by Dick Francis
Supposing he told them, he thought. Supposing he just ran out there into the ring and told Toddy not to ride the horse, it hadn’t a chance of jumping properly, it was certain to fall, it could kill him bloody easily because its reactions would be all shot to bits.
Supposing he did. The way they’d look at him. His imagination blew a fuse and blanked out on that picture because such a blast of contempt didn’t fit in with his overgrown self-esteem. He could not, could not face the fury they would feel. And it might not end there. Even if he told them and saved Toddy’s life, they might tell the police. He wouldn’t put it past them. And he could end up in the dock. Even in jail. They weren’t going to do that to him, not to him. He wasn’t going to give them the chance. He should have been paid more. Paid more because he was worth more. If he’d been paid more, he wouldn’t have needed to take the stranger’s money. Arthur Morrison had only himself to blame.
Toddy would have to risk it. After all, the horse didn’t look too bad, and the vet had passed it, hadn’t he, and maybe the carrot being two hours late was all to the good and it wouldn’t have done its work properly yet, and in fact it was really thanks to Chick if it hadn’t; only thanks to him that the drug was two hours late and that nothing much would happen, really, anyway. Nothing much would happen. Maybe the chestnut wouldn’t actually win, but Toddy would come through all right. Of course he would.
The jockeys swung up into their saddles, Toddy among them. He saw Chick in the crowd, watching, and sketched an acknowledging wave. The urge to tell and the fear of telling tore Chick apart like the Chinese trees.
Toddy gathered up the reins and clicked his tongue and steered the chestnut indecisively out on to the track. He was disappointed that the horse wasn’t feeling well but not in the least apprehensive. It hadn’t occurred to him, or to Arthur Morrison, that the horse might be doped. He cantered down to the post standing in his stirrups, replanning his tactics mentally now that he couldn’t rely on reserves in his mount. It would be a difficult race now to win. Pity.
Chick watched him go. He hadn’t come to his decision, to tell or not to tell. The moment simply passed him by. When Toddy had gone, he unstuck his leaden feet and plodded off to the stands to watch the race, and in every corner of his mind little self-justifications sprang up like nettles. A feeling of shame tried to creep in round the edges, but he kicked it out smartly. They should have paid him more. It was their fault, not his.
He thought about the wad of notes the stranger had given him with the carrot. Money in advance. The stranger had trusted him, which was more than most people seemed to. He’d locked himself into the bathroom and counted the notes, counted them twice, and they were all there, just as the stranger had promised. He had never had so much money all at once in his life before… Perhaps he never would again, he thought. And if he’d told Arthur Morrison and Toddy about the dope, he would have to give up that money, give up the money and more…
Finding somewhere to hide the money had been difficult. The bundle of used notes had turned out to be quite bulky, and he didn’t want to risk his Ma poking around among his things, like she did, and coming across them. He’d solved the problem temporarily by rolling them up and putting them in a brightly coloured round tin which once held toffees but which he used for years for storing brushes and polish for cleaning his shoes. He had covered the money with a duster and jammed the tin back on the shelf in his bedroom where it always stood. He thought he would probably have to find somewhere safer, in the end. And he’d have to be careful how he spent the money – there would be too many questions asked if he just went out and bought a car. He’d always wanted a car… and now he had the money for one… and he still couldn’t get the car. It wasn’t fair. Not fair at all. If they’d paid him more… Enough for a car…
Up on the well-positioned area of stands set aside for trainers and jockeys, a small man with hot dark eyes put his hand on Chick’s arm and spoke to him, though it was several seconds before Chick started to listen.
‘… I see you are here, and you’re free, will you ride it?’
‘What?’ said Chick vaguely.
‘My horse in the Novice Hurdle,’ said the little man impatiently. ‘Of course, if you don’t want to…’
‘Didn’t say that,’ Chick mumbled. ‘Ask the guv’nor. If he says I can, well, I can.’
The small trainer walked across the stand to where Arthur Morrison was watching the chestnut intently through the race glasses and asked the same question he’d put to Chick.
‘Chick? Yes, he can ride it for you, if you want him.’ Morrison gave the other trainer two full seconds of his attention and glued himself back on to his race glasses.
‘My jockey was hurt in a fall in the first race,’ explained the small man. ‘There are so many runners in the Novice Hurdle that there’s a shortage of jockeys. I just saw that boy of yours, so I asked him on the spur of the moment, see?’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Morrison, ninety per cent uninterested. ‘He’s moderately capable, but don’t expect too much of him.’ There was no spring in the chestnut’s stride. Morrison wondered in depression if he was sickening for the cough.
‘My horse won’t win. Just out for experience you might say.’
‘Yes. Well, fix it with Chick.’ Several other stables had the coughing epidemic, Morrison thought. The chestnut couldn’t have picked a worse day to catch it.
Chick, who would normally have welcomed the offer of a ride with condescending complacency, was so preoccupied that the small trainer regretted having asked him. Chick’s whole attention was riveted on the chestnut which seemed to be lining up satisfactorily at the starting tape. Nothing wrong, Chick assured himself. Everything was going to be all right. Of course, it was. Stupid getting into such a state.
The start was down the track to the left, with two fences to be jumped before the horses came past the stands and swung away again on the left-hand circuit. As it was a jumping race, they were using tapes instead of stalls, and as there was no draw either, Toddy had lined up against the inside rails, ready to take the shortest way home.
Down in the bookmakers’ enclosure they were offering more generous odds now and some had gone boldly to evens. The chestnut had cantered past them on his way to the start looking not his brightest and best. The bookmakers in consequence were feeling more hopeful. They had expected a bad day, but if the chestnut lost, they would profit. One of them would profit terrifically – just as he would lose terrifically if the chestnut won.
Alexander McGrant (Est. 1898), real name Harry Buskins, had done this sort of thing once or twice before. He spread out his fingers and looked at them admiringly. Not a tremble in sight. And there was always a risk in these things that the boy he’d bribed would get cold feet at the last minute and not go through with the job. Always a gamble, it was. But this time, this boy, he was pretty sure of. You couldn’t go wrong if you sorted out a vain little so-and-so with a big grudge. Knockovers, that sort were. Every time.
Harry Buskins was a shrewd middle-aged East End Londoner for whom there had never been any clear demarcation between right and wrong, and a man who thought that if you could rig a nice little swindle now and then, well, why not? Tax was killing betting, you had to make a quick buck where you could, and there was nothing quite so sure or quick as raking in the dough on a red-hot favourite and knowing for certain that you weren’t going to have to pay out.
Down at the post the starter put his hand on the lever and the tapes went up with a rush. Toddy kicked his chestnut smartly in the ribs. From his eyrie on top of the stand the commentator moved smartly into his spiel. ‘They’re off, and the first to show is the grey…’ Arthur Morrison and Chick watched with hearts thumping from different sorts of anxiety, and Harry Buskins shut his eyes and prayed.
Toddy drove forward at once into the first three, the chestnut beneath him galloping strongly, pulling at the bit, thudding his hooves into the ground. He seemed to be going well enough, Toddy thought. Strong
. Like a train.
The first fence lay only one hundred yards ahead now, coming nearer. With a practised eye Toddy measured the distance, knew the chestnut’s stride would meet it right, collected himself for the spring and gave the horse the signal to take off. There was no response. Nothing. The chestnut made no attempt to bunch his muscles, no attempt to gather himself on to his haunches, no attempt to waver or slow down or take any avoiding action whatsoever. For one incredulous second Toddy knew he was facing complete and imminent disaster.
The chestnut galloped straight into the three-foot thick, chest-high solid birch fence with an impact that brought a groan of horror from the stands. He turned a somersault over the fence with a flurry of thrashing legs, threw Toddy off in front of him and fell down on top and rolled over him.
Chick felt as if the world were turning grey. The colours drained out of everything and he was halfway to fainting. Oh God, he thought. Oh God. Toddy.
The chestnut scrambled to his feet and galloped away. He followed the other horses towards the second fence, stretching out into a relentless stride, into a full-fledged thundering racing pace.
He hit the second fence as straight and hard as the first. The crowd gasped and cried out. Again the somersault, the spread-eagled legs, the crashing fall, the instant recovery. The chestnut surged up again and galloped on.
He came up past the stands, moving inexorably, the stirrups swinging out from the empty saddle, flecks of foam flying back now from his mouth, great dark patches of sweat staining his flanks. Where the track curved round to the left, the chestnut raced straight on. Straight on across the curve, to crash into the rail around the outside of the track. He took the solid timber across the chest and broke it in two. Again he fell in a thrashing heap and again he rocketed to his feet. But this time not to gallop away. This time he took three painful limping steps and stood still.
Back at the fence Toddy lay on the ground with first-aid men bending over him anxiously. Arthur Morrison ran down from the stands towards the track and didn’t know which way to turn first, to his son or his horse. Chick’s legs gave way and he sagged down in a daze on to the concrete steps. And down in the bookmakers’ enclosure Harry Buskins’ first reaction of delight was soured by wondering whether, if Toddy Morrison were badly injured, that stupid boy Chick would be scared enough to keep his mouth shut.
Arthur Morrison turned towards his son. Toddy had been knocked unconscious by the fall and had had all the breath squeezed out of him by the chestnut’s weight, but by the time his father was within one hundred yards he was beginning to come round. As soon as Arthur saw the supine figure move, he turned brusquely round and hurried off towards the horse: it would never do to show Toddy the concern he felt. Toddy would not respect him for it, he thought.
The chestnut stood patiently by the smashed rail, only dimly aware of the dull discomfort in the foreleg that wouldn’t take his weight. Arthur Morrison and the veterinary surgeon arrived beside him at the same time, and Arthur Morrison glared at the vet.
‘You said he was fit to run. The owner is going to hit the roof when he hears about it.’ Morrison tried to keep a grip on a growing internal fury at the injustice of fate. The chestnut wasn’t just any horse – it was the best he’d ever trained, had hoisted him higher up the stakes-won list than he was ever likely to go again.
‘Well, he seemed all right,’ said the vet defensively.
‘I want a dope test done,’ Morrison said truculently.
‘He’s broken his shoulder. He’ll have to be put down.’
‘I know. I’ve got eyes. All the same, I want a dope test first. Just being ill wouldn’t have made him act like that.’
The vet reluctantly agreed to take a blood sample, and after that he fitted the bolt into the humane killer and shot it into the chestnut’s drug-crazed brain. The best horse in Arthur Morrison’s stable became only a name in the record books. The digested carrot was dragged away with the carcass but its damage was by no means spent.
It took Chick fifteen minutes to realise that it was Toddy who was alive and the horse that was dead, during which time he felt physically ill and mentally pulverised. It had seemed so small a thing, in the beginning, to give a carrot to the chestnut. He hadn’t thought of it affecting him much. He’d never dreamed anything like that could make you really sick.
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 hor
se an easy passage over the first few hurdles. Chick didn’t remember this instruction because he hadn’t listened, and even if he had listened he would have done the same, driven by his habitual compulsion to disagree. He was thinking about Toddy lining up on this spot an hour ago, not knowing that his horse wouldn’t see the jumps. Chick hadn’t known dope could make a horse blind. How could anyone expect that? It didn’t make sense. Perhaps it was just that the dope had confused the chestnut so much that although its eyes saw the fence, the message didn’t get through that he was supposed to jump over it. The chestnut couldn’t have been really blind.
Chick sweated at the thought and forgot to check that the girths were still tight after cantering down to the post. His mind was still on the inward horror when the starter let the tapes up, so that he was caught unawares and flat-footed and got away slowly. The small trainer on the stand clicked his mouth in annoyance, and Arthur Morrison raised his eyes to heaven.
The first hurdle lay side-by-side with the first fence, and all the way to it Chick was illogically scared that his horse wouldn’t rise to it. He spent the attention he should have given to setting his horse right in desperately trying to convince himself that no one could have given it a carrot. He couldn’t be riding a doped horse himself… it wouldn’t be fair. Why wouldn’t it be fair? Because… because…
The hurdler scrambled over the jump, knocked himself hard on the timber frame, and landed almost at a standstill. The small trainer began to curse.
Chick tightened one loose rein and then the other, and the hurdler swung to and fro in wavering indecision. He needed to be ridden with care and confidence and to be taught balance and rhythm. He needed to be set right before the jumps and to be collected quickly afterwards. He lacked experience, he lacked judgement and he badly needed a jockey who could contribute both.