The Racehorse Who Learned to Dance

by Clare Balding

‘Hi, team,’ Larry read. ‘I miss you all very much, but things are going great here. Mr O’Reilly lets me ride all of the good horses in their work, so twice a week is like a race day as I switch from one horse to the other –’

  ‘Sounds intense,’ said Charlie.

  Larry raised his hand in mock outrage. ‘If you’re going to interrupt, I won’t bother.’

  Charlie and Polly looked at each other and giggled.

  ‘Can I continue?’ Larry asked.

  ‘Go ahead, sire,’ Charlie replied.

  ‘Little Lion Man, who you’ll remember from Derby Day, has blossomed into a really nice four-year-old. I’m hoping I might be allowed to ride him in the Irish Champion Stakes, which is a huge race over here.

  ‘What’s happening your end? I hope the cows are doing OK. Give Taylor Swift a head-rub from me and say hello to the pigs. I hope the chickens are surviving their dance lessons.’

  Larry slammed the iPad on his knees.

  ‘Surviving?’ he said. ‘I think you’ll find, Joe Butler, that the chickens like their dancing very much and lay considerably more eggs after a samba class than they ever did before.’

  ‘Get back to the email, Anton du Peck,’ Charlie laughed.

  Larry puffed out his cheeks and carried on reading.

  ‘Love to Boris and to all of you, but especially to Noddy and Percy. I hope you’re all having fun in the sun. I’ll try to come and see you when I’m over for one of the big meetings.’

  ‘Oh, I hope so,’ Polly whispered.

  ‘That’s about it. There’s a nice photo of him riding out at Seamus O’Reilly’s – look at all those white rails and those beautifully mown gallops. It’s just like being at a racecourse. That must have cost some serious dosh!’

  He handed the iPad to Charlie so that she and Polly could see. Charlie slid her finger up the page.

  ‘Oh, look!’ she said. ‘There’s a PS.’

  ‘What does it say?’ asked Larry and Polly together.

  Charlie paused, unsure whether to read it out loud.

  ‘Go on!’ Polly urged her.

  ‘It says, PS Have you got Polly and Noddy together yet? They’d make a great team. I think they’d look after each other.’

  Polly blushed bright red and stared at her shoes.

  Larry scrunched up his face. ‘Eh? What’s he on about?’

  ‘Oh, nothing,’ Charlie said quickly. ‘He said something similar in the paddock at Ascot. Joe thinks they’ve got a special bond.’

  ‘We haven’t,’ Polly said quickly. ‘I was just lucky.’

  She looked across at Noble Warrior munching contentedly in the field.

  ‘I don’t think Joe realizes …’ Polly said quietly. ‘That neither of us are quite up to it.’

  Polly bowed her head.

  ‘Yet,’ Charlie whispered.

  ‘Right, girls. Gotta go!’ Larry jumped up, grabbing his iPad from his little sister. ‘People to see, things to do, chickens to train.’

  He did a pirouette and kicked his heels as he headed off for the chicken shed.

  Noble Warrior and Percy had drifted away up to the top of the field, towards the woods. There was a path leading down to the river and, although the level had dropped, there was still enough cool fresh water to drink and bathe their legs.

  ‘If they’re going into the shade, I guess we’d better do the same,’ Charlie said. Polly winced as she stood up from her tree-stump stool. ‘Do you need some painkillers?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘No,’ Polly replied through gritted teeth. ‘It’s really nothing. I’m used to it.’

  They wandered back to the farmhouse to find that Mrs Williams had finally been persuaded by Mrs Bass to leave her daughter in their hands. The list of which pills she had to take and exercises she had to do was stuck to the fridge door with a magnet.

  Charlie was taking a look at it when Harry came flying into the room. He was wearing the latest Southampton home kit and matching shorts. He slid across the stone floor in his socks, waving a piece of paper at them.

  ‘It’s worked!’ he shouted. ‘We’ve got a booking!’

  He came to a standstill by the kitchen sink where he held the piece of paper aloft with both hands.

  ‘What are you on about?’ Charlie feared this was another of her brothers’ wild money-making schemes.

  ‘Noddy has been asked to open a new supermarket in Andover. Isn’t that great? The local paper will be there and I bet we can get the Racing Post to send a photographer – and then who knows where it will lead?’ Harry looked at the piece of paper again and flicked it with his finger. ‘I knew people would read that blog. I knew it!’

  ‘What blog?’ Charlie asked, frowning. ‘What have you been up to?’

  ‘I know about the blog,’ Polly interjected excitedly. ‘My dad told me about it! The Diary of an Ex-Racehorse.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Harry said proudly. ‘I tugged at the heartstrings a bit, made out Noddy was like an actor who couldn’t get a job.’ He shook the piece of paper. ‘And here we have it – a new stage and a new audience and five hundred pounds guaranteed as an appearance fee! I’ve printed off the booking and I might get it framed. This is the start of a whole new life for …’ He paused and held his arms wide. ‘Noble Warrior – the racehorse who opens supermarkets!’

  ‘No,’ Charlie said flatly.

  Harry stared at her. ‘Whaddya mean “no”? LARRY!’ He shouted through the door. ‘Larry, get in here and back me up.’

  ‘I think it’s demeaning,’ Charlie explained. ‘I don’t want him being poked and prodded and having to walk down the pasta aisle for a photo shoot. It’s not what he should be doing.’

  ‘Well, you can get all high and mighty if you like,’ Larry said as he walked into the kitchen with a file in his hand. ‘But I’ve got the figures here and it still costs money to feed Noddy and Percy, plus we’ve got the vet’s bills and the farrier. And the insurance premiums have rocketed after the kidnap.’

  He put the file on the table and turned the pages so Charlie could see the costs laid out in black and white.

  ‘Now all he’s going to do is soak up what’s left of his Derby winnings.’

  Larry paused as he showed her the predicted figures in the years to come and the large red minus sign in front of them. He took a big breath that filled the kitchen as he sighed it out.

  ‘Look, Charlie, we’ve got to be realistic about this. I heard Mum and Dad discussing options the other night and I’ve gotta tell you, it’s not good.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Charlie’s heart jumped into her throat.

  ‘I mean that they can’t afford it. His racing days are behind him so there’s no prize money. The only way he could sing for his supper is to go off to stud and be a stallion, but you don’t want him to leave. Now you’re saying he can’t go out in public, so here’s the big question – how do you think he should earn his keep?’

  Charlie shrugged her shoulders. ‘I don’t know. But there’s got to be a better way than opening supermarkets.’

  ‘There is!’ exclaimed Harry. ‘He can go to weddings, do school appearances, turn on the Christmas lights, even do a fashion shoot if we get the right sort of publicity. There is literally no limit.’

  ‘Literally?’ said Charlie. ‘I think you’ll find there literally is a limit and that limit would be me.’

  ‘I don’t understand why you’ve got so snobbish about it all, Charlie Bass,’ said Larry, snapping the folder shut. ‘Red Rum did all this stuff and earned money for years after he won the Grand National. He even turned on the lights at Blackpool Tower.’

  ‘And that was back when Blackpool was buzzing all year round, not just when Strictly comes to town!’ added Harry.

  ‘If you mention Strictly one more time, I’ll make you …’ Charlie hesitated. She knew she couldn’t threaten her brothers with violence because they were bigger than her and anyway, she didn’t believe in it. ‘I’ll make you … eat the rest of Mum’s rock cakes.’

&
nbsp; As threats went, it wasn’t exactly a spine-chiller. Harry and Larry started laughing. Even Polly joined in and Charlie was forced to allow herself a smile.

  ‘Seriously, though, I don’t want Noddy going off to open supermarkets. It’s not what he won the Derby for.’

  ‘I know that.’ Harry walked towards her and put an arm round her shoulder. He had shot up in height in the last year and towered over his sister. ‘I just don’t think he should sit out in a field doing nothing.’ He spoke gently. ‘He has fans and they want to see him. And he’s an athlete! He should look like one.’

  ‘It’s a weird thing,’ said Larry. ‘We started the blog and put up photos of Noddy in the field, but after a while it was same old, same old. Suddenly it was like I was in his head and it just felt a bit … sad.’

  Polly looked thoughtful. ‘My dad read one of the blog posts to me and it made me cry. It was like a heart-breaking monologue from a faded star. Just last summer he achieved the impossible and now he’s a hermit.’

  ‘Well, if you put it like that,’ Charlie said. ‘I guess it is a bit tragic.’ She sat down at the kitchen table and ushered the others to join her. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘I take your point. We all know he can’t stay in the field with Percy forever. So what are the options?’

  ‘Can’t you at least consider the supermarket?’ Harry said.

  ‘They know Percy will have to come too,’ Larry added. ‘We explained that they come together as a Buy-One-Get-One-Free deal and they said that was what they were all about. They say BOGOF is their most popular offer.’

  Polly was listening carefully. ‘It would give us a reason to get him fit again,’ she said. ‘He can’t turn up for a photo shoot unless he’s looking his best – and it will be good for him to have something to concentrate on again. We could start lunging him this evening when it’s a bit cooler. I can help if you like?’

  Charlie looked at Polly. If it made her friend want to get involved, then it couldn’t be the worst idea. ‘Absolutely,’ she said, her voice more decisive than she felt.

  ‘Hey, kids, everything OK?’ Mrs Bass pulled bits of straw from her hair as she walked into the kitchen. ‘Any of you fancy a rock cake?’

  ‘No!’ they all said at once.

  As the sun started to dip in the sky and the trees cast long, cool shadows, Polly helped Charlie plait together reams of baler twine to make one strong length of rope. The two friends sat next to each other on a bale of hay and let their hands work as they talked through their plans.

  ‘I think the trick is to get him supple, build up his muscles so that he looks the part,’ Charlie said, folding one piece of orange string over the other. ‘He needs to develop strength in his neck and hold his head so he looks pretty, like that poster I’ve got of Charlotte Dujardin on Valegro.’

  ‘We’ll have to groom him every day,’ Polly pointed out. ‘His coat will only get its shine back if we work at it. That way his neck and his quarters will really glimmer in the photos.’

  They combined one length of plaited string with another.

  ‘Where did the boys go?’ Polly asked.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. They’ve been busy putting up new security cameras. After the kidnap we all got a bit jittery. About everything that we value.’ Charlie ran her hand through her short hair. ‘I mean, I don’t think anyone would steal the pigs or the chickens, and the cows would kick them to death if they tried to separate them! But I think Mum was worried that the new farm machinery might be a target, so she got the boys to put up a few more cameras. Mind you, I saw them with a pot of white paint about an hour ago and I have no idea how that’s connected.’ She stood up. ‘There. You hold that end and I’ll see how much we’ve got.’

  She walked ten paces away and found that there was enough string to stretch, with a bit left over – ‘Just under ten metres,’ she announced.

  ‘A diameter of twenty metres, then,’ said Polly.

  ‘Yep,’ said Charlie. ‘A twenty-metre circle is perfect to lunge him. We can keep him tight until he gets the hang of it and then let him go bigger if we can get him into a nice steady canter.’

  ‘Looks good to me!’ Polly pushed herself up on her crutch. ‘I remember Joe telling me he’d tried to get Noddy to do some dressage as a way of making him better balanced. He said he was a natural.’

  ‘Speaking of balance,’ Charlie said, ‘haven’t you got to do some exercises? Your mum won’t let you come again unless we follow her rules!’

  ‘It’s usually Pilates,’ Polly explained. ‘I’ve got to work on my core strength so that my body can manage the lack of movement in my left side. The doctors say that if I can work on my core, the left leg won’t be such a drag and my right side won’t hurt so much from taking all the pressure.’ She sighed. ‘I guess it makes sense, but I can’t tell you how boring it is!’

  Charlie caught her eye and they laughed together.

  ‘Still,’ Polly continued, ‘I’m in a much better place than I was after the accident and that’s how they’ve told me to think about it. The accident itself was day zero and every day after that can only be compared to day zero. It’s no use thinking about how I was before.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Charlie said.

  As the girls strolled out towards the field, they spotted Charlie’s brothers walking with long strides in the bottom-right corner. Harry had a new streak of white across the front of his Southampton football shirt and Larry had specks of white dotted all over the grey T-shirt he’d been wearing throughout the summer. They were holding wooden markers with letters on them.

  ‘Forty paces down the long side and twenty on the short side,’ Harry shouted, clearly in charge. ‘Try to keep straight, Larry! It’s important.’

  They placed white boards at each corner of a slightly wonky rectangle on the grass.

  ‘That’s where F goes!’ Harry shouted at his younger brother. ‘No, not M. F comes before A on the right-hand corner.’

  ‘Who made up this daft letter system?’ Larry shouted back. ‘It doesn’t make any sense!’

  ‘A King Eats His Cold Meat Before Fast.’ The girls were close enough now to hear Harry talking to himself as he checked the letters round the edge of the large rectangle. ‘It doesn’t rhyme and why would the king be fasting anyway? It’s a stupid way of remembering something that someone clearly made up when they were drunk.’

  Charlie immediately recognized the rectangle and its random lettering. She and Polly looked at each other and said together, in surprise, ‘It’s a dressage arena!’

  Harry placed the letter H in the top left corner, after E and before C.

  ‘M should go opposite – in the other corner. I think that’s right.’ Harry took twenty paces from C towards A, more or less in a straight line. ‘X is here in the middle so I’ll just paint it on the grass.’

  The two brothers met in the centre of their makeshift arena to survey their work. They nodded in satisfaction and high fived each other.

  ‘Hey, Charlie, Polly, come and have a look!’ Harry yelled, beckoning with his arm. ‘We’ve made you a present!’

  Polly and Charlie rushed over as quickly as they could.

  ‘How on earth –?’

  ‘I looked it up on the internet,’ Harry interrupted Charlie excitedly. ‘I wanted to find the best way to get a horse ready for a photo shoot and this is what came up. Dressage!’

  ‘Wow!’ Polly said. ‘I’m impressed. You look like you’ve got the measurements right and all the letters in the correct order. Apart from the paint on your shirt, you’ve done a pretty tidy job.’

  ‘What paint?’ Harry looked down and howled. ‘Not on my new shirt!’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ sniggered Larry. ‘They’ll probably bring out a new shirt next season with a white stripe across the middle and you’ll be well ahead of the game.’

  ‘I wouldn’t expect any sympathy from you.’ Harry pushed his brother away. ‘Just because I don’t wear exactly the same shirt every single day of the week, every wee
k of the summer!’

  Larry pushed him back and soon they were throwing each other to the ground.

  ‘Guys!’ Charlie didn’t want a full-scale fight. There was too much work to do. ‘Don’t start all that again. You’ve done a fantastic job here and I’m really grateful.’

  Larry rose to his feet and brushed off the dust. Harry looked a little sheepish.

  ‘’S nothing much,’ he mumbled. ‘Just, you know, trying to help.’

  ‘Well, it’s perfect,’ Charlie said. ‘Polly and I were just talking about getting Noble Warrior fit again. We were thinking of a kind of mind-and-body fitness programme.’

  ‘’Zackly,’ said Larry. ‘We could write about it for the blog!’

  ‘That’s a good idea,’ Harry agreed. ‘I can do little videos of Noddy learning to do that fancy dressage stuff when they lift their feet up and it’s like they’re …’

  He paused and looked at his brother. They came to the same conclusion at the same time.

  ‘Dancing!’ they shouted together.

  They grabbed each other’s hands and started jumping up and down on the spot. Then Harry ran towards his sister and spun her round, flinging her across his arm so that she bent backwards. Larry jumped towards Polly, who threw her crutch down as he lifted her feet off the ground and spun her round him.

  ‘Careful!’ Harry shouted.

  Polly was laughing as Larry gently put her feet back on the ground.

  ‘Don’t worry. It didn’t hurt at all!’ she said delightedly.

  ‘This is the chance we’ve been waiting for!’ Larry explained as he handed Polly back her crutch. ‘We can work on the music and choreograph the routines and you two can do the horsey bit. This is classic material for the blog and I think it will open up a whole new raft of opportunities for Noddy.’

  Charlie was still smiling as she said, ‘Let’s not tango before we can trot in a circle, OK? We’re doing this for Noddy, remember, not for us. It’s not about making money – so don’t you even start on that.’

  The boys looked at each other and winked.

  ‘I think it’s important we give him a challenge that will stretch him,’ Polly added. ‘Make him feel he’s trying to achieve something others thought he couldn’t do, give him a sense of purpose. That’s how he’ll feel like a champion again.’