Saltwater in the Bluegrass (6 page)

By the middle of the next morning, Lamar’s car would drive through the gates which held a large sign that read “INGRAM

MINING.” Below that, in big bold print, the words “KEEP OUT” and

“NO ENTRADA – NÃO ENTRE”

Thirty hours,
twenty-nine hours, twenty-eight hours
and counting as Lamar tore through the office and the operation in search of the truth.

Papers were missing, receipts were torn out of ledgers, and bank statements were not making sense. Files that had been set up for the company business were not being used, and deposit after deposit was short of its projected and anticipated earning estimates. There it was in black and white. Someone was pilfering money off the top. Someone was stealing from the mines and the company. Someone had made a complete fool out of him.

Then he found it.

No one would have ever made the connection. No one could have seen it happen, even if it was right in front of them, without the code, the code that Kristina had intercepted from Katherine. It was in the bottom right-hand corner of drawer three, filing cabinet four, behind some old register files Lamar had found during the search, written in ink on a piece of crumpled up paper.

Deposit – Made – In – Account – Number – For – Thousand Dollars – From – Mine – Number – Month – Day – Year

“Katherine!” he screamed at the top of his voice. His body starting to shake, he now knew; he knew, and it angered him so.

“Katherine! I’ll get you!” he yelled as he slammed the filing cabinet door shut. But what he would find in the mines for all his trouble was more than he had bargained for.

It was going to cost him his dream. It was going to cost him his reputation and his life.

Twenty hours and counting
as Lamar continued to go through the files and tear the office apart. Schedules, portfolios, documents, charts, and papers continued being turned upside down and audited. He suddenly stopped what he was doing and dropped everything. At that moment he saw what had never crossed his mind. It had to be a mistake. Never in his life had he even imagined it. It made him sick to his stomach, the thought that this could even be true, the possibility of this, the thought that this could have been pulled off. All of these years, how could this be true?

As Lamar Ingram had moved the top rack of papers and supplies from above the fourteen zoning books, the shelving unit suddenly pulled away from the wall. The weight on the shelf had been too much for the anchors drilled into the wall.

Documents scattered. Charts separated. Books fell to the floor. Suddenly, a large batch of pre-printed international air bills fell to the ground, and in the reflection of the mirror that sat on the desk, the information that had startled him so clearly was revealed. Impossible, he thought.

“It can’t be true, it can’t be!” he screamed.

There were twelve hours
left in Lamar’s life when Joseph Bowen finally walked into the room. Lamar was so intensely looking at the evidence in his hand he did not notice Bowen walk up behind him until he caught a glimpse of Bowen’s reflection in the mirror. But by this time it was too late to react, too late to respond to what he had just seen in the reflection of the mirror and too late to counter what was about to happen. Suddenly, without warning, Lamar felt a sharp pain shoot through the backside of his neck. A needle syringe had just been speared, with the force of Bowen’s fist wrapped around it, into Lamar’s skin.

The force of the blow knocked Lamar forward onto the table, papers thrown forward and books falling off the table. Air bills were released from Lamar’s grasp, floating down as if tossed into the air like a deck of cards to the floor. Lamar’s head came back up in a whiplash motion. He did not knowing what had just hit him or why. The needle stayed in the back of Lamar’s neck, bouncing up and down as Bowen let go of the syringe. He stood there watching, watching as the life began to leave Lamar’s body, a dazed look taking over.

As the room began to move, furniture, desk, coat racks, and filing cabinets came in and out of focus and lights streaked through the unfocused retinas of Lamar’s eyes. His legs became jelly and gave out due to the weight of his body. He fell to the floor, first to his knees and then to his side. At last he lay sprawled on the floor with all his strength gone. He could summon little energy as he lay there, trying numbly to crawl toward the copier beside the desk. But it was impossible to do.

“So long, Ingram; you’ve been in my way long enough!” Bowen shouted as he grabbed Lamar by his legs, pulling him face down, Lamar’s face sliding against the office floor, through the gravel yard, and toward the entrance of the mine.

As Lamar’s face bounced up and down, he was dragged across the gravel with the force of gravity ripping the side of his face as rocks tore the skin away.

“And by the way, Ingram, your sister says goodbye. Yeah, that’s right; this is all Katherine’s idea. You’re no longer in the picture.”

Bowen used a wooden pallet and a forklift to move Lamar inside the mine’s opening and down some four or five hundred feet. Bowen placed a dozen two-gallon propane canister tanks next to Lamar and opened the valves.

Within minutes, the mine’s entrance was filled with the deadly gas, and with a single charge aimed at the entrance, the mine exploded with a blast that bellowed through the tunnel, shaking the ground Bowen stood on and bringing in the walls and ceiling onto Lamar. Once again, Katherine would win her showdown with her younger brother Lamar, and she would, once again find no remorse in her actions.

It was the last time Katherine would have to share the business with Lamar. It was the last time that he would grapple with the baffling reality that she was once again meddling in his business. For these two siblings, there was no peace, no love, and no strength of kinship, only the ongoing uproar of life that was continuously caused by Katherine. She had shown once again that, through her entire life, she only saw one side of the coin.

You either win the event or you eliminate the opposition.

Samuel L. Darby
and his
brother Daniel Day Darby were both well known throughout the Lexington and Versailles horse racing community, and having been raised in eastern Kentucky, their ties ran deep into the Bluegrass.

Stories surfaced now and then about the large settlement their family had received back in the late 1970s from the Kentucky Coal Mining Commission because of their father’s Black Lung Disease. In short, “The Darby Clause” came about, and people throughout the community were finally compensated for the mistreatment of their fathers, brothers, and sons who had died in the coal mines throughout the early nineteen hundreds. For years, black lung had devastated the eastern part of the state, and to this day there are still men living with the effects.

Sam and Dan took the money they had received and together left the hollers and back hills of eastern Kentucky and bought a piece of ground that ran north along the Kentucky Scenic Highway from Versailles and into Lexington. It was premium horse property in the middle of the racing world, the heart of the bluegrass. This would become home to Sam and Dan and their families for generations to come. Twenty five hundred acres of rolling hills and bluegrass pastureland moving with the wind: paradise, or at least the glory of heaven on earth. Both brothers were sure the Lord had reached down and touched this ground with his gentle touch.

With this mindset, thoroughbred horse racing became their business and their life. Little did either Sam or Dan know at the time, much less their family, that the legacy of these two boys, along with the magic of the land, would produce so many winners for one family. Hallow Ground Farms would be home to two Triple Crown winners, five Kentucky Derby winners, six Belmont winners, six Preakness winners, and a count of fifty other winners throughout the many race tracks across the country.

Hallow Ground Farms and Stables had become an empire unto itself, and folks not only around Kentucky, but also across the country and around the world, would come to the yearling sales that the Darby brothers held each year in the spring.

In the late seventies the crowds had become so enormous in size that the sales had to be moved from their property to the Keeneland Race Track in Lexington and would later become known as “The Keeneland Sales.”

Lamar Ingram found his
love of horses after he left the political arena. It had grown from a hobby on the Ingram estate property to the actual thought of buying a racehorse. The more he thought about it, the more he talked about it, the more he came to realize that it could and should happen. Finally the day came that he was standing in the paddock area of the Keeneland Race Track looking at the yearlings that were going to be auctioned off.

Katherine’s husband, Milford, now a good friend of Lamar, had joined him for the day, and together they walked around the grounds, the stables, and the Keeneland Circle of Honor, its prestigious Paddock’s Circle.

Owners, trainers, and jockeys would walk into this area on race days and prepare their horses while waiting for the call to the post. The jockey would then ride the thoroughbred through the opening under the stands onto the track for the next race.

Today, though, Lamar and Milford walked around the grounds comparing notes, thoughts, and feelings about each one of the beautiful creations that stood before them. They would decide on which horse or horses, if any, they would purchase together, starting the I & L Horse Racing Syndicate.

The syndicate would take its first step in the racing game on this day. Together they embarked on this venture with the purchase of eight yearlings from the sale—six mares and two fillies. Three mares and one filly from the Barn-Yard Stables, two mares and one filly from the Triple K Farms, and one mare from the Hallow Grounds Farm.

These eight yearlings cost one point two million dollars. Since onethird of the total amount went towards the yearling from Hallow Grounds Farms, Lamar and Milford decided to name him Pocket Change.

They were now in business, and it was time to hire a trainer. This is where Milford showed his expertise. Milford had been brought up in the Lexington area and knew his way around the racetrack. His higher learning had taken him from the classrooms of The University of Kentucky to the backside of the racetrack.

Both tracks in the state were considered his second home. He could be found at either the Keeneland Race Track in Lexington or the Churchill Downs Race Track in Louisville, and on some days he would even make a visit to both.

Each spring, summer, and fall meet, Milford Langston would chart statistics of previous races, read up on all the racing news from the newspapers and from the Handicappers Journal, take notes, and listen to the trainers, morning workout riders, jockeys, owners, and anyone else who would talk to him. Milford found that listening around the track was the key to being a successful gambler come post time. Within weeks, Milford had chosen his man. With final approval from Lamar, they hired their new trainer, Jimmy Irvin. Jimmy had been working as trainer for Go Big Blue Farms since his days as the only successful walk-on in the 1976 Kentucky Wildcats Football season.

Jimmy had been part of an elite team that had brought Dancer’s Reflection to the forefront as the first Triple Crown winner in twentytwo years. His resume was extensive in the training and nurturing of thoroughbred racehorses, and his index of winners was impressive. The I & L Horse Racing Syndicate was now in position to begin. It would not be long before Lamar and Milford would begin bringing in other partners. Selling shares in any form of business or venture can be overwhelming, but once Katherine realized what her husband and brother were up to she could not help but start giving advice. At first, Lamar and Milford were not happy that Katherine knew about their plans, but then again, with her head for finance and structured laws, they knew she would know all the right loopholes to set the new corporation up when it came time to start selling shares. The corporation was set up with Lamar as president, Milford as vice president, and Katherine as treasurer. The corporation was filed with the Department of Commerce in Frankfort, and together the three went to work. Lamar and Milford each held thirty percent of the Syndicate, ten percent was given to Katherine for her involvement in structuring the Syndicate, and thirty percent would be sold in single individual shares to friends, acquaintances, and business executives from firms they had done business with through the years. In their estimation, no more than thirty people would be allowed to buy in. The price was set at two hundred and fifty thousand dollars per share, and there were thirty shares for sale. With the circle of friends the three of them ran with, it wasn’t long before all thirty shares were sold.

Major players throughout the bluegrass had become partners. Both Lamar and Milford were pleased with Katherine for the excellent job she had done in helping them sell the shares. More important was the fact that all the clients she had bought in were set up with legal loopholes to hide their percentage of winnings.

It was just a little something that Katherine threw in at the closing of each sale to spice the deal.

“All legal, of course,” as Katherine would put it. Within the second year, Pocket Change was standing out in the crowd. He had run away with three races for two-year-olds and had four other second place finishes. It was apparent that this horse was going to make his mark at the next year’s Derby. People in the racing world were sitting up and taking notice of this two-year-old thoroughbred.

Everyone within the Syndicate was feeling his or her oats, as they say in the horse business. Lamar and Milford knew it was going to be a great way to bring themselves into the racing community as real competitors.

Each man had something to prove. Lamar because he had always heard his name mentioned along with his father’s when it came to business. It was his father that had started the empire; Lamar had simply doubled its worth over the last ten years.

For Milford, there was even a stronger desire. He was known more as the husband of Katherine Ingram than as Milford Langston. He knew that being the co-owner of a Kentucky Derby winner or maybe even The Triple Crown winner would somehow even the playing field with his friends, associates, and news reporters, but most of all with his wife.