Mount!

by Jilly Cooper

  ‘Gav could do with that,’ sighed Louise.

  ‘Oh look.’ Dora turned the page. ‘“If you win the Breeders’ Cup Classic, you receive a high-performance cooler.” What’s that supposed to be?’

  ‘Those two could do with some cooling down,’ muttered Louise, as Rupert drove Gala back to the yard.

  ‘Do you think they’re having it off?’ asked Dora.

  ‘Not yet, but he drank from her bottle of water at a meeting the other day without wiping the top.’

  ‘Hum. I’m going to pinch Old Eddie’s badge, saying Old Men Make Better Lovers, and give it to Rupert for his birthday.’

  There was feverish excitement in the yard when it was revealed that Gala was going to Santa Anita and not Taggie.

  ‘You must keep an eye out and tell me what’s going on,’ Dora begged Louise, who would be setting out with Gala, Clover and Cathal the following day. This was a week before the Breeders’ Cup kicked off, so the horses could get used to the climate and time changes. The Classic was run at 12.55 a.m., English time, when Quickly would normally be tucked up in bed. Also, because it was intended that Quickly should make-all in the Classic, which meant shooting to the front and staying there, he wouldn’t need a pacemaker, so Rupert had decided to leave Bitsy at home.

  ‘I do hope he doesn’t miss Bitsy and Purrpuss too much, particularly on the plane,’ said a worried Gala.

  ‘He’ll have Delectable – and get him Seabiscuit as an in-flight movie,’ suggested Dora.

  71

  It turned out to be boiling hot in Santa Anita, but the stables were beautifully air-conditioned. In the first forty-eight hours in quarantine, Team Penscombe had to wear white space suits and shower when they went in and out. The horses also were only allowed Breeders’ Cup food and water. Gala was worried how Quickly would adjust to the American custom of runners being led down to the post by a rider on a pony who wasn’t Safety Car. Out of quarantine and cantering on the Wednesday, he met his ‘pony person’, a jolly old cowboy called Paul with a skewbald mare called Minnie, whom Quickly promptly fell in love with, so he didn’t mind being ponied at all.

  Louise, Clover and Gala meanwhile were having a lovely time; Lou-easy at the prospect of thirty-one veterinarians tending the foreign horses, Gala at the thought of Rupert arriving. They’d also been to Hollywood and Disneyland where they’d swum with dolphins and Clover had danced with Mickey Mouse.

  Most of all they were enraptured by Santa Anita, which must be the most beautiful racecourse in the world. Eighteen miles from Hollywood, stands for 80,000 racegoers look across an oval track with phenomenally sharp bends. Within the cinnamon-brown dirt track lies the acid-green turf track, and inside that, rhubarb-pink buildings, so from the air the whole thing resembles an avocado and salmon roulade. Beyond the tracks lie green barns, housing the horses, against the theatrical backdrop of the San Gabriel Mountains, rearing up as purple as the ubiquitous Breeders’ Cup jackets. Everywhere could be seen the lovely Breeders’ Cup symbol of a horse’s head with his mane coaxed forward to echo his pricked ears.

  Rupert was flying out on Thursday. Taggie couldn’t bear him going off without their making it up. If she weren’t so dyslexic she could have written a proper letter telling him how much she was going to miss him. She had found him an early birthday present of some cufflinks, made specially by Theo Fennell, of a tiny Love Rat looking out of his stable.

  She was just finishing ironing his latest lucky shirt, which was peacock blue. Out of the window she could see the leaves fluttering down. Each one caught meant a happy day. Rupert had always claimed he fell in love with her when he watched her scampering round a wood with his children catching leaves to bring him happiness.

  If she dashed out now, she could perhaps catch seven for each day he was away in Los Angeles and Melbourne running up to his birthday, so he would understand the coded message. Returning pink and panting a quarter of an hour later, just shoving yellow and scarlet cherry leaves into a Jiffy bag, she was horrified to see a Majestic lorry coming up the drive to deliver the drink. If Rupert came back from the gallops, he’d be bound to rumble the party. Yelling out to Jan, asking him to hide the little parcel and the Jiffy bag of leaves under the shirts in Rupert’s case, she rushed out to head off Majestic.

  Having not made it up with his wife, Rupert’s mood didn’t improve when, on arriving in Santa Anita, he found that horses from overseas were not allowed out on the turf tracks for exercise, in case they gave diseases to the local horses, until later in the morning. This was far too hot for Delectable, who just needed a gentle workout before running her race later in the day.

  Not that the late start upset Quickly. Having been up all night hollering and kicking his box for apples, he liked to lie in in the morning, and bit Gala on the ankle when she tried to wake him. Being fair-skinned, however, he had been driven crackers by mosquitoes.

  ‘Why the hell haven’t you put something on them?’ demanded Rupert.

  ‘Because insect repellent’s a banned substance,’ snapped back Gala.

  She’d been thinking of hardly anything else but Rupert since she arrived in Santa Anita and was devastated when he greeted her with apparent indifference. He was so offhand it was as though the clinch in the Love Tower had never happened. Not that he was being nicer to anyone else, snarling at the ubiquitous press in their Day-Glo green waistcoats whenever they approached him.

  Massive crowds were already pouring in for the Friday of the two-day meeting. There seemed to be no dress code. Hats, mostly Stetsons and baseball caps, were worn much more by the men, who also wore shorts rather than suits.

  Saddling up was a nightmare. In England you retreated into a little stall, where onlookers could only peer in from a distance. Here, when Gala joined Louise trying to calm little Delectable, the boxes were open to the public, frantic to see their equine heroes. Only divided by three-foot-high partitions, topped by wire netting, these boxes allowed any trainer to see what their rivals were up to. Penscombe and Valhalla, who had entered a filly called La Tempesta, totally ignored each other.

  Santa Anita being close to Hollywood, the glamorous crowds swarmed with celebrities, who all gazed at Rupert, still dazzling despite crossness and lack of sleep.

  ‘What have I seen him in?’ pondered a passing beauty.

  ‘A foul mood recently,’ said Gala sourly.

  In the parade ring, however, a pretty blonde pop star was belting out a song called ‘The Best is Yet to Come’.

  ‘I promise it is,’ murmured Rupert to Gala as adjusting Delectable’s bridle, his signet ring touched her fingers on the lead rope.

  Happiness rolled over her, and even more so when Delectable and Tarqui beat La Tempesta, ridden by Roman Lovell, by a head, earning a cool two million dollars. As the cheers rang round the purple mountains, Delectable immediately became favourite for the 1000 Guineas, and she was draped in a garland, almost bigger than herself, of bright-yellow asters, edged with purple and topped with purple and white orchids, grown specially for the Breeders’ Cup.

  Louise was crying with joy, so was Tarqui, and an exultant Rupert had an excuse to kiss Gala and mutter he’d come to her room sometime before midnight, but wouldn’t ring for fear of hackers.

  Next minute, a blonde in a burgundy jacket and blue jodhpurs, wearing a black hat with wires rising out of the top came cantering up to a returning Tarqui, screeching: ‘How special is it to be the rider of a Breeders’ Cup winner?’ expecting him to take her through every special yard of the race and thank every special person from the trainer to the stable cat.

  Gala had never heard anything like the joyous din greeting a winner, connections hugging each other, whooping, hollering, hi-fiving in orgasmic ecstasy. As race followed race, the celebrations grew more raucous. Touchy Filly was in the last one – the Longine Distaff for mares and fillies – and didn’t like the US custom of a large loader standing up in the starting stalls and hanging on to her bridle until the gates opened, so she bit him
and shot out to escape reprisals. Although she was competing against older horses, she didn’t stop running until she was only just beaten into third place.

  More ecstasy for Penscombe, as they celebrated Delectable and Touchy Filly’s triumphs. Rupert, however, warned them not to get too plastered. ‘We’ve got to do Quickly justice tomorrow,’ he told them. Then: ‘Slope off early, tell Etta and Valent you’ve got a headache,’ he murmured to Gala.

  ‘I thought women claimed to have headaches when they didn’t want sex,’ Gala murmured back. ‘You’d better be careful, Tarqui and Louise are two doors down.’ She glanced across to where the two were laughing uproariously, Tarqui saying, ‘A first and a tird – you can’t do better than that.’

  ‘Although,’ added Gala, ‘they’ll probably be too busy having a victory shag to bother about us.’

  72

  Gala’s pretty room in a hotel near the racecourse had on its primrose-yellow walls framed photographs of Judy Garland, Hedy Lamarr, Tyrone Power, Rock Hudson and equally famous equine stars: Seabiscuit, Secretariat and Zenyatta. Quickly might be up there soon, prayed Gala.

  Collapsing on to the largish single bed, she wondered if it would be big enough to contain their passion. She couldn’t stop trembling, hollow with longing, yet terrified as a virgin bride on her wedding night. Was it really going to happen?

  Presumptuously, before she left England, she’d splurged a month’s wages on a white silk nightgown from Cavendish House. This beautifully set off her all-over fake-tan. Waiting for Rupert she’d downed three quarters of a bottle of wine, showered three times – be careful who you wash for – cleaned her teeth every ten minutes. Make-up was another dilemma, without it her tired eyes looked tiny, but she didn’t want mascara and eye-liner all over the pillows. She also drenched herself, and particularly her hands, in Bluebell body lotion, to combat the allegedly Brillo-pad paws of stable lasses.

  Oh help, help! She leapt at a thunderous banging on the door, but, opening it, found only a man with long blond hair wearing dark glasses and a Stetson.

  ‘Go away,’ she screamed, slamming the door.

  There was another rat-a-tat.

  ‘Let me in, for fuck’s sake.’ It was a grinning Rupert. Removing the dark glasses and Stetson, he patted his blond locks. ‘I pinched Dame Hermione’s wig.’

  ‘How did you get hold of it?’

  ‘She’d shoved it into her bag like a Cocker Spaniel puppy so I rescued it.’ Then he tore it off, singing ‘Here’s to the Heroes’ in a high falsetto, making Gala laugh, dispelling her nerves.

  ‘It’s pissing with rain outside,’ grumbled Rupert. ‘Be like a quagmire tomorrow – Quickly had better learn to swim.’

  ‘Do you want a drink?’

  ‘Yes, down here.’ He slid a hand between her legs until she writhed away in ecstasy, then, putting her hands round his neck, she kissed him, only breaking off so he could pull her white nightgown over her head. ‘My God, you are so beautiful,’ he sighed. How could breasts be so soft and nipples as jutting as biro tops?

  He was wearing a navy-blue shirt. As she undid the buttons, she asked: ‘Is this your latest lucky one?’

  ‘It is now.’

  As her hand crept down to unzip his trousers, she gasped. ‘Oh wow, talk about a cock star.’

  ‘Don’t take the piss.’ He led her over to the bed. ‘Christ, I hope we don’t fall out.’

  ‘We’re always falling out.’ She had to joke not to betray the force of her passion. ‘Promise not to fire me for at least a week.’

  ‘I only want to fire you with enthusiasm.’

  He tried to take it slowly, but desire swept them away.

  ‘Christ,’ he said, as he slid his hand inside her. ‘They ought to issue a flood warning in here as well as outside.’

  And after a few moments of stroking, he couldn’t resist plunging his cock into her … oh, the rapture! ‘Buttercunt,’ he murmured, ‘oh, you lovely buttercunt,’ because she was so warm, slippery and welcoming, and gripped him so tightly as he moved in and out in perfect rhythm.

  Rupert tried to stop himself coming by studying the differing confirmations of Seabiscuit and Secretariat, but it was no good. Next moment they both stiffened and shuddered in ecstasy, then he slumped on top of her, mumbling, ‘Oh you darling child.’

  ‘I can’t help it,’ gasped Gala. ‘I love you, I love you.’

  Rupert smiled down at her, pushing her hair back. ‘And I too,’ and he kissed her damp forehead.

  Coming back to earth, she rolled him on his back, crouching between his legs and getting to work on him, licking him everywhere. He’d never been given head like this, and in no time, shot into her once more.

  ‘Now it’s my turn,’ he said, a moment later. ‘The foreplay’s the thing.’

  Gala woke at five; it was still dark. Rupert was dressed and looking at the weather on his app.

  ‘I don’t know what’ll happen later in the day, but that was definitely the Classic,’ he said, kissing her.

  Security was tight down at the racecourse, with a guard parked outside every stable. Having fed Quickly nuts and a little hay, Gala took him out, to discover that last night’s rain had turned the dirt track into a sodden pudding, which had been subsequently closed for training purposes.

  Reeling with happiness, Gala didn’t care and instead cantered Quickly on the turf. Mid-morning, she joined Etta, Valent and Rupert for a typically stylish Breeders’ Cup breakfast of scrambled eggs, caviar blinis and Bloody Marys. Etta vowed she was only going to have one of the latter.

  ‘Wasn’t yesterday thrilling? I’ve put Delectable’s yellow garland in water. How’s your headache, Gala? I nearly popped into your hotel to give you some Neurofen.’

  ‘That’s so kind. I had a wonderful night actually.’

  Gala caught Rupert’s eye and nearly laughed, even more so, when he said, ‘That’s the stupidest of the Three Wise Men going past,’ as Dame Hermione strode by in a large crimson turban.

  Rupert and Gala were going through the entries in the Classic, which included the greatest horses in the world. Simone de Beauvoir, the French battleaxe, had an all-powerful rival in To Die For, America’s favourite mare, who’d won the Triple Crown, ridden by America’s top jockey, Hammond Johnson. Hammond’s photo could be seen on the wall: a little man with tiny legs and muscular brown arms bulging out of a white sleeveless polo neck, and strong enough to hold up an army of horses. Also in contention again was the Japanese Hiroshi on Noonday Silence, Hernandez, a Mexican on a wonder bay called Special Angel, and Finger Prince, ridden by America’s leading woman jockey, a beauty called Sharon Peters.

  ‘Oh Quickers, you’ve got a lot to beat,’ sighed Gala.

  ‘All change, all change,’ said the irrepressible Matt Chapman from At the Races, sitting down at their table. ‘I Will Repay’s switched to the Classic – and guess who’s riding him?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your grandson, Eddie Alderton.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘He flew in last night.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘Ash evidently doesn’t go. Has a broken arm and three broken ribs – that’s how Eddie got the ride. Rumour has it, Ash hit on Eddie and Eddie hit him back even harder.’

  Rupert was silenced.

  ‘Not a bad idea,’ went on Matt. ‘The boy’s used to American tracks, he’s ridden on dirt before.’

  With some amusement Matt waited for fireworks but the cool bugger didn’t miss a beat.

  ‘Surprised they’re fielding such a Second Eleven jockey,’ drawled Rupert. ‘Thought they could have found a decent local. Good, that gives us even more chance.’

  73

  Racing in America is much more of a battleground. Tracks don’t have the undulations and ups and downs of England, but the turns are sharper, and horses explode out of the starting stalls, hurtling towards the first bend, with a huge amount of jostling, swearing and barging – a terrifying stamped
e.

  Eddie had been throwing up all night from nerves. Huddled in the corner of the weighing room, he was aware that in three quarters of an hour, he’d be racing against his gods. He was so pleased that his parents Perdita and Luke awaited him in the parade ring. When they met him at the airport yesterday, they seemed chilled about his and Sauvignon’s baby, but furious with Rupert for firing him, as was Uncle Adrian, Rupert’s gay brother, who had flown in from his New York gallery to cheer on Eddie, his godson. Adrian, a paler version of Rupert with light-brown hair and hazel eyes, unlike Rupert, always remembered Eddie’s birthday.

  Eddie, hurt that Sauvignon hadn’t even sent him a good luck text, was surprised how fond he’d got of I Will Repay, who’d never been spoilt rotten like Quickly and adored attention from the public, growing a foot every time he saw a camera, pricking his ears and pulling faces to order.

  ‘The only time he bites me is when I brush his tummy,’ confided Harmony, of whom Eddie had also grown very fond. She reminded him of a plain Lark and gave him lots of confidence.

  ‘You’ve improved so much from Isa’s crash course,’ she’d told him last night. ‘And for Repay, it must be like dancing with Anton on Strictly. Ash hits his horses so hard and saws on their mouths.’ Now, noticing how Eddie’s pallor was emphasized by wearing Sheikh Baddi’s purple and gold silks, she added: ‘It’s going to be OK, I promise.’

  The razzmatazz had increased tenfold on the second day of the meeting. Twenty minutes before they left their stables, the runners in the Classic had to have two more vials of blood taken, which made Quickly even edgier. The crowd were really intrusive, hanging round screaming for their heroes, following the runners down the chutes. Gala was terrified Quickly would kick someone.

  More and more discarded betting slips littered the ground like autumn leaves as the climax of the afternoon – the Classic – approached. The parade ring was so crowded, the only way jockeys and connections could find each other was by a number written on the grass.