I Had 72 Hours to Drive an $8 Million Racehorse From Kentucky to Saratoga. On Day Two, His Owner Called and Told Me Not to Arrive

I didn’t pull over.

I drove to the only place I knew where nobody would touch my horse.

The Flying J truck stop in Milesburg, Pennsylvania, at 1 a.m., has forty big rigs parked in it, and every one of those drivers has a CB radio.

I got on channel 19.

“Breaker, breaker. This is the horse hauler in the white Peterbilt. I’ve got a racehorse in my trailer and a black SUV that wants to take him. Anybody awake?”

You’ve never seen truckers move that fast.

Within five minutes, there were nine men and two women standing around my trailer in the parking lot. A big man from Arkansas with a tire iron. A grandmother from Ohio with a flashlight and the voice of a drill sergeant. A kid from Texas filming everything on his phone.

The black SUV sat at the edge of the lot for twenty minutes.

Then it drove away.

The grandmother from Ohio, whose name was Pearl, stood by the trailer window and looked in at Brass Monkey.

“He’s beautiful,” she said. “What’s he worth?”

“About eight million.”

She whistled.

“And what are they paying you to drive him?”

“Four thousand.”

She looked at me, then at the horse, then back at me.

“Honey,” she said, “you are the worst businessman I’ve ever met.”

They took shifts. Four of them stayed up with me all night, so I could sleep my required ten hours in the cab with the door locked and a tire iron on the seat next to me.

At 6 a.m., I got back on the road.

The insurance company called at nine. A woman from their fraud unit. Very calm.

“Mr. Kirby, we’re aware of the situation. We’ve contacted the New York State Police. Where are you?”

“I-88, east of Binghamton. About three hours out.”

“Good,” she said. “One more thing. Mr. Vane has filed a report claiming you stole his horse.”