Photo Finish by Bonnie Bryant

Duncan snapped, whirling around and beginning to stalk away. “Let’s get out of here.” The two men disappeared into the jockeys’ room.
    Just then Stephen, Mr. McLeod’s jockey, walked toward the girls from the opposite direction. “Well, hello there,” he greeted them with a smile. “How are you enjoying your day at the track?”
    “Stephen, how well do you know Duncan Gibbs?” Stevie asked the jockey, not bothering to answer his question.
    “Duncan? Weren’t you asking about him earlier today?”
    “We sure were,” Carole said. She glanced at Stevie and Lisa. “I think we ought to tell him why.”
    Her friends nodded. The Saddle Club proceeded to tell Stephen the whole story. When they’d finished, he just shook his head.
    “If there’s any bad guy to be found, I can tell you one thing for sure—it isn’t Duncan Gibbs,” the jockey said.
    “But you were just telling us how much he hates Mr. McLeod, so we thought—” Stevie began to say.
    Stephen didn’t let her finish. “Like I was also telling you, Duncan is a bad-tempered, stubborn blowhard who sometimes thinks he knows better than the trainers heworks for. That’s cost him some jobs, not to mention some friends,” Stephen said. “But he’s no criminal, and he really does love the horses he rides. He’d never do anything to hurt them.”
    Stevie, Carole, and Lisa glanced at one another again, unconvinced.
    “If you don’t believe that, then at least you can believe this,” Stephen said. “You say you found that hay around seven this morning, right?”
    The girls nodded.
    “Well, I was in the track cafeteria having breakfast this morning from around twenty of seven to about five after,” Stephen said. “And Duncan Gibbs was there the whole time I was, reading the newspaper. He couldn’t have been skulking around Monk’s stable planting bad hay.”
    “But what other explanation is there?” Stevie exclaimed, unwilling to lose their last suspect.
    Stephen shrugged. “The explanation is, there’s no explanation. It must have been an accident.” He glanced at his watch. “Whoops, I’d better get inside if I don’t want to be late. Hold Fast and I are in the next race, you know.”
    “We know,” Lisa said. “We’ll be cheering for you.”
    The girls waved good-bye as the jockey headed in to get changed. Then they wandered aimlessly back around the paddock toward the gate to the clubhouse.
    After a few minutes of silence, Stevie spoke up halfheartedly. “You know, we don’t really know Stephen allthat well,” she said. “Maybe he’s covering up for Duncan.…”
    Seeing the looks on her friends’ faces, she let her voice trail off. Stephen wasn’t covering up for Duncan, and Stevie knew it. She sighed. After all their work, she couldn’t believe they were no closer to solving the mystery than when they had started.
    “You know, I’m beginning to think Stephen is right,” Carole said quietly. “I think it must have been an accident after all.”
    Stevie shook her head. “I still can’t believe it,” she said with a frown. “Something just doesn’t seem quite right about it—there are too many coincidences that don’t make sense.”
    “Maybe,” Lisa said, “but we’re fresh out of suspects.”
    “And motives,” Carole added.
    Stevie shrugged and sighed. “I guess you’re right,” she admitted. “But I really wish we could get to the bottom of it.”
    “Come on,” Lisa said. “Let’s go back to our seats. It’s almost time for the next race.”
    The Saddle Club rejoined Max in the box. Mr. McLeod and Judy were there too. The three adults were discussing Hold Fast’s chances and didn’t notice the girls’ glum expressions.
    Lisa rested her chin in her hands and stared ahead moodily, waiting for the race to start. The more she thought about it, the more she thought Stevie was right.The moldy-hay incident was just a little too suspicious to be written off as an accident. Even though she hadn’t