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"We came here to ride and that big colt needs his best horsewoman," begins Buddy from the studio office chair.
"Our stunt rider's already suited up so she should just pass him the reins," counters the producer sitting behind his desk with arms crossed.
"Alice Finnerty is the only driver Ajax has ever had," continues Buddy standing up to his full six-foot-three frame. "So no rider, no commercial for this horse."
"It's just this, Buddy," the producer reasons, leaning onto the desk and looking over his glass frames. "The liability's too great for an amateur."
"Liability, schmiability," Buddy laughs. "We'll see what Mr. Gambino has to say about that."
"Now hold your horses, Mr. Beatty," the manager sighs, plopping back into his chair and reaching for the phone. "Bring this indispensable trainer of yours to dressing room number three."
__________
The Colgate-Palmolive household division in Piscataway, New Jersey was preparing to launch a line of laundry detergents in 1960. Needing a symbol to go along with the Ajax slogan "Stronger than dirt!", the board of directors decided to co-opt the mascot of nearby Rutgers University by bleaching out the scarlet knight. A board member who's daughter took riding lessons at the Silver Saddle offered to contact the ranch, and George Beatty had seized the chance to capitalize on his wife's love of horses.
It turned out that this would be the last opportunity for any horseplay at the ranch. The Gambino crime family was in it for the looming black market in container shipping, and a legitimate trucking company was enough of a front for that. The Branchburg farm was prime acreage in the exploding central Jersey real estate market as urban flight from New York, Newark, and Plainfield accelerated along with the civil rights movement. The grasslands would soon be sectioned off into subdivisions, with a token transfer of tax-deductible wetland frontage to the non-profit Midland School for children with developmental disabilities. The scourge of land ownership for profit initiated by the Roman occupation of the British Isles was about to once again displace the descendants of the border-reiver Beatty clan.
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"You should have seen the look on that producer's face," laughs Buddy as he steers the horse trailer into a narrow lane of the Holland Tunnel.
"What nerve to think that Ajax would seat any old rider," Alice agrees from the passenger seat with Little Buddy nestled on her lap and sighing with each clatter from the periodic seams in the asphalt.
"Well Miss Alice, we're back in Jersey," he observes as they pass the vertical stripe marking the state border midway under the Hudson River. "You can stop holding your breath."
"Good to be out of those city streets," she exhales. "It's always dark under those skyscrapers, and the taxi drivers are just crazy."
"Yeah, I'll take a big rig and the open road any day," he smiles as they pull onto route twenty-two westbound. "In fact, I'm taking this one with a few of the horses down to Florida next week."
"What's going to happen to Ajax?" she asks while looking toward him with a wrinkled forehead and wide eyes.
"Don't you worry about your horse," he assures her while shifting up to third gear and picking up speed along the Watchung foothills. "I'll work something out for our stunning white stallion."
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