Field of Thirteen - Dick Francis [102]
The leader of the field had sprinted a long way ahead and Jerry saw him ride over the last fence while Haunted House was a good forty lengths in the rear. One more, Jerry thought. Only one more fence. I’ll never ride another race. Never. He locked his jaw as Haunted House gathered his muscles and launched his half-ton weight at the green-faced birch. If he rolls on me, Jerry thought… if I fall and he crashes on top of me… Oh God, he thought, take me safely over this fence.
Haunted House landed surefootedly, his jockey steady and balanced by God-given instinct. The last fence was behind them, all jumping done.
The horse far in front, well-backed and high in the handicap, was already taking the last flat half-mile at a spanking gallop. Jerry Springwood and Haunted House had left it too late to make a serious bid to catch them, but with a surge of what Jerry knew to be release from purgatory, they raced past everything else in a flat-out dash to the post.
Austin Glenn watched Haunted House finish second by twenty lengths. Cursing himself a little for not bothering about place money, he took out his ticket, tore it philosophically across, and again let the pieces flutter away to the four winds. William Westerland rubbed his chin and wondered whether Jerry Springwood could have won if he’d tried sooner. Chief Superintendent Crispin bitterly cursed the twenty lengths by which his quarry would escape.
Sir William took his eminent foreign visitors down to watch the scenes of jubilation round the winner in the unsaddling enclosure, and was met by flurried officials with horrified faces.
‘The winner can’t pass the scales,’ they said.
‘What do you mean?’ Westerland demanded.
‘The winner didn’t carry the right weight! The trainer left the weight-cloth hanging in the saddling box when he put the saddle on the horse. The winner ran all the way with ten pounds less than he should have done… and we’ll have to disqualify him.’
Forgetting the weight-cloth was done often enough – but in the National!
William Westerland took a deep breath and told the aghast officials to relay the facts to the public over the tannoy system. Jerry Springwood heard the news while he was sitting on the scales and watching the pointer swing round to the right mark. He understood that he’d won the Grand National, and he felt not joyful but overwhelmingly ashamed, as if he’d taken the prize by cheating.
Crispin stationed his men strategically and alerted all the Tote pay-out windows. Up on the stands, Austin Glenn searched for the pieces of his ticket in a fury, picking up every torn and trampled scrap and peering at it anxiously.
The ground was littered with torn-up paper by the truckful. The brilliant colours of the bookmakers’ tickets overshadowed the buff cards from the Tote, and made the search a haystack; and there was the detritus too not only of the Grand National’s ‘also-rans’ but also those of the earlier races. Somewhere there was his torn ticket from Spotted Tulip, for instance. Tearing up losing tickets and entrusting them to the wind was a gambler’s defiance of fate.
Austin Glenn searched and cursed until his back ached from beading down. He was not alone in having disregarded the punters’ rule of not throwing tickets away until after the all-clear from the weigh-in, but to see others searching as hard as he was gave him no pleasure. What if someone else picked up his pieces of ticket and claimed his winnings? The idea enraged him; and what was more, he couldn’t stay on the course indefinitely because he had to catch his return train. He couldn’t afford to be late; he had to work that night.
Crispin’s men shifted from foot to foot as time went by and they were left there growing more and more conspicuous while the crowd thinned and trooped out through the gates. When the Tote closed for the day, the Chief Superintendent called them off in frustrated rage and conceded that they would have to wait for another opportunity after all, and never