A Distance of Ground — Fred Grove

Buck Clegg has twenty years of horse racing behind him, beginning at the age of fourteen on bush tracks in Oklahoma and Texas. But he's given up the saddle, and is now a jockey's agent. Buck is in New Mexico when Charlie Vann contacts him. Buck used to ride for him -- his last races atop Jim Ned, Charlie Vann's finest horse. Jim Ned has been stolen, and despite Buck's protests that he is no detective, Vann insists on his help.