Jumping to Conclusions

by Christina Jones

  He clicked through the five-bar gate that divided the yard, and was plunged into shadow. The cool darkness was welcome after the scorch of the sun. He headed for the two boxes on the end of the row near the garages. Dock of the Bay, the best flat-racing hope of the yard, had gone to Bath. Solomon, Drew's own horse who was now fourteen and had been granted honorary retirement since they'd galloped to a swan-song victory together in the Czechoslovakian Pardubice, the toughest horse-race in the world, flapped his huge head towards the empty neighbouring box.

  'He'll be back soon, you old softie.' Drew unbolted the door and stepped inside. 'I know you miss him.'

  He stroked the hard bony nose and scooped a handful of horse nuts from his pocket. Solomon pushed his muzzle into Drew's shoulder and, still crunching, blew flecks of gritty foam across his face. Drew patted Solomon's withers, loving the warmth and the feeling of life. There had to be some way out of this mess. Some way of attracting new owners to the yard. Maybe a mixed yard had been too ambitious. Maybe he should have specialised. He hadn't known enough to be sure which way to go. And now he had a fair selection of also-rans in each category, but nothing that was going to set the racing press on fire.

  Dock of the Bay was nearing retirement and there was nothing remotely as good to take his place. It would soon be the Derby. And Ascot. And then, by the end of the summer, National Hunt would be well into its stride – and he had no potential champions there either.

  Solomon shifted in the gloom, pressing closer, still looking for titbits. Drew fed him the last of the nuts. He needed a winner, something to hurtle him into the limelight so that the owners would come knocking on his door. He needed all forty of the boxes filled with horses who were potential winners.

  Solomon grated his large yellow teeth in Drew's ear. 'Yeah, I know you'd win for me.' Drew kissed his nose. 'You're a star, sweetheart.'

  'I'm glad someone recognises my potential.'

  Drew jumped and turned toward the yard. Charlie Somerset was leaning over the door.

  'Christ! Don't do that!'

  'Thought Solomon had turned into Mr Ed, did you?' Charlie joined him in the box, using his shoulder to push Solomon out of the way. 'Shift over, you great baby. So? What's up?'

  'Nothing.'

  'Crap. You always tell Solomon everything – even before you tell Maddy.'

  'The computer's died. It always pisses me off that I can't control it. Holly's on her way over to sort it out.'

  'And?'

  Drew exhaled. 'And you know as well as I do that we can't survive like this.'

  Charlie shrugged. 'No. It's a real shame we haven't got some hotshot for the Classics hidden away – but I suppose it's too late for that. What we need,' he ducked beneath Solomon's head, 'is something extremely media-friendly for next year's jumps. You know, a new Norton's Coin. Small stable takes on the big boys and wins. That sort of thing. You could try asking around – there might be some hairy point-to-pointer with Cheltenham potential eating its head off in one of the yards.'

  'Yeah. And there might not be. Still, I suppose I could wander round the village and ask. I might catch someone at home this morning. And I certainly don't want to hang around here while Holly lectures me on pressing the wrong buttons.'

  'Not,' Charlie grinned, 'a problem I encounter much myself.'

  Drew laughed. Apart from being his jump jockey, Charlie was possibly his closest friend in Milton St John. And that raised another problem: if he gave up with National Hunt and specialised in flat-racing, then there would be no job at Peapods for Charlie.

  'Where do you intend starting?'

  'Kath Seaward. She's got everyone's ear.'

  'Jesus.' Charlie backed out of the box. 'Don't mention me then. I'm still persona non grata at Lancing Grange.' He frowned at Drew as he bolted Solomon's door. 'Where's the car?'

  'I'm not taking the car. I'm walking. I think better when I walk.' Drew knew this would flummox Charlie who seemed to be welded to the Aston Martin. 'And don't tell me you're driving to the Cat and Fiddle? It's only a hundred yards away.'

  'Nah.' Charlie slid into his car's luxurious interior and pushed his dark red hair away from his eyes. 'I'm off to London. Tina Maloret thinks she might have forgiven me.'

  Drew winced. Charlie would probably be knackered for the rest of the week. 'So we won't be seeing you around for a while?'

  'Hope not.' Charlie revved the Aston Martin into life. 'If I'm not back by next weekend send in the Red Cross. Or that nice St John lady from Aintree ...'

  St Saviour's bells shattered the Sunday silence, pealing across the roofs of the cottages and reverberating round the downland hills. Charlie leaned from the window. 'That reminds me – have you heard? About Gillian Hutchinson? The Vicar's wife?'

  'Nothing remotely salacious, no.'

  Charlie revved the car and started to pull away. 'She's rented the Vicarage flat to the woman who is opening the bookshop. A real grunge granny, according to the lads. I shan't bother checking her out.'

  'I'm sure she'll be grateful. I'd heard the flat had been taken. At least Gillian Hutchinson's been luckier than me. I haven't had a single reply to the gardener advert.'

  Drew felt a pang of pity for the newcomer at the Vicarage. Maddy and her friends had been delighted that there was to be a bookshop in the village, but honestly – when did trainers and jockeys ever have a spare minute to read anything other than form books or the racing papers? The bookshop seemed destined to be a spectacular failure. He knew the feeling.

  Yelling to Maddy that he was going to Lancing Grange, he followed the Aston Martin's exhaust fumes out of the yard.

  'It's far too bloody hot for May!' Kath flapped the tails of her checked shirt, looking, Drew thought, more like a demented scarecrow than ever. 'Thank God my season'll be all but over in a couple of weeks. This baked ground will knacker any progress. Still, apart from that nasty business with Ned Filkins at Christmas, and the effing débâcle at Aintree, we've had a damn good year so far.'

  Kath Seaward's problems with her ex-travelling head lad were well known. His sacking had made the tabloids. And the air around Lancing Grange had been electric for days after the Grand National. Kath, it was rumoured, had put out a Mafia contract on Charlie Somerset.

  Knowing that she was waiting for him to spring to the defence of his stable jockey, Drew didn't take Kath's bait. She was a master tactician on and off the racecourse. A wrong word now could lead to a major schism; and, although the rivalries between the various racing stables in Milton St John were fierce, there was also a strong bond of local camaraderie. And anyway, as his visit to Lancing Grange wasn't simply social, he was most unlikely to get Kath's help if he started championing Charlie.

  Kath leaned against a pungently steaming wheelbarrow and surveyed him from beneath the brim of her grubby Jack Charlton golfing cap. Drew, playing the same game, rested his back against the wall in the sunshine and admired her immaculate stable yard with a professional eye. The Lancing Grange boxes were ultramodern. The yard was paved with red blocks and emerald-green tubs alight with pansies stood at each corner. A state-of-the-art tack-room, food store and equine medical centre took up the whole of one side. No expense was spared for the well-being of the seventy or so National Hunt inmates.

  The stable block was slightly at odds with the rest of the Grange, Drew always thought, which was a moated flint manor-house, the home of the Seawards for generations. The addition of the racing stables had been Kath's first priority when she'd inherited the estate on the death of her elder brother. A last gesture of defiance in the face of the family who had been enraged that their only daughter had not married a high-ranking army officer and produced a brood of chinless wonders. A family, Drew gathered from Milton St John gossip, who had disowned their daughter years ago when it was clear that she would far rather have been born a man.

  Kath had been working as an assistant trainer in Ireland, only returning to the village and the family home after all the Seawards were resting in St S
aviour's churchyard. Lancing Grange stables were all the family she needed; the horses far more precious than any baby.

  'Strikes me we're getting more and more like football and cricket,' she spoke suddenly, breaking the silence and peering at him again from beneath the cap's peak. 'You used to know where you were with the seasons. There was a respectable cut-off period. Football was in the winter, like jumping; cricket and the flat took up the summer. Now,' Kath glared as if the anomaly was Drew's entire responsibility, 'it's all merged into bloody one. What with all-weather tracks and summer jumping and all that crap. And the owners expect you to enter their damn horses all year round if there's any chance of a piddly bit of money at the end of it! Bloody fools! You can't get through to them that the poor sods have worked their guts out for months – they need a break like the rest of us.'

  'Tell me about it,' Drew said with heartfelt sympathy. 'You should try running a mixed yard. I don't know whether I'm supposed to be at Ascot or Chepstow half the time. And, to be honest, I haven't got enough really good horses to justify either at present. I'm only going to be able to keep both sides running for another twelve months at the most. If I don't start earning some decent money, one of them is going to have to go.'

  'I'm not surprised. A mixed yard would be far too complicated for me, too. It's pretty ambitious, even for a hardened professional.' Kath knotted the tails of her shirt above filthy riding breeches, exposing several inches of scrawny flesh. 'Is that why you've walked across the village on a Sunday morning? Do you want my advice? Okay then, for what it's worth, I'd say give up the jumping. You know there's more money on the flat – even if the Arabs don't currently think so. Is that what you want to hear?'

  'Not really. Although it's what I've been thinking. I grabbed the opportunity to visit because I've got technology problems, and I've called Holly in to sort it out. I needed to escape before I hurled the computer through the window.' He rubbed his eyes wearily. 'I know your yard's full, so I thought you might have had to turn someone away. I just wondered if you'd been approached by anyone with a dead cert or twenty who's looking for a trainer for Cheltenham or Aintree.'

  'Aintree!' Kath bristled. 'Don't know how you've got the gall to mention bloody Aintree after what Somerset did!'

  Drew grinned. 'Sorry. Very insensitive of me.'

  'Bloody stupid of you. And why should I put any good things your way after what Somerset did, eh? Haven't even been able to talk to the useless sod since the National,' Kath growled. 'He seems to vanish like the bloody mist every time I enter the paddock, he turns tail out of the pub every time I walk in, and his damn answerphone is always on. I nearly caught up with the bastard at the Sedgefield meeting, but –'

  'He's only obeying orders. I told him to lie low as I need him fully fit for the rest of the season. I thought you might try emasculating him.'

  Kath looked as though she was going to explode. 'Castration would be too good for him! I'd like to break his neck. I'd sooner pull out of races than put that cocky sod up again.'

  'Still, you won't have to, will you? I know that Matt Garside is almost fully fit, and the grapevine says you've engaged Liam Jenkins for the Fontwell meeting.'

  'That's as maybe.' Kath's eyes flashed. 'But Dragon Slayer should have won the National. It's all that fucking hard work wasted that breaks my heart. And letting the horse down. He was up for it, Drew. You know it. The whole bloody racing world knew it. And Somerset fucking blew it.'

  Drew, not wanting to be sucked into the long-running argument, merely nodded. He peeled himself from the red-hot wall and walked across the yard. Dragon Slayer, his nearly-black head poking inquisitively over the door of his box, rolled his eyes in anticipation. 'Spoiled brat.' Drew stroked his bony nose, admiring the race-winning physique. 'I fed all my titbits to Solomon before I left.'

  'He's looking for carrots.' Kath had joined him. 'And he's not having any until tea-time.' Her eyes were soft, as she fondled the horse. She produced a packet of Polos from her pocket, smiling as Dragon Slayer snuffled and crunched. 'It's not fair on him, poor baby. He loves the sport. He'd done so well at Cheltenham – and don't,' the eyes flashed again, 'tell me that there's always next year. It's a bloody lifetime away!'

  'I know how you feel. I'd really like to have a shot at it myself next year, but nothing I've got in the yard at the moment will be up to scratch, that's for sure. I've got some good jumpers and a couple of out-and-out stayers – but not the magical combination of the two like this boy.' He cast covetous eyes over Dragon Slayer's seventeen hands of pure power and sighed. 'If you do hear of anyone, I'd be really grateful if you'd let me know. Failing that, I'll just have to hope some gambling-mad lottery winner decides to push their latest acquisition my way, and it turns out to be a cross between Red Rum and Arkle.'

  Kath laughed. 'Dream on! No one gets those sort of horses in the real world! And – if you did – I trust you wouldn't leave it to the mercies of Somerset.'

  'Charlie's a great horseman,' Drew protested. 'The best. Look, I know you're disappointed, but it was an accident. Accidents happen.'

  'Yes, of course they do. Except that wasn't an accident. That was sheer bloody incompetence – and I'll prove it.' She stood with her hands on her hips and jutted her chin forward. 'Tell you what, I'll throw down a challenge now. I'll try and find an owner for you and next year we'll go for it. Aintree. The Grand National. Dragon Slayer and Matt Garside against whatever nag you can train-on and bloody Charlie Somerset. Call it your swan-song if you like. Your last tilt at the windmill before you join the prissy-flat Newmarket brigade. I'll beat you bloody hollow, Fitzgerald. A grand on it?'

  Drew winced. Maddy would probably kill him. He shook Kath's thin, calloused hand. 'Okay. You're on.'

  Walking back along the dusty curve of Milton St John's main road, Drew inhaled the silence. Sunday morning was still Sunday morning here. Maureen's Munchy Bar was closed. Bronwyn Pugh hadn't bowed to the gods of capitalism and gone in for a seven-day opening of the Village Stores yet; the Cat and Fiddle still only opened for the pre-Sunday-lunch drinkers then shut its doors for the post-Sunday-lunch snoozers; cars were washed and lawns mowed.

  A string of glossy thoroughbreds clip-clopped their way along the street, hindquarters swaying, heads up, knowing they were gorgeous, like contestants in a beauty pageant. John Hastings' last lot coming back from their Sunday-morning work-out on the gallops, Drew knew, recognising the individual horses even without the distinctive monogrammed rugs. The stable lads in the saddle grinned at him and touched their crash hats. He acknowledged them with a smile.

  John Hastings was one of Milton St John's premier flat trainers. His yard would be one of Peapods' main rivals if it gave up jumping. But right now Drew's thoughts weren't on the stars of the Derby at Epsom or the King George at Ascot. He was still thinking about Kath's challenge. The National. Next year. Was it even remotely possible? Probably not. No one could expect him to compete with the likes of Jenny Pitman or Martin Pipe, could they? It wouldn't be considered decent for a yearling to come stomping up on the rails and snatch the Blue Riband, would it?

  And, of course, all the yards in neighbouring Lambourn would already have their chosen prospects being coached and cosseted; and Kath had Dragon Slayer. The only other National Hunt yard in Milton St John was run by Ferdy Thornton, and he played everything so damned close to his chest that, even if he had something akin to Aldaniti or Dawn Run contentedly munching hay in his stables, no one would ever know.

  Should he take Kath's advice? Peapods was doing so-so on the flat, but pretty abysmally over jumps. It made good economic sense to run with the winners, but he really didn't want to pull out of National Hunt-racing yet – not while there was still the remotest chance of winning at Aintree. And certainly not now he'd gambled away a grand which he could ill afford.

  'I'm just off.' Holly, Drew's secretary, looked up from the computer keyboard in the Peapods office. 'I've sorted it. Major disaster averted – again. One or two of the disks had
been wiped but nothing important. I've checked all the files and I've made copies. You should always do a back-up, you know.'

  Drew knew. He very rarely remembered. He was just delighted to have got the bloody computer to do anything at all. He always left the technical stuff to Holly. 'Thanks a million. I'll pay you overtime.'

  'Too right you will,' Holly said cheerfully, reaching for her handbag. 'And if it doesn't sound too much like grandmother and eggs, do you think you could leave inputting the data to me in future, please, Drew? It would solve an awful lot of problems. Oh, there was one bit of info that I managed to retrieve -1 thought you might have missed it.'

  Drew raised his eyebrows. He probably had. The damn screen had started blinking and flashing and then gone blank almost straight away.

  Holly slung her bag on to her shoulder. 'God, Drew, you didn't even check your e-mail, did you?'

  He shook his head. He wasn't sure he trusted e-mail. Letters you could open and read and answer and then file neatly away were okay. Messages that flashed instantaneously on to the screen from out of the ether were something else entirely. Anyone who was foolish enough to e-mail him over the weekend had to wait for Holly's ministrations on Monday morning.

  Holly leaned back over the keyboard and started tapping. Drew looked on in admiration. Give him a dozen yearlings to break in any day.

  'There – look.' Holly smiled. 'I'll stay while you read it if you like, then I'll log off again.'

  Drew read the e-mail message over her shoulder, then spun round and hugged her. 'Hallelujah! Holly, I love you! I love everyone in the whole damn world!'

  'I thought you'd be pleased –'

  'That's the biggest understatement in the world!' Drew headed for the door. 'Where's Maddy?'