The Chief nodded. "She suffers severe with the colic. Now only fourteen horses remain in the trials."
Giorgio felt honored that the Chief had stopped traffic for him and had called him by name. But the news was in no way startling, for who was Doctor Celli and how could an unknown mare affect his chances?
When the judges accepted Dorina and Imperiale, too, in the trial races, Giorgio felt an inward satisfaction, yet he was not surprised. He had known all along they would be chosen. They were ready. They were sound. They were, as the judges agreed, "neither too fine-boned for the cobblestone track, nor too clumsy for the perils of the course."
But when Dorina was assigned to the Contrada of the Panther and Imperiale to the Giraffe, it came as a shock that neither one hired him as fantino.
"Did I not train these horses? Do I not know their ways? Why," he implored Signor Ramalli, "why did they not choose me?"
Out of kindness the man gave no real answer at all. He only shrugged and said, "Man's ways are strange, Giorgio, very strange." And to lessen the blow, he added, "Perhaps, months ago they hired their fantinos."
Little Anna, however, told the truth. On the morning of the Palio she came into the stable while Giorgio was solemnly mucking out the two empty stalls. "Poor unhappy Dorina and Imperiale," she said. "They must be homesick in the strange stables of their contradas. And maybe they will bolt when the new fantinos leap on their backs."
Giorgio flushed. Even this small girl felt pity for him, and took this way of showing it. He turned his back on her, but every fiber of him was listening.
She prattled on. "I think it most foolish of the Panthers and the Giraffes to choose riders from far away."
Giorgio wondered. Did she know the real reason? "Why did they?" he blurted.