Field of Thirteen - Dick Francis [57]
Once he found that Toddy had broken no bones, had recovered consciousness and would be on his feet in an hour or two, the bulk of his physical symptoms receded. When the small trainer appeared at his elbow to remind him sharply that he should be inside changing into colours to ride in the Novice Hurdle race, he felt fit enough to go and do it, though he wished in a way that he hadn’t said he would.
In the changing-room he forgot to tell his valet he needed a lightweight saddle and that the trainer had asked for a breast girth. He forgot to tie the stock round his neck and would have gone out to ride with the ends flapping. He forgot to take his watch off. His valet pointed everything out and thought that the jockey looked drunk.
The novice hurdler Chick was to ride wouldn’t have finished within a mile of the chestnut if he’d started the day before. Young, green, sketchily schooled, he hadn’t even the virtue of a gold streak waiting to be mined: this was one destined to run in the ruck until the owner tired of trying. Chick hadn’t bothered to find out. He’d been much too preoccupied to look in the form book, where a consistent row of noughts might have made him cautious. As it was, he mounted the horse without attention and didn’t listen to the riding orders the small trainer insistently gave him. As usual, he thought he knew better. Play it off the cuff, he thought scrappily. Play it off the cuff. How could he listen to fussy little instructions with all that he had on his mind?
On his way out from the weighing-room he passed Arthur Morrison, who cast an inattentive eye over his racing colours and said, ‘Oh yes… well, don’t make too much of a mess of it.’
Morrison was still thinking about the difference the chestnut’s death was going to make to his fortunes and he didn’t notice the spasm of irritation that twisted Chick’s petulant face.
There he goes, Chick thought. That’s typical. Typical. Never thinks I can do a bloody thing. If he’d given me more chances… and more money… I wouldn’t have given… Well, I wouldn’t have. He cantered down to the post, concentrating on resenting that remark, ‘don’t make too much of a mess of it,’ because it made him feel justified, obscurely, for having done what he’d done. The abyss of remorse opening beneath him was too painful. He clutched at every lie to keep himself out.
Harry Buskins had noticed that Chick had an unexpected mount in the Novice Hurdle and concluded that he himself was safe, the boy wasn’t going to crack. All the same, he had shut his bag over its swollen takings and left his pitch for the day and gone home, explaining to his colleagues that he didn’t feel well. And in truth he didn’t. He couldn’t get out of his mind the sight of the chestnut charging at those fences as if he couldn’t see. Blind, the horse had been. A great racer who knew he was on a racetrack starting a race. Didn’t understand there was anything wrong with him. Galloped because he was asked to gallop, because he knew it was the right place for it. A great horse, with a great racing heart.
Harry Buskins mopped the sweat off his forehead. They were bound to have tested the horse for dope, he thought, after something like that. None of the others he’d done in the past had reacted that way. Maybe he’d got the dose wrong or the timing wrong. You never knew how individual horses would be affected. Doping was always a bit unpredictable.
He poured himself half a tumbler of whisky with fingers that were shaking after all, and when he felt calmer he decided that if he got away with it this time he would be satisfied with the clean-up he’d made, and he wouldn’t fool around with any more carrots. He just wouldn’t risk it again.
At the starting post Chick lined up in the centre of the field, ever though the trainer had advised him to start on the outside to give the inexperienced horse an easy passage over the first few hurdles. Chick didn’t remember this instruction because he hadn’t listened, and even