie to go. Unable to speed up, slow down, or move out. The horses are on the straightaway, heading for the finish line in front of the sweeping white roof of the Scioto Downs grandstand on the southern end of Columbus, Ohio. Behind Eddie, the horses are racing four abreast across the track, maneuvering to find a clear path to the win.

Looking frantically to get out of his predicament, Eddie gives a shrill whistle at Roy Strong, the driver who has him boxed in. Eddie knows he will have no problem sprinting past Strong as Clancy’s burst of speed will be much faster than any sprint from Strong’s horse. He’s more concerned with the horses that may be coming up behind him. Now is the moment for him to move Clancy out. Though he has heard Eddie’s whistle, Strong’s eyes are fixed straight ahead. Eddie whistles again, yet Strong does not make room to let Clancy out.

Clancy’s nose is so close to the driver in front of him that he occasionally touches the driver’s helmet. This forces Eddie to rein in Clancy because the colt has been trained to go his fastest at this point of the race. As Eddie tries to get around the horse ahead, Strong moves slightly forward, blocking him even more. Clancy pulls at the reins, signaling that he wants to go faster, but Eddie can’t find a path to the front.

Eddie raises his whip and taps the shaft of Strong’s sulky, making a slapping noise that Strong can definitely hear. Eddie is careful not to touch Strong’s horse with the whip, which would be a penalty and get Eddie fined or suspended, or might startle the horse and cause him to stumble. The tap is a last-ditch signal that Eddie wants to move out. Strong’s eyes stay straight ahead, purposefully ignoring him as he deliberately paces his horse to keep Clancy in place.

With less than one hundred yards to the finish line, the crowd in the grandstand is shouting louder. In desperation, Eddie shouts to Strong, Move out! Let me out. Strong doesn’t look at Eddie or acknowledge his shout. Goddamnit! Let me OUT! Eddie shouts, his whip tapping the sulky’s shaft again.

The race is in the final stages. The crowd has begun shouting louder now at the drivers and the horses.

Get out, Eddie. Move out!

That goddamn Eddie is throwing the race.

Get fucking out, Eddie. Take him wide.

With a gentle, almost imperceptible motion, the driver of the horse directly in front of Clancy tightens the reins, and his horse slows slightly. The horse loses only one or two steps, not noticeable from the grandstand but enough to slow the horses behind, especially Clancy.

The spotlights at the finish line turn on, their artificial glare creating a surreal stripe of brightness across the track. With only a few seconds left in the race, Coffee Break, driven by Leo Roberts, comes from well behind and glides past the rest of the bunched field to take the lead and dominate the last few feet of the race. He crosses the finish line a full horse’s length ahead of the rest of the field.

The other horses come up on the outside and pass Clancy, but there is nothing Eddie can do about it. The shouts from the grandstand are muffled by the barks of the drivers exhorting their horses to go faster, the pounding hooves, and the slap of the leather harness against the horses’ skin.

Behind Coffee Break, one-by-one, the horses in the pack cross the finish line, their sides heaving and foamy sweat raining from them. Strong’s horse, June Bug, comes in second behind Coffee Break. Clancy, who had been favored to win, has fallen from third to fourth to fifth to sixth and is now finishing in seventh position out of the twelve that started.

As Eddie crosses the finish line a couple of seconds after Roberts and his colt, he can hear the boos and shouts from the grandstand.

You asshole, Eddie! You cost me a hundred bucks.

You used to know how to drive a horse, Eddie.

One displeased fan accuses Eddie of cheating. Have a few bucks on Coffee Break, Ed?

Eddie slows Clancy just after the finish line and looks over at the tote board with the betting odds for each horse in the race. The odds for Clancy winning were three-to-one, making him the favorite. The odds of Coffee Break winning were thirty-five-to-one. For a two-dollar wager, Clancy was a sure thing that would have paid six dollars to the bettor, the kind of return that encourages another bet, and another, and another. These small returns are the currency of hope for inconsequential gamblers. The same two-dollar wager on Roberts driving Coffee Break returned seventy dollars. That’s the longshot that keeps the real gamblers interested, more often to lose than to win, but at least coming back. The bettors who put their money on Clancy are angry and vocal. Those who put their money on Coffee Break are buoyed by their self-anointed brilliance and the thrill that they won and won big.

Betting odds reflect the confidence bettors have in each horse’s ability to win the race. Low odds are a prediction that the horse is more likely to win, so the payout is modest. Little risk, little reward. Longshots reflect higher odds. A bet at higher odds is more of a gamble and has a greater payout.

Know-it-all gamblers don’t always feel the need to rely on a horse’s odds. They may sense something meaningful in the way the horse walks or a subtle toss of the head before the race, the name or the color of the horse, the reputation of the driver, or a feeling they have from having looked into the horse’s eyes. Though bettors insist it’s science fueling their insight, it’s little more than a hunch. Occasionally they win, but more often they lose, chalking it up to the incompetence or dishonesty of the driver.

The horses slow on their way to the paddock at the back of the track. Coffee Break turns away from the rest of the horses to go back to the winner’s circle to get his picture taken and receive the accolades for his win. His sides are heaving grotesquely as he tries to catch his breath. His exaggerated breathing is far greater than that of the other horses, and his nostrils are flaring as mucous streams out. He is throwing his head and whinnying. Roberts passes Eddie on his way to the winner’s circle and shouts sarcastically, Hey, Ed. Nice drive. As he goes toward the winner’s circle, Coffee Break stumbles erratically, weaving from side to side. Roberts can barely hold him under control.

Clancy had been picked by the track handicapper and by the bettors as the favorite based on his performance in previous races and Eddie’s talent as a horseman. The colt was healthy, fast, and should have easily beaten the other horses. But it was not to be.

The race was fixed.

Clancy wasn’t supposed to win. Coffee Break was supposed to win and, in the course of winning, generate a sizable payout to Roberts and the other gamblers who knew to bet him. Roberts and several other drivers in the race ensured that would happen, and Roberts will reward them generously for their collusion.

The Fix Was In

Jean Logan’s heart sinks as she watches the last few seconds of the race from her seat in the grandstand, seeing Clancy and her husband falter. Taking a deep breath, she sighs quietly, pushing her bottom jaw forward in a show of frustration. A petite, well-dressed blonde, Jean stands in contrast to most of the people in the grandstand who are dressed casually in jeans and sneakers, the typical attire for standardbred racing, which, unlike thoroughbred racing, the Sport of Kings, is the Everyman sport. Standardbreds aren’t the tall, lanky steeds from May’s Kentucky Derby, where watchers sport coats and ties, dresses, and exotic hats while sipping mint juleps. Standardbreds are stocky, working-class horses that race for the entertainment of working-class people dressed in lettered T-shirts and baseball caps, looking for a good time that includes shouting and cheap beer.

Because she is seated in the horsemen’s section, the portion of the grandstand largely reserved for spouses of drivers and trainers, Jean’s appearance reflects the professionalism of her husband, and so she chooses to dress slightly upscale in a simple dress and comfortable but fashionable shoes. It’s similar to what she wears every weekday during the school year as an algebra and calculus teacher at Miami Trace High School near the small, rural town of Washington Court House, Ohio, where she and Eddie live.

In the winner’s circle, where Eddie should have been standing with Clancy, Coffee Break’s owners gather to have their picture taken alongside their horse and Roberts. A grainy photograph to hang in the office or den, a record of their fleeting celebrity, is most of what they can show for the money they have invested in buying the horse, feeding him, buying his harness and blankets, paying the entry fees for races, transporting him, and paying his veterinary bills. Winning horses share a modest purse with the horses that finish in the top five places, a purse that barely covers the expenses. As important as winning the race are the few seconds of fame for the driver and owners as they stand, smiling proudly, alongside the horse and driver in the winner’s circle. A few of the fans watch, but most are indifferent since they’ve moved on to thinking about their wagers on the next race.

Coffee Break is almost uncontrollable, shaking his head and stepping around in a frenzy, nipping at the groom who is trying to hold his bridle and keep him steady for the few seconds it takes to snap the picture. The crowd in the grandstand sees Coffee Break as feisty and excited, but Jean sees a horse out of control. Roberts puts his arms around the horse’s owners in their moment of glory, beaming widely for the camera. Jean has stood there before. Lots of times. With Eddie and before that with her own father, Harold Cunningham, who was a national champion trainer and driver.

Jean can see, perhaps even better than Eddie, that the fix had been in, as has happened to him three times in the past two weeks—other drivers conspiring to box in his faster horse so they could control the finish of the race and therefore the payout for their gambling. When Roberts, Strong, and others didn’t have better horses, they created better luck. Just as Eddie would move to the front, a horse would slow down in front of him so a designated horse could pass by. Or a horse might break stride in front of Eddie and cause him to move wide to avoid a collision. It made business sense, if not sporting sense. Why settle for a few thousand dollars in purse money when you can place a wager on a horse with long odds and get thirty-five, fifty, or even one hundred times more?

Each fixed race that resulted in a loss for Eddie eroded a little bit of the confidence he once had in himself and the joy he once felt in horse racing. Eddie used to win up to five hundred races a year, and his total winnings would be ten- to twelve million dollars. His fifteen percent share of the winnings would pay the expenses and keep the stable and his family thriving. Now he’s winning fewer and fewer races, but the horses still have to eat twice a day, the grooms still have to be paid, and the university still expects tuition payments for his sons.

Little by little, racing was passing Eddie Logan by, like it did in tonight’s race. Unlike Roberts and his cronies, Eddie stubbornly refuses to participate in manipulating races or illegally drugging his horses to produce the euphoria that masks the horse’s pain so it can go faster.

Watching Eddie and Clancy walk slowly back to the paddock, the future of the inflexible man she loves clouded with uncertainty and self-doubt, Jean is stung by the chides of angry, uninformed betters who feel betrayed by what they see as Eddie’s incompetent driving costing them their wagers and their bragging rights.

He used to be a better driver, one says. At least ya’ could count on him not to stink up the track like he done tonight.

Logan doesn’t win like he used to.

If I’d had Roberts’ horse, my fifty bucks would have been seventeen hundred fifty dollars.

She had expected him to win, too. He had the best horse, and he was the best driver—at least, he used to be the best driver.

He’s still a great driver, Jean wants to say to the blustering grandstand know-it-alls. If you knew about racing, you’d see that he was cheated out of a win.

Next to Jean, Tom Parker purses his lips in frustration and lets out a sigh. Damn, he says to nobody in particular and to Jean specifically. Eddie should have won this race. The winning horse, he says, looking at his program for the name, Coffee Break went in 2:02. Hell, Clancy beat that time in training.

He got boxed in, Tom, Jean remarks, knowing the painful truth that her words won’t change anything.

Tom Parker is a big man, both in height and girth. His casual shirt and wrinkled khaki pants make him seem like an unsophisticated lout next to the petite, well-dressed Jean. But Tom is unpretentious, not unsophisticated. He grew up the scion of a wealthy family that owns more Ohio land than anybody but the state of Ohio. Raised in the southern Ohio town of Wilmington, where his father made Tom and his brother and sister work on the farm planting crops, bailing hay, and feeding hogs, he went to Stanford, then got his MBA from Northwestern before coming back to Wilmington to take over the family businesses.

Coming from a wealthy family didn’t hurt, but he put his wealth and his wits to good use over time until he owned virtually anything worth owning in southern Ohio. Perhaps his greatest coup was buying an abandoned Air Force base in Wilmington, fifty miles northeast of Cincinnati. The air base was once rural enough to not disturb the civilian population but had become obsolete. When the Air Force donated the airport to the City of Wilmington, Tom saw an opportunity. He convinced the town council to let him buy the abandoned airport for ninety-nine years at one hundred dollars per year and pay for the upkeep of thousands of acres of runways, buildings, and hangars.

Within a few months, Tom convinced UPS and Airborne that Federal Express would be seeking a long-term lease for a mid-continent airport from which to stage their package delivery capabilities. They inked a deal to make the base a regional delivery and maintenance hub, bringing thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue to Wilmington. He agreed to lease the hangars, aprons, buildings, and maintenance areas for one-third of what it would have cost in major cities. Further, he offered them a state-of-the-art military-quality installation with long runways in a pleasant, rural setting, but close enough to Cincinnati to make it accessible for shopping and sports. Soon, Tom Parker’s one-hundred-dollars-a-year abandoned airport provided one hundred fifty million dollars in annual revenue and taxes to Wilmington and far more than that to the owner of the airport and surrounding property—Tom Parker and his family.

In only a few years, he parlayed the farm into a spider’s web of successful businesses, expanding the family fortunes into a rural Ohio kingdom. Today, Tom controls over five million acres of rich farmland where he raises corn, wheat, soybeans, and hundreds of thousands of hogs that are sent to the processing plant he owns in trucks that he also owns. He is one of the wealthiest men in the Midwest, but he drives a five-year-old pickup truck that’s seen better days, buys his clothes at Costco, eats at a diner up the road from his house, and lives in the kitchen, family room, and mud room of a six-thousand-square-foot brick home. Along with Eddie, he owns horses, including Clancy, for racing and breeding. Tom buys them. Eddie trains and races them. They split the profits.

But not tonight.

Jean knows she’ll have to console Eddie on their drive home, but her more immediate concern is assuaging Tom’s anger and frustration at watching Clancy’s share of the twenty-five-thousand-dollar purse for the race, and even more in Tom’s wagers, disappear in the flash of lights. For Tom, it was Clancy’s race but Eddie’s loss.

In full view of Jean and with a dramatic gesture, Tom reaches into his pocket and takes out the paper betting stubs of the wagers he’d made on Clancy. The volume of tickets makes it clear he expected Eddie to drive Clancy to a win. Clancy was, in Tom’s mind, that elusive sure thing. He rips the worthless tickets in aggravation and allows the pieces to flutter to the ground. Jean sees that many of the torn tickets are worth five hundred dollars each.

It’s an awkward moment for Jean as she is Tom’s friend as well as the wife of his partner.

I’m sorry, Tom. It looked to me like Eddie got—

He had the fastest horse on the track, Tom interrupts, shaking his head in disgust.

There isn’t much—

Seems to be happening to Eddie more and more these days, Tom interjects again, looking up at the black evening sky. He shakes his head as he puts his arm around Jean’s shoulder, pulling her close to him in a gesture of friendship. Hell, I’m just blowing off steam, he says, kissing her affectionately on the cheek, his anger subsiding. I’m going to the barns to see Eddie. Want to ride back with me?

No thanks. I’ll watch the rest of the races. Tell Eddie I’ll see him later.

Jean watches as Coffee Break stumbles back to the paddock gate. She’s not as jealous of Roberts and his win as she is troubled that Eddie is not winning like he used to, despite the fact that he’s driving better horses than he has in a long time. There are only a few months—from mid-April to late September—when Eddie races, a short time to clock wins. Each time his horse is boxed in or falters because of the games played by the other drivers, he loses thousands of dollars—income that would have gone to his stable’s expenses, his sons’ college expenses, and his home and family.

Her mind wanders to their financial plight. It’s still early in the racing season, and the preparation and training Eddie has done with each horse from last fall until now should begin paying off in their performance, so long as he starts winning. While she knows they will get through it—they have before—she’s still worried about how they’re going to make ends meet and Eddie’s mindset.

Death in the Paddock

At the paddock gate, Eddie is met by Clancy’s groom, Whitey Pierce, a short, stocky man with piercing blue eyes beneath short-cropped white hair. Whitey handles everything about Clancy when he isn’t on the track. He’s been around horses for as long as anybody can remember and has been Eddie’s friend and mentor even longer. Other than Jean, Whitey is the only person Eddie listens to regarding horses.

Clancy stops abruptly when he sees Whitey, who unfastens some of the more restrictive harness and leads the colt toward his temporary stall in the paddock, where horses and drivers are sequestered before and shortly after the race so they can be tested for drugs by the state veterinarian, Doc McCoy. High fences, security guards, and a paddock judge are supposed to keep the horses, drivers, and grooms away from all others who might influence them, drug them, or acquire insider information. After the horses provide saliva and urine samples to the veterinarian, they are taken back to their respective barns and cooled out.

Just wait a minute, Goddamnit, Whitey barks, as Clancy throws his head against Whitey’s shoulder as if making a demand. I’ve only got two hands. Ignoring the admonishment, Clancy slaps Whitey’s shoulder again and puts his mouth down toward Whitey’s front pocket as he takes a nip. Whitey pushes the excited horse’s mouth away. I said wait a minute.

Unlike most of the other horses, Clancy is not breathing heavily, as this race has not been particularly taxing for him. Eddie runs his hand over the horse’s back and under his mane in a gesture of affection, then takes off his gloves and unsnaps his helmet. Silently, Eddie and Whitey walk Clancy into his stall and put him in the chains that snap to his bridle. Whitey throws a light blanket over the colt to keep him from chilling and takes the complex racing halter off Clancy’s head and throws it over his shoulder.

How fast did he go? Whitey asks the melancholy Eddie. I clocked him in at 2:03 and a fifth, but it was hard to tell from over here.

Doesn’t really matter. He finished seventh. Out of the money and too slow.

Looked like you got boxed.

Hell, you could have seen that from the moon, except the judges didn’t notice. Strong, that no-account Texas hillbilly, couldn’t SPELL horse. It’s happening more and more these days if I don’t play along, Eddie sighs reflectively. Now I’ve got to face Tom.

I imagine he won’t be happy. But could you see how Roberts’ horse came up on the outside from way back and won? He must have paced that last quarter in twenty-six seconds. That’s got to be his fastest life mile, Whitey says, giving Clancy a drink of water from the bucket as Eddie takes a can of Coke from the cooler. Even though the ice has long since melted in the evening heat, the drink is still cool, thick, and sweet, and it helps to wash some of the dust and taste of the race from his throat. Over the top of the can, he sees the paddock judge stomping toward their stall.

Be nice, Ed, Whitey warns. He’s an idiot, but he’s the law.

Dressed in a short-sleeved white shirt and a clip-on tie, J.B. Adams imperiously stomps over to Eddie, clipboard in hand. The paddock judge has the power to fine and suspend drivers he suspects are cheating, disobeying the rules, or just about any other infraction he can manufacture. It’s a job usually done by someone who would like to have been a trainer or driver but lacks the talent.

Adams is a martinet who got the paddock judge job by cheating on the written test. Drunk with power over the horsemen he envies, he carries a clipboard as large as the chip on his shoulder. Knowing he’s a force to be reckoned with, he confronts Eddie without introduction or pleasantries. Logan, your horse went off the line at three-to-one odds. You were the favorite to win the race, and you got beaten. Care to tell me why your horse that has gone in under two minutes this year barely beat 2:03 tonight?

Did you happen to watch the race? Eddie responds, not hiding his contempt. Did you see that Strong parked outside of me and wouldn’t let me out, then Hannay slowed the pace of the whole race so Roberts’ no-account, nickel horse could win? Did you happen to see any of that, J.B.? Whitey clears his throat loudly to catch Eddie’s attention and settle him down.

Adams, enjoying lording power over Eddie, is unmoved. What I saw is a horse that went off as the favorite to win in this race and didn’t even try to get out at the stretch and go wide. Your horse outclassed every other horse in the field, and you couldn’t finish better than seventh. You used to know how to drive a horse, Logan.

"Listen, Adams, why don’t you