The Enchanted

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘Yes. Yes, that’s true – but if you don’t have much of a track record getting started isn’t easy. Not even getting bad rides.’

  ‘Which is why he’s come here then, I’d say,’ Kathleen replied. ‘Not for the bad rides—’ She glanced up again at him, this time with a smile in her eyes. ‘I meant to try to get a start.’

  ‘Nothing to do with anything else, then?’ Rory asked her, concentrating on cleaning the saddle he had on his knees. ‘Or anyone?’

  ‘I said I never met him,’ Kathleen said, the smile now gone. ‘And I have not so.’

  ‘Fine.’ Rory dipped his sponge in the soap again. ‘But he thinks I’ll just take him on just like that – sight more or less unseen.’

  ‘You said you’d give him a trial. You couldn’t have been fairer than you were.’

  ‘I doubt he’s much of a jockey yet, though.’

  ‘Why would that be, Mr Rawlins?’

  Rory shrugged and smiled at her. ‘He still has all his teeth.’

  ‘He has,’ Kathleen replied, giving as good as she had just got. ‘Which gives him the best of smiles.’

  Favouring Rory with a deliberately overpolite smile of her own, Kathleen stood up, hung the clean saddle on the rack and took down another, leaving Rory with nothing except a deep desire to go and kick some furniture.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Remedy

  There was no doubt about it. Boyo was feeling better. Before, he had been feeling bad. His throat had hurt him and he’d felt as if he was full of dust, as if everything he’d eaten was dust. But now he felt good again, he felt right, so to tell her he went and kicked his stable door many times. Finally he threw back his head and bellowed because he knew this often got them running.

  Sure enough, here they came – here she came, the one who had found her way here to be with him again. He’d been happy to see her and this time she was here for longer so he made a noise at her, blew at her through his lips, then pushed her with his muzzle because he knew this always made her laugh.

  ‘So who’s feeling better then?’ she asked him, pushing him back, then running her hands up under his neck and tickling the bottom of his chin. ‘Are you feeling all better then, Boyo? Because you look as bright as a May morning. Come on, let’s take you out. Let’s put a collar on you and walk you out.’

  She unbolted his door and led him out. He stopped when he was in the yard and pricked his ears, hearing something from a distant field, before giving himself a good shake.

  ‘Mr Rawlins?’ she was calling. ‘He’s eaten all his breakfast and the glands in his neck are right as rain!’

  The man came over to him now and felt his neck and looked into his eye.

  ‘Can I run him out? Let him have a bit of a blow?’ she asked. ‘He’s been standing in a while so he could do with a blow.’

  ‘His nose is clean,’ the man said. ‘And you’re right about the glands. Just check his temperature, and if it’s still normal—’

  ‘Which it will be.’

  ‘Which it undoubtedly will be, turn him out for an hour, and we’ll see how he is then.’

  Kathleen did as told and checked his temperature, which was, as she had predicted, still absolutely normal; then she rugged him up and took him to the home paddock where she let him go.

  He stood until he knew she was safe then turned right round and bolted down the field as fast as he could, leaping in the air twice as he did so. He found the muddiest and the smelliest part of the paddock, bent his front legs at the knees, lowered himself carefully down then fell happily to one side, his shoulder splashing in the thick heavy mud. Once down he lay still for a moment then rolled on to his back, all four legs waving in the air as he tried his best to bury himself in the ground. He fell on to his other side and rolled there as well, then once he was sure he had well and truly covered himself in mud he got carefully to his feet, front legs first then a good push with the hind, shook himself thoroughly, jumped in the air, reared, turned round twice, then walked slowly away to begin grazing, safe in the knowledge that whoever lay in wait in the trees above him would no longer recognise his smell and so would no longer wish to eat him.

  Kathleen watched him for some time, seeming to sense the horse’s mood and condition, so that when she saw him running, rolling, shaking and jumping for joy in the air she knew he was better. Leaving him to his grazing, she hurried off to continue with her work.

  Chapter Fifteen

  A Piece of Work

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with his foot,’ Kathleen insisted as she walked the horse up for Rory the next morning. ‘Nothing at all.’

  ‘No, he really was going short last night,’ Rory insisted. ‘If you’d just trot him up?’

  ‘I put arnica on it!’ Kathleen called over her shoulder, having turned the horse away first before trotting him back up to the waiting trainer. ‘He must have stood on a stone in the paddocks.’

  Rory felt like replying that it had been her bright idea to turn the horse out but thought it a cheap shot so decided against it.

  ‘Fine, but we’ve been through all that, Kathleen,’ he replied instead. ‘What we have to make sure now is that he’s nice and level. That it’s not still bothering him.’

  ‘Well?’ Kathleen asked after she had trotted the horse up twice.

  ‘Seems fine,’ Rory said. ‘As far as I can see he’s totally sound.’

  ‘Arnica is great for the bruises.’

  ‘We learn a little every day,’ Rory said, lightly, he hoped, but obviously not, he concluded, when he saw one of those quick but dark clouds scud across Kathleen’s beautiful face.

  ‘We do, don’t we?’ she replied. ‘If we look and listen.’

  ‘You can put the horse away now, thank you, Kathleen.’

  ‘Think of the saving in vet’s bills,’ Kathleen called back to him as she put her charge in his box. ‘How much is it for a call out now?’

  ‘Enough,’ Rory told her, following her into the stable. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘So are we on?’ another Irish voice asked him from the door of the box. ‘Is himself sound or what?’

  ‘How did you know— Yes, wait a minute,’ Rory said, turning to regard Blaze. ‘You knew the horse— I don’t understand.’

  ‘Kathleen here rang me,’ Blaze replied. ‘She was worried she’d done something wrong.’

  Rory gave them both a look before returning to Boyo and picking up and inspecting the hoof that had been damaged.

  ‘If he stays sound, which let’s just hope he will …’ Rory said, cueing a glance between Kathleen and Blaze that he just happened to catch.

  ‘God willing indeed,’ Blaze added. ‘God willing, yes indeed. That he stays sound, sir.’

  ‘… I thought of giving him a piece of work tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow would be favourite, Mr Rawlins. Then we shall see what we shall see.’

  ‘Most pro-pro-profound, Mr Molloy. I c-couldn’t have put it better myself.’

  ‘The horse looks grand, doesn’t he? He looks well in himself to be sure,’ Blaze observed.

  ‘He’s still got too much of a belly on him,’ Rory muttered. ‘But a couple of bits of f-fast work should do the trick. I’ll put you up on him tomorrow. See how you get on.’

  ‘Mr Martin along the way has just seen me ride – and he says I can ride for him.’

  ‘So g-go – g-go and ride for him then,’ Rory said, ushering Kathleen out of the stable and closing the door behind them.

  ‘Wouldn’t I rather ride for you?’

  ‘Mr Martin along the way has over forty horses in training,’ Rory informed him. ‘You’d stand a far better chance of riding your winners there.’

  ‘Riding winners is not what I’m after, Mr Rawlins,’ Blaze said slowly, fixing Rory with his bright blue eyes. ‘Riding good horses is what I’m about.’

  ‘We pull out at nine,’ Rory said, standing up. ‘On the dot.’

  ‘I shall be here be eight, sir,’ Blaze said, touch
ing his cap and just before taking his leave smiling just a little bit too long at Kathleen for Rory’s peace of mind.

  Duly summoned by Rory and alerted by Grenville, the new racing partnership were told to be in the yard at Fulford Farm at 8.45 a.m. sharp, well wrapped up for the gallops. Alice and Millie were the first to arrive, by which time five of the six horses that were to work that morning were already rugged up and walking round the edge of the square of grass in the middle of the yard, the work riders busy adjusting leathers and girths as their charges warmed up under them. As Alice and Millie sat watching from inside their car, Grenville’s Jaguar pulled into the yard with the other three partners aboard.

  ‘Morning, all,’ Grenville called with a doff of his hat as he emerged from behind the wheel. ‘Cold enough for the famous monkeys, I think, don’t you?’

  ‘I don’t have the foggiest idea what he means,’ Alice said sotto as she and Millie went over to greet Constance and Lynne, the latter looking like someone going on a Vogue fashion shoot in her fur-lined knee-high boots and new suede coat, also lined with sheepskin.

  ‘I know.’ Millie smiled. ‘But I like Grenville. There’s something almost quaint about him.’

  ‘I could do with a hot toddy,’ Constance complained. ‘And what on earth am I doing here and not in Antigua?’

  The women then fell to silence as Kathleen led their horse out of his stable. It was not the sight of The Enchanted that transfixed them, however, but the slim and elegant young man who now appeared from the tack room, ready to mount up.

  ‘Top of the morning to you!’ Blaze called, touching his crash hat. ‘Let’s hope we are going to see something special this morning, ladies!’

  ‘I already have, thank you,’ Lynne muttered. ‘Who is that bit of eye candy, please?’

  ‘This is our mystery man, Lynne,’ Rory said, coming to greet his owners. ‘Blaze Molloy, if you would, freshly in from the land of Eternal Charm.’

  ‘I often thought of going to live in Ireland,’ Millie remarked. ‘Now I well think I might. Talk about the world being bright and gay.’

  ‘I take it that’s a reference to his Irish eyes and not his private preferences, Millie,’ Alice remarked, also unable to take her eyes off the slim figure in his tight riding breeches and shiny red windcheater.

  ‘You betcha.’ Millie laughed. ‘But something tells me he bats for our team, Alice.’

  ‘Did one hear right?’ Constance wondered, looking in a vaguely accusatory way at Grenville. ‘Did someone say his name was Blazer? What will parents think of next?’

  ‘Blaze, madam,’ their jockey corrected her as he prepared to be given a leg up by Rory. ‘Blaze Molloy, at your service.’

  ‘Most original,’ Constance said with a nod. ‘But not as good as my great-uncle, who was called Daisy.’

  ‘Daisy, Lady Frimley?’ Lynne frowned. ‘You didn’t actually have a great-uncle called Daisy?’

  Constance sniffed. ‘I most certainly did,’

  ‘How on earth did he get to be called Daisy, Constance?’ Alice enquired.

  ‘Possibly because his preference was to dress as a woman.’

  By now Blaze had swung easily into his saddle and gathered his reins, feeling the little horse feeling good and strong under him, both of them glad to be alive on this crisp, sharp winter morning. ‘Let’s hope your lovely horse goes as well as he looks, girls,’ he said, before moving off to join the back of the string.

  ‘I like “girls”,’ Constance murmured. ‘I wonder if he has a father?’

  ‘How do you think your horse looks?’ Rory asked. ‘I know he’s still got a bit of a belly on him but that’s only because he’s short of a piece of work.’

  ‘Nothing wrong, I trust?’ Grenville enquired in line with his role as the partnership’s racing manager. ‘Nothing we should know about?’

  ‘No – no, a couple of days in the sick bay with a dirty nose, but he’s all better now, Grenville. If you’d like a quick cup of tea or coffee? Let’s all have something. It takes them a good twenty minutes to get to the bottom of the hill.’

  The party followed their trainer into the house, where they were all greeted joyfully by Dunkum. The lurcher took a particular shine to Lynne’s new fur-lined coat, which had to be hung up well out of his range.

  ‘He has a very bright eye, don’t you think?’ Alice remarked as Rory prepared the coffee.

  ‘The jockey or the horse, Alice?’ Lynne said.

  ‘Our horse, Lynne. He looks – well. He looks rather full of purpose, I thought.’

  ‘Let’s hope you’re right. You want a horse to be a bit of a street fighter,’ Rory said, handing round the tea and coffee. ‘And from what we’ve seen so far, Boyo doesn’t like being taken on.’

  ‘Not another candidate for the shades?’ Millie wondered.

  ‘Heavens no – no, the last thing he’ll need will be blinkers, Millie,’ Rory replied. ‘Listen – soon as someone gets to his quarters he seems to find another gear. All right, OK, so he hasn’t done a really serious gallop yet. This is only what I’ve seen so far, but we’ll certainly learn a bit more this morning.’

  ‘They’re going to take each other on, then?’ Grenville said. ‘And in case you’re wondering, ladies, what we mean by that is that some gallops are just precisely that. Horses coming up in line and not really racing each other. A serious piece of work should have the horses pitched against each other.’

  ‘Not everyone would go for that though, Grenville,’ Rory said. ‘There’s a theory that if you do that you can leave your race on the gallops.’

  ‘Pass,’ Alice said, with a shake of her head.

  ‘Meaning you can cook your horse in before he gets to the races,’ Rory explained. ‘But don’t worry. I’ll try – I’ll do my best not to let that happen.’

  But Rory was a long way from as confident as he was trying to sound. As far as he was concerned this was where push very much came to shove, since in all his time as assistant to his father and during the weeks his father had been ill he had never really had to face the question of how far and how fast to work a piece of machinery as complex as a thoroughbred racehorse. He had seen how his father did it and there were many things about his father’s methods that he criticised, but he had never so far had to put any of his own theories into practice. He knew that one piece of wrong work could quite easily spoil the newcomer and ruin his immediate chances, which would mean either a deeply disappointing first run or not running him at all for another month while they struggled to get the animal right again. So, smile as he might, as Rory drove his new owners up to the gallops his heart was well and truly in his mouth.

  As indeed was Kathleen’s. She too was riding work, having volunteered her services when one of Rory’s occasional work riders called in to say he had the flu. She was riding Trojan Jack, with instructions to hit the front two furlongs from the end of the gallop and see if The Enchanted could get anywhere near the canny old handicapper. She knew from Teddy what a rogue Jack could be, but also that when he put his mind to it he could murder the rest of the Fulford string. So if he decided to put his best foot forward this morning Kathleen knew that her little horse would have his work cut out for him.

  ‘Don’t go soft on him now, Kathleen!’ Teddy called as they reached the foot of the gallops and prepared to go. ‘The boss wants to see what the new boy’s made of, so you kick that old bugger on, right? I’m going to take him on as well!’

  Teddy was riding Alone At Last, a relative newcomer to the stable who having taken time to grow into his frame was yet to race, but was now beginning to show the signs of some ability in his fast work. Now that he had strengthened, instead of looking like a giraffe the big horse looked purposeful and strong, as well as standing a good hand and a half over The Enchanted, who with the tall figure of Blaze in the saddle looked even smaller than he really was. Kathleen took a good look at the little horse, thinking the very same thing, yet noting that under his coat, which now had the beginnings
of a real gleam to it, the muscles looked tight and hard.

  ‘OK!’ Teddy called. ‘Kick on!’

  A second later they were off and running.

  When she felt what she had in her hands as well as under her saddle, Kathleen suddenly realised she had never ridden anything quite as fit, fast and strong as Jack, who had obviously decided today was going to be one of his good days. They had barely gone half a furlong before he had pulled himself clear into a two-length lead and was seriously motoring, really enjoying having the good turf under his hooves and a flyweight on his back. She heard Teddy yelling at her to take a pull as he got left behind, so she shifted her weight back a little and shortened up, but Jack had hold of the bit and was taking no notice. She tried to take a quick look round but the horse was pulling so much she was afraid of losing her balance and coming off, so she kept her head down, looking between his ears and doing her best to keep him balanced.

  She had half expected and certainly hoped that halfway up the hill she might catch a glimpse of Boyo hacking up beside her, but there was neither sight nor sound of him, just the wind howling in her ears and the thunder of hooves on old turf.

  ‘Dear God in heaven,’ she prayed. ‘Don’t let me go beating my own horse now.’

  ‘Here they come!’ Rory told everyone, pointing to where the horses were just beginning to come into view – or rather one horse was, a horse that with only two furlongs left to run was well clear of the rest.

  ‘Who is that?’ Grenville called, peering at the distant animal through his race glasses. ‘God, it’s only Jack!’ he cried. ‘Going like a train, too!’

  ‘It can’t be,’ Rory muttered. ‘If it is, there’s a glue factory waiting.’

  He’d wanted The Enchanted to lie up so he wouldn’t have a lot of work to do if he were to try to catch any horse leading him, but from what he could see it was Trojan Jack first, the rest nowhere, all of them stuck in a bunch some four or five lengths down. Then, as they got closer, with about a furlong and a half to run, he saw The Enchanted in the middle of the group. Blaze had him settled and the horse was moving easily but well within himself, his rider sitting as still as a statue and waiting for the moment, waiting for the time he would press the button and say go – at least so Rory hoped, although in view of how much Blaze seemed still to have under him, hope was growing fainter and certainty fast taking its place.