Iced

by Felix Francis

  I was not sure how long I sat there in the Golf – certainly many minutes, but it felt like hours. My pulse rate shot up and my fingertips began to tingle and then rapidly went numb. Then my breathing became laboured and I had stabbing pains across my chest. I feared I was having a heart attack.

  I reached for my mobile phone to call for help but my fingers felt like alien sausages, and they were unable to push the buttons.

  I forced myself to breathe slowly and deeply through my mouth. Gradually, the attack subsided and the real world returned. Little by little, the feeling came back to my fingers, along with painful pins and needles, and my heart rate gradually dropped back to a more normal rhythm as the discomfort in my chest subsided.

  I’d heard about other people having panic attacks and had always thought that they should simply get a grip of themselves and stop being so overdramatic. It came as a big surprise for me to discover that a disturbance in the brain could cause such intense physical manifestations, to the point of total paralysis of normal function, and there was no action whatsoever I could have taken to prevent it.

  I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes, thankful that it was over.

  But then I was startled by someone tapping loudly on the passenger-side window of my Golf.

  I lowered the glass.

  ‘Are you all right, sir?’ asked a man wearing a dark uniform plus a bright-yellow high-vis jacket. A policeman.

  ‘Yes, officer,’ I replied. ‘Thank you. Quite all right. I wasn’t feeling very well so I pulled over.’

  ‘Do you need medical assistance?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Thank you, but I’ve recovered now.’

  I’m not sure he believed me about feeling unwell in the first place.

  ‘The motorway hard shoulder is for emergencies only,’ he said sternly. ‘It’s not there for you just to have a snooze.’

  Perhaps I should have told him that my panic attack had been a full-blown emergency and I could have easily caused a major accident, but I didn’t really want him calling an ambulance. Not now.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said.

  ‘Now get yourself going. It’s not safe to be stopped here.’

  I started the car and drove on very carefully, all the way to Newton Abbot, wary that the same thing might happen again.

  And it did, but thankfully not on that journey.

  12

  I didn’t win any of the four races that afternoon at Newton Abbot. Indeed, I didn’t win another race before the end of the season, in spite of having rides every day. Hence, I finished runner-up in the Conditional Jockeys’ Championship.

  ‘Better luck next year,’ everyone said – everyone except Jerry, who was furious.

  ‘What the fuck’s the matter with you?’ he demanded loudly in the unsaddling enclosure after a particularly bad race I’d ridden at Warwick. I should have won it easily but had left my run far too late, such that I was a fast-finishing second, beaten by only a short head, when Jerry had wagered a fortune on the nose.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I had mumbled as I went to weigh in.

  But I did know – I was hardly sleeping.

  After my trip down the motorway to Devon, unwelcome images had suddenly begun to invade my dreams, and on a nightly basis. So much so that I was afraid to go to bed and would finally fall into a restless slumber in an armchair, still fully clothed.

  Then I would wake in a cold sweat, reliving the death of my dad or my mum, sometimes both of them together, with my mother’s cold and stiff body in the Jaguar with me as the brick lorry bore down upon us, and, all around, people shouting that it was all my fault.

  And so I began to drink again, to numb the searing agony. Beer at first but then wine and finally spirits, anything with alcohol in it. Anything that would shut out the nightmares.

  It wasn’t doing wonders for my weight but I could just about cope if I reduced my food intake still further. I was now eating only three proper meals a week, that is if a low-calorie microwavable curry could ever be considered to be a proper meal.

  Then one of my housemates told me he could get hold of some Lasix tablets without a doctor’s prescription. It seemed that there was someone in the village with a supply who’d be prepared to sell some to him, for the right price, which I would then have to double to provide him with his cut, naturally.

  Lasix has been a drug widely used in horseracing in the United States for many decades, although there is a current legal attempt to restrict its use on race day. It can prevent bleeding into the lungs, a problem some horses have due to the huge rise in their blood pressure during hard exercise.

  But it also acts as a diuretic and one of the main arguments against the use of Lasix in horses on race day is that it is therefore, in itself, performance enhancing, never mind what other illicit substances the diuretic effect might be masking.

  An intravenous dose of Lasix, given a few hours before a race, will cause a horse to excrete as much as three gallons of urine before it runs. This in turn makes the horse more than thirty pounds lighter, a vast amount when you consider a single pound extra carried on its back is enough to make the difference between winning and losing. Hence horses that don’t need Lasix for valid medical reasons are given it anyway, else they would be at a massive disadvantage against the others.

  Lasix is also a human diuretic and is prescribed to many people with heart problems to reduce a build-up of fluid in their legs.

  And fluid is heavy, so getting rid of it makes you lighter.

  In British and Irish racing, the use of Lasix, or any other diuretic for that matter, is outlawed both for the horses and the riders. Not that that has stopped jockeys from sometimes using them. Before they were banned, many would simply swallow a handful of pee-pills, as they were known, as their only breakfast. Laxatives, too. Even cocaine, which suppresses appetite. Anything to win the ongoing battle with weight.

  One Saturday in early May, I received a major wake-up call at Bangor-on-Dee Racecourse.

  I had been engaged by a local Shropshire trainer to ride his horse in a steeplechase at the North Wales racecourse, and it was very low in the handicap. With my three-pound allowance, I had to weigh out at nine-stone-twelve.

  In desperation, I swallowed two of the four Lasix tablets I’d bought via my housemate and, as a consequence, I’d had to stop three times on the journey north to relieve myself. When I arrived at the course, I went straight into the sauna to try and lose even more fluid.

  And it was while I was sitting in there that a rumour spread rapidly around the jockeys’ changing room that the dreaded drug-testing team had arrived.

  I suddenly began to sweat in more ways than one.

  Dope-testing of racehorses takes place on a daily basis at all race meetings, with every winner routinely required to provide a urine sample. The first four home in major races are also tested, plus any other horse the stewards may nominate either before or after the race. There is also a major programme of testing away from the racecourse, such that any horse in training can be tested at any time, and at any venue.

  For jockeys, the regime is not quite so rigorous, not least because a single jockey may ride many times in an afternoon and providing a urine sample after each one is simply not practicable. However, increasing determination to keep the sport drug-free has resulted in many more unannounced jockey-testing days both at racecourses and elsewhere.

  Those at the races are split into one of two types – breath-test-only days and urine-test-only days. On breath-test days, all jockeys riding on that day are required to have their breath analysed for alcohol content; on urine-test days, riders are selected at random to provide samples to be sent off to the laboratories.

  I sat in the sauna, terrified that I would be one of those selected for a urine test, something that would undoubtedly confirm to the authorities that I had taken a diuretic, so I was hugely relieved when it was announced that it would be a breath-test-only day.

  But my relief was short-lived.
>
  ‘Twenty micrograms of alcohol per hundred millilitres of breath,’ said the tester, holding up the breathalyser for me to see the read-out. ‘That’s afail.’

  ‘A fail?’ I went all hot and cold. ‘What’s the limit?’

  ‘Not more than seventeen.’

  ‘I thought it was thirty-five.’

  ‘That’s for driving. Seventeen is the limit for riding in races.’

  So it had been legal for me to travel at up to seventy miles per hour along the road from Lambourn in a one-ton metal box, but not for me to ride at less than half that speed over fences without one.

  ‘So what happens now?’ I asked.

  ‘You will be tested again within fifteen minutes, after I have done these others.’ He indicated to the line of my fellow jocks waiting behind me. ‘If you fail again, you will be stood down from riding today, and you will be reported to the racing authority. It will be up to them to decide on your penalty.’ His self-righteous manner made it clear he thought me a very naughty boy.

  How could I have failed the test? I hadn’t had a drink since the previous evening. That must be the problem. I’d consumed a whole bottle of red wine to help me sleep, and the alcohol must still be in my system.

  What could I do to reduce it in only fifteen minutes?

  ‘Hyperventilate,’ one of the other jockeys told me quietly as he went back into the changing room having passed the test. ‘My sister swears it helped her beat a driving ban.’

  So I stood there and breathed in and out as deeply and as quickly as I could, but it seemed to make things worse. Whereas before I hadn’t felt in the slightest bit drunk, now I was almost paralytic from excess oxygen in my brain, totally light-headed, with bright stars floating in front of my eyes.

  ‘Pussett!’ shouted the tester.

  I took another couple of deep breaths and walked unsteadily over to him.

  ‘Blow in here until I tell you to stop.’

  I placed my lips around the white tube and, with rising fear and trepidation, I began to blow.

  ‘Keep going,’ he said. ‘Keep going.’

  The machine beeped and he pulled it away.

  My eyes, and his, were firmly fixed on the read-out.

  There was a short delay as the machine did its business – only a couple of seconds, but it felt like for ever to me, my life in its hands.

  ‘Seventeen,’ the tester said, a huge degree of disbelief clearly audible in his tone.

  ‘That will do,’ I said, turning away before he had a chance to suggest a third test or, worse still, to provide a urine sample instead.

  I went back into the changing room shaking, but I was laughing, too. I’d beaten the system, but how could I have been so stupid?

  How? Because at times I didn’t seem to care, and it might have been much better in the long run if I had failed that second breath test. Maybe then I would have received the help I needed sooner, before my life finally went into total meltdown.

  * * *

  White Turf is a strange cocktail of two parts frozen Glorious Goodwood mixed with one part haute couture, a large slice of cordon bleu, with just a dash of Yorkshire point-to-point for taste.

  Point-to-point because, just like at Duncombe Park, where I’d had my first-ever race ride, the racecourse here is transitory. Large tents act as hospitality areas, weighing room, press accommodation and betting halls. Temporary scaffolding structures provide grandstand seating, commentary box and TV towers, while smaller tents are utilised as shops, bars and cafés.

  In just a few days the whole lot will have disappeared, taken away by a fleet of trucks to provide similar functions elsewhere. Indeed, come the spring, the very surface that the horses race upon will also go, melting away to become the playground of yachts and powerboats.

  But for now, the frozen lake is the centre of attention, with a steady flow of people making their way down from the town onto the ice.

  In all the years I have been coming to St Moritz, this is the first time I have ever been to White Turf, and I’m already beginning to regret it. Horseracing was a life I had promised myself to leave behind, a life that had brought me so much heartache and pain.

  So what am I doing here?

  Was it simply out of vanity? Or was it due to some strange unconscious desire to regain something I had lost, something that I’d once held so dear?

  I am confused, but here I am nevertheless.

  ‘Meet me in the weighing-room tent in two hours’ time,’ Jerry had said as I was leaving the stables at eight-thirty this morning.

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ I’d replied. I could feel the stress rising in me. ‘I don’t think I want to do this after all.’

  Jerry was not happy, to put it mildly. ‘You can’t let me down now. Who else could I get? And you’d be letting Susi Ashcroft down too.’

  I didn’t reply.

  ‘OK. I’ll pay you a bloody fee. Is that what you’re after?’

  No, it’s not. Although it would be useful.

  ‘How much?’ I ask.

  ‘Twenty quid.’

  I almost laughed. ‘Twenty quid. That’s an insult. Make it a hundred and I might reconsider.’

  I could see that Jerry was close to exploding, with his legendary temper boiling just beneath the surface. But he held it in check. He needed me and he knew it.

  ‘I’ll give you thirty. Final offer.’

  ‘Seventy.’

  ‘Fifty, and that’s really all I can afford.’

  ‘OK. Fifty it is.’

  I held out my hand and, reluctantly, he took a wad of English twenty-pound notes from his pocket and peeled three of them off. The wad wasn’t much reduced.

  ‘I thought you said you couldn’t afford more.’

  ‘I can’t. This is all spoken for.’

  I didn’t believe him. It would be his gambling money.

  He handed over the three twenties. ‘I need ten change.’

  I took the notes. ‘I’ll owe it you.’

  He didn’t like that.

  ‘Then be at the weighing-room tent at ten-thirty. And don’t be late,’ he grumbled.

  ‘Isn’t ten-thirty rather early?’

  ‘Our race is not until one forty-five, but racing starts before noon, and I like to declare early. It’s not quite the same as in the UK and I want you there to see it.’

  More likely, he wanted to make sure I’d actually turn up. He knew that if he gave me too long to think about it, I probably wouldn’t, fee or no fee.

  So here I am at the weighing-room tent just before ten-thirty, but Jerry is ahead of me and watching out for my arrival.

  ‘Ah, there you are. You still know what to do, don’t you?’ He seems uncommonly nervous.

  ‘Of course I do. You taught me and I haven’t forgotten.’ I smile at him but he doesn’t smile back.

  ‘Both mine will be running in a breast girth today. It’s what they’re used to. Do you also know how to fix one of those?’

  ‘Yes, Jerry, I do. Now calm down.’

  I’d fixed breast girths many a time when I’d worked for him. Most of his horses ran in them. It’s a wide strap around the front of the horse’s chest that is fixed to the belly girth on either side, where it meets the saddle. It is also held in place with a thin leather strap that goes over the horse’s neck. It prevents the saddle from slipping backwards. They are more often used in steeplechasing than on the flat, but not exclusively.

  ‘Right. Good. There are no saddling boxes here so we have to collect the saddles from the jockeys after they weigh out and take them all the way over to the stables and tack-up there. Then we have to lead the horses back to the parade ring here. We need to give ourselves plenty of time. It’s a long way.’

  ‘OK,’ I say. ‘But I do need to pop into the lunch I’ve been invited to. Just to show my face. It would be rude not to.’

  Jerry wrinkles his nose as if any thought of human hospitality on a race day is secondary to what needs to be done for the horses and, as h
e’s paid me, I should be at his beck and call.

  Tough.

  ‘At least it won’t take so long today,’ he says. ‘Not like last year. There’d been more than a foot of fresh snow the night before the race, and it nearly killed me trudging through it.’

  So Jerry and I had also been together in St Moritz twelve months ago, and neither of us had known it. But that was not really surprising, because I’d kept well away from White Turf then, and maybe I should have done so again this year.

  Back then, I’d not been in such a good place mentally as I am now. The brick-lorry nightmares had returned yet again and I had very nearly not come to St Moritz at all. However, I had decided that spending a few weeks hurling myself down an ice chute at insane speeds on a daily basis would be more beneficial to my mental health than the three sessions of group therapy I would have received from the NHS in the same period back in England. And I’d been right. A week after my arrival, the demons had receded – and without me having to touch a single drop of alcohol.

  But, from past experience, I knew it was mostly horseracing that triggered my psychotic episodes, which is why I stayed away from the tracks.

  Except that I hadn’t – not today, anyway.

  13

  After the drug-testing scare at Bangor-on-Dee, I did try to mend my ways. I convinced myself that I was drinking less, even if it wasn’t true, and I refused several offers of rides from other trainers when I knew the weight to be carried was too low.

  Except that I couldn’t refuse those that Jerry trained – he was my employer.

  He told me I’d be riding a six-year-old gelding of his called Wisden at Huntingdon on the spring bank holiday Monday at the end of May. He had entered it in the three-mile Conditional Jockeys’ Handicap Hurdle, the first race of the day, specifically for me to ride.

  I’d ridden the same horse in his three previous races, without any success, and Wisden had slipped down the handicap to such a degree that this time he was only scheduled to carry ten-stone-two. With my allowance, that made for another under-ten-stone situation.