A Horse for Danny

Danny Bara is one eleven-year-old girl who is nobody’s fool. She lives at the track with her uncle Eddie, a horse trainer in the race circuit. Danny knows the horses. Danny knows the scams, and just how and when the races are fixed. Danny knows the odds makers-they depend on her for the inside story. And Danny knows that things are going to go nowhere for Uncle Eddie unless he can make his name with one great horse, a horse “you can ride into the money.” Danny has found such a horse. Tom Thumb, a yearling up for sale, has champion potential and she knows it. She isn’t fooled by Noel Ferguson, a big-time trainer who is talking Tom Thumb down. And when Moe Tully arrives in town, Danny knows it can only mean one thing-that races are going to be fixed. But there’s opportunity in that for her. Placing her bets before school and picking up her winnings after, she is soon able to bankroll Uncle Eddie, along with her friend Gerald, a groom at a competing stable who is ready to stake his savings on Tom Thumb. When Danny’s hunch proves correct and Tom Thumb turns out to be a winner, she, Uncle Eddie, and Gerald head off in style for the summer racing season. Other owners seek out the “Bara magic” and for awhile Uncle Eddie can do no wrong. It’s no surprise when Noel Ferguson offers Eddie fifty thousand dollars for Tom Thumb and tells him he’ll take it if he knows what’s good for him. When Eddie refuses, he and Danny, Gerald and even Tom Thumb get a dose of all the dirty dealing the racing circuit can dish out. But Danny, as we’ve seen, is nobody’s fool, and even Uncle Eddie has picked up a thing or two lately. In spite of just about everything that comes their way, they’re “in the money” and it’s one great season on the racing circuit.