Front Runner

by Felix Francis

Had he gone to Otmoor for a specific purpose, perhaps to meet someone?

  —

  I SPENT the rest of the day at the BHA headquarters in High Holborn.

  The news of the positive identification of the body in the car had been reported to the media and it gradually filtered through the office grapevine. No one was surprised, but it didn’t exactly help lift the sense of gloom that had descended on the place.

  Dave Swinton had been due to be in the offices that Wednesday for a meeting of the Racing Needs You! campaign. Everyone had been looking forward to it, and a buffet lunch had been planned for the staff to meet him.

  It was most unusual for the stars of the sport to make such visits. All too often, they were only present at HQ to face disciplinary panel hearings, and social niceties, such as lunch with the staff, were never on the agenda for those occasions.

  Needless to say, after the events of Sunday, the buffet lunch had been canceled, but that didn’t stop people speculating on what might have been.

  I, meanwhile, went back to watching race videos from the BHA database.

  I should have been looking at the other open files on my desk, but I kept being drawn back to the questions surrounding Dave Swinton.

  I studied again his rides on Garrick Party at Haydock and on Chiltern Line at Ludlow.

  Having spoken to Jason Butcher, I was more convinced than ever that Garrick Party had not been given the opportunity to win the race at Haydock because Dave Swinton had decided not to allow him to run freely as a front runner, as was his forte. That was not to say that the horse would have definitely won if he had been allowed to do so. That was impossible to say.

  However, the big question remained: Did Dave make that decision with the express intention of not winning?

  The race at Ludlow was less clear-cut. If Chiltern Line’s trainer, Tom Cheek, had said that the horse liked to be kept tight to the running rail, it was well within the realm of probability that even a jockey of Dave Swinton’s ability could have found himself badly boxed in.

  I also pulled up the race at Doncaster in which Dave had finished second on Perambulator.

  I could understand Jason Butcher’s frustration, as the horse seemed to come from nowhere to within a stride of victory, but there was no evidence on the film to show that Dave Swinton had been in any way at fault. It clearly showed him making continuous efforts to get the horse to quicken from the last fence onward, but he was rewarded by a response only in the last hundred yards or so. A lesser jockey might have had no response at all.

  If Dave had lost that race on purpose, then he had been very clever at disguising what he had done.

  I leaned back in my chair and stared at the ceiling.

  But Dave Swinton had been very clever.

  Next, I looked up his statistics for the previous full season.

  He had ridden in just over nine hundred races in the United Kingdom. At one hundred and sixty pounds each ride, that represented an annual official riding fee income of a little over a hundred and forty thousand pounds. Pretty good, but hardly a huge return for risking one’s life on a daily basis. Some Premier League soccer players earned that sort of money in a week.

  There was no record of the falls D. Swinton had suffered, but, statistically, a jump jockey could expect to hit the turf on about eight percent of his rides—that is, more than seventy falls in a nine-hundred-race season. So, on average, once or twice a week, every week, Dave would have crashed to the ground at thirty miles per hour, alongside half a ton of leg-flailing horseflesh, and with untold other horses behind him trying to jump onto the space he occupied on the grass.

  Bruises, like those I’d seen on his body on the morning of the Hennessy, must have been a constant companion.

  Was it any wonder that he’d asked the trainers for more money? I’d have needed a signed blank check and a full suit of armor, not a pair of diaphanous nylon breeches and some wafer-thin featherweight riding boots.

  —

  I WENT OUT for lunch at the Old Red Lion pub right next door to the BHA offices and found Paul Maldini propping up the bar.

  “Not like you to be drinking at lunchtime,” I said to him.

  “I’m not,” he said. He lifted his glass. “Diet Coke.”

  “Want another?” I asked.

  “Thanks.”

  I ordered the Diet Coke for him and a lime, lemon and bitters for myself.

  “We should have had Dave Swinton in for lunch today,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “I couldn’t stand being in there.” He nodded toward the building next door. “I needed to get out.” I was surprised that he appeared visibly upset. “It was my idea, you know.”

  “What was?” I asked.

  “The Racing Needs You! campaign and getting Dave Swinton to be on the posters. I’d invested a lot of time and effort in getting him to agree to be here today.”

  I knew that Paul had been on the campaign committee, but I had had no idea he’d been the main driver behind it. Would it have been better or worse if I’d told him about Dave’s admission that he’d not won a race on purpose? I now wished I had told him, as he would find out eventually, at the inquest if not before, and that might be embarrassing.

  However, I decided that right now was perhaps not the best time.

  “I’m sorry,” I said inadequately.

  “Yeah, well, these things are sent to try us.” He forced a laugh. “And what are we going to do now with the ten thousand glossy brochures we’ve just had printed, all of them with Dave Swinton’s face on the cover and a letter from him inside?”

  “Who are they for?”

  “Race sponsors. They were due to go out next week to thank them for past support and to persuade them to continue their sponsorship.”

  “Send them anyway,” I said. “With a covering letter saying that racing needs them more than ever now.”

  He sighed. “I don’t know. Some might think it rather crass.”

  He sighed again.

  “It sounds to me like you need something stronger than Diet Coke.”

  “You might be right, but I’d better not. I’ve got to go and face the rest of the committee.” He didn’t sound very happy.

  “It’s not your fault Dave Swinton isn’t here, so don’t blame yourself.”

  “It was me who insisted we use him for the campaign.”

  “And a damn good decision that was too,” I said. “Inspired. You weren’t to know he’d go and kill himself.”

  Did I now believe that he had killed himself?

  “Maybe not,” said Paul, “but I still feel responsible. And he was bloody expensive.”

  I didn’t doubt it. I wondered if he’d asked to be paid in cash.

  “I’m sure that the rest of the committee will agree that it was money well spent.”

  “Not all of them will. A couple of members were against the idea from the start, and I’m not particularly looking forward to listening to them crowing I told you so.”

  “Ignore them,” I said.

  Paul downed the rest of his Diet Coke. “I’d better be getting back. Thanks for the drink. And the encouragement.”

  He turned with a slight wave and walked out of the pub.

  In the five years I had worked at the BHA, that had been the longest and most civil conversation between us. He had constantly treated me as a naughty schoolboy and I had always thought of him as a bit of an idiot.

  Perhaps it would be the start of an improved working relationship.

  —

  I PASSED that evening in much the same way as I now spent almost every other evening, sitting in an armchair in my kitchen–cum–living room, eating a microwaved frozen dinner off my knees and watching television.

  What had happened to me?

  I’d never before been one for sitting
around doing nothing. I’d been a get-up-and-go person who had purposely chosen a path through life that had been interesting and exciting, even dangerous.

  I’d joined the Army straight out of school as an eager eighteen-year-old officer cadet at Sandhurst Military Academy and had spent the next forty-four weeks without a single glimpse of a television set. I’d completed three six-month tours of Afghanistan as an intelligence officer and had survived some scary scraps where only my quick wits and good luck had kept me alive. Even my initial work at the BHA had been challenging, working mostly undercover among the criminal underbelly of racing.

  But my promotion to senior investigator status had changed much of that. I’d been given my own office and greater responsibility, but I now had far less freedom to push the boundaries of the law in order to get results. These days, I was far more likely to interview possible miscreants as myself than I was to follow them home in disguise and rummage through their garbage cans in the dead of night.

  I was becoming respectable and I wasn’t sure I liked it.

  And Lydia’s sudden exodus hadn’t helped.

  It had always been me who had been keen to go out, to do something other than sitting at home in front of the television. But when she’d departed, my eagerness for the London nightlife had faded away as well.

  If I went out to a bar on my own, I found that I resented the happy couples that surrounded me. And on the few occasions I’d been alone to the movies, I missed the discussion about the film with a companion over a late-night drink or pizza.

  It was like a catch-22 situation: I didn’t go out because I didn’t have anyone to go with, but I didn’t meet anyone because I didn’t go out.

  I resolved to break free from this vicious circle of depression.

  I would go out.

  Maybe tomorrow, or the next day.

  9

  I spent Thursday cooped up in my office catching up on neglected paperwork, but, on Friday, I escaped to Sandown Park for the first day of the Tingle Creek Christmas Festival meeting, named after the popular horse of the 1970s that had been a Sandown specialist.

  These two days of racing were always very popular with the public and I was joined by many others as I walked the mile or so from Esher railway station to the racetrack entrance, some of them wearing bright red Christmas hats in true festive spirit.

  I was there specifically to further a separate ongoing investigation into the conduct of a Mr. Leslie Morris, who, according to an anonymous source, had been placing suspicious bets with racetrack bookmakers on behalf of a friend who was an excluded person. The source had also stated that Mr. Morris would be at Sandown that afternoon to do it again.

  An excluded person was exactly that—excluded from any BHA licensed premises, which includes all racing stables, training gallops, equine pools and, in particular, anywhere on a British racetrack.

  Sadly, there was nothing in the Rules of Racing that prevented an excluded person from placing bets, either on an Internet betting site or in a High Street betting shop, but neither of those methods was very anonymous. The Internet sites kept computer records and needed the account holder’s credit card details, while all betting shops were now equipped with closed-circuit television that recorded every transaction over the counter.

  Until they also started introducing personal CCTV, only the racetrack bookmakers provided a suitable opportunity for someone to place untraceable bets. And it was not uncommon for a single bet of a thousand pounds or more to be made in cash with the racetrack bookies, especially at the big meetings like the Tingle Creek Festival.

  Mr. Leslie Morris was a BHA-registered racehorse owner and, as such, was subject to Rule (A)30.3, which states that a registered person must not associate with a person who is excluded in connection with horseracing in Great Britain unless he obtains the prior permission of the Authority.

  Placing bets on behalf of an excluded person was definitely an association in connection with horseracing and no such prior permission had been granted.

  I waited for Leslie Morris near the entrance to the racetrack enclosures.

  I knew what he looked like because I had studied the pictures of him in BHA files, but I was sure he wouldn’t recognize me even if he had known me beforehand. I had resurrected one of my favorite disguises—long dark wig under a brown beanie, plus a goatee stuck to my face with latex-based glue. For good measure, I had added a pair of horn-rimmed glasses.

  I also wore an unremarkable olive green anorak over an open-necked blue shirt and khaki chinos, the perfect gear for spending time in the betting ring.

  I was beginning to worry that I might have missed him when he appeared in a full-length dark gray overcoat, brown leather gloves and a blue felt fedora covering his white hair. I smiled to myself. He couldn’t have worn something easier for me to follow if he’d tried.

  But I had to do more than simply follow him, I had to get close enough to observe which horses he backed and how much he staked.

  I followed him in through the main entrance foyer, where he used his racehorse owners’ pass card to gain entry.

  He turned right and went into the gents, so I hung around outside until he reappeared. I suppose he might have gone in there to meet someone, but I would have been taking too much of a chance to follow him into such a small space and then to be very close to him later in the betting ring.

  I kept about ten to fifteen yards behind him as he made his way toward the Owners & Trainers facility next to the weighing room, where there was complimentary food on offer and a cash bar.

  The first race was about to start and I walked over to lean on the white rail around the unsaddling enclosure in front of the weighing room as if waiting for the horses to return but all the while keeping an eye on the door of the bar.

  —

  LESLIE MORRIS remained inside the Owners & Trainers Bar throughout both the first and second races and appeared again only as the runners for the third were being saddled and taken to the parade ring.

  By this stage, I had shifted my position over to the far side of the weighing room to be less conspicuous, and, from there, I was able to observe as he made his way over to the paddock rail and stood close to the point where the horses would leave to go out to the track.

  Once the horses had all passed him, he walked through the grandstand and out to the betting ring beyond, with me in close formation behind him.

  There were more than fifty bookmakers located in three rows, with more on the rail between the ring and the premier enclosure.

  “Come on. Let’s be having you,” shouted one of the bookies as I walked nearby. “Best value here. Six-to-four the field.”

  I looked up at his board, with the horse names and the odds brightly lit up in yellow and red lights. There were eight runners in the race and the prices varied from the favorite at six-to-four to a couple of rank outsiders quoted at fifty- and hundred-to-one respectively.

  Leslie Morris walked quickly up and down the rows of boards, looking at the offered prices, and I acted as his shadow. Fortunately, he was too busy to notice me, as he was concentrating on the odds boards and also on a red notebook and a small calculator that he held in his hands. He tapped in figures on the calculator and made notes in the book. Try as I might, I couldn’t get quite close enough to read what he was writing.

  Suddenly, he began moving down the lines of bookmakers, stopping about every second one to make a single bet using high-value banknotes that he peeled from a large bundle of cash he had in his coat pocket. I pretended to make a call on my cell phone while actually taking several photos and a short video of him making the bets.

  Even though I wasn’t close enough to catch what Morris himself said, I could sometimes hear the bookmaker as he repeated the bet to his assistant, who then logged it into a computer and printed the ticket. Morris wasn’t putting money on the same horse on each occasion, that was
for sure. As far as I could tell, he was backing most of the eight runners, some of them multiple times with different bookmakers.

  It was a slick operation and, in all, he must have placed between thirty and thirty-five separate bets, each with a different bookmaker. He had timed his approach well, when most other punters had already made their selections and gone to watch the race from the grandstand. Hence, making each of his bets took just a few seconds, and by the time the race began, the large bundle of cash in his pocket had reduced to nothing.

  I followed him as he also climbed the grandstand steps to watch. With a tiny bit of pushing, I managed to position myself a few steps above and behind him.

  The race was a two-and-a-half-mile novice hurdle for four-year-olds and, initially, it was a slow affair with none of the eight jockeys seemingly wanting to make the running from the start.

  They popped over the early flight of hurdles at barely a gallop, and it was not until they turned into the homestretch for the first time that a couple of them kicked on and decided to make a proper race of it. The others followed suit, and all eight were fairly closely bunched as they passed the winning post with a complete circuit still to run.

  The pace began to quicken as the horses ran downhill away from the grandstand, all of them safely negotiating the first three flights of hurdles, although the two outsiders came under pressure early, their jockeys pushing hard and giving their mounts a few Hurry up! slaps with their whips but without any great response.

  However, at the last hurdle of the far side, Wisden Wonder, the favorite, hardly jumped at all, crashing through the obstacle and unseating his rider, much to the displeasure of the crowd, which groaned loudly en masse.

  By the time they turned for home around the bottom end of the course, the remaining seven were well spaced out. One of them pulled up before the last two hurdles, and the other six finished in line astern, with the winner returned at a starting price of five-to-one.

  Leslie Morris had not cheered the winner home, nor had he moved a muscle when the favorite had come to grief. Now he merely stood in the grandstand sorting out his betting slips before moving back to the lines of bookmakers to collect his winnings, making notes all the time in his red notebook.