To Hear a Nightingale

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘Operanatomy ran a good trial at Lingfield, but his times weren’t anything to write home about.’

  ‘And he didn’t beat much,’ the man agrees. ‘So really it’s a two-horse race?’

  The woman nods her head. ‘If they both get a clear run.’

  The man stops and digs his heel into the turf. ‘If it stays like this, the going should be perfect.’

  ‘Ideal,’ the woman replies. ‘Nightie should bounce off this.’

  ‘How is the big fellow?’ the man enquires. ‘How did he travel?’

  ‘Touch wood, he’s one hundred per cent. And he travelled fine. The great thing about him, John, is his temperament. He’s so relaxed. The more I travel him, the more amazed I am what a nice nature he has. And except for that incident in the parade at Newmarket, nothing seems to bother him.’

  ‘That’s what you want really, isn’t it? If we’re talking about horses getting the trip, a relaxed horse, with a great big stride like your chap, is a much better bet than a highly strung animal with a short, choppy action.’

  ‘Sure,’ the woman smiles in reply. ‘Not that he wins a lot of friends going down to the start.’

  ‘Sir Ivor was just the same,’ the man tells her. ‘Used to go down like a seaside pony. And you think your horse will handle this hill?’

  ‘I know he will.’

  They walk down the rest of the famous hill and round Tattenham Corner, deep in conversation like the old friends which they are.

  The man laughs as he relates a story. ‘After Nightie’s very first race last year, I got 66/1 about him for tomorrow’s race. The bookie’s been after me ever since to reduce my wager.’

  ‘I sure hope you’ll be wearing your armour-plated vest when Nightie gallops up the straight tomorrow,’ the woman laughs in reply.

  Then she stops just before the final bend runs out and looks up the course, at the long climb to the winning post.

  ‘This is where we want to be,’ she says, standing two or three horse widths from the rails. ‘Maybe fourth or fifth, with Millstone Grit no more than six lengths up, and bang in our sights. Dex will give him a steady here, make sure he’s got the big chap balanced, and then kick on.’

  ‘As far from home as this?’ the man frowns. ‘You surprise me.’

  ‘We’re going to surprise them all,’ the woman replies, suddenly very determined. ‘Nightie is going to bury ’em.’

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Everything went entirely to plan, until the evening of the race itself. Part of Cassie’s carefully conceived arrangements included stabling Nightie a few miles from the racecourse proper at a private yard in Esher. This was no reflection on Epsom’s highly efficient security, but simply in recognition of the amount of money Cassie’s horse had been laid to lose. Rather than take the slightest chance of the favourite being got at, Cassie had elected to keep the horse secretly and under a round-the-clock surveillance in the totally secure private stables of one of her wealthy British owners. Such was her diligence, it had even been somewhat controversially decided to return Nightie to his lodgings outside Esher after his pre-race ‘blow’ on the Tuesday, and to transport him finally to Epsom early on the morning of the race itself.

  Mattie had considered this last decision as over and above the call of his mother’s duty, and told her so.

  ‘OK,’ Cassie had replied, ‘just go ask your great hero, Vincent O’Brien. He always used to stable his Derby runners away from the course.’

  ‘Not the night before the race, Ma.’

  ‘Maybe not, Mattie. But the difference between Vincent and me is Vincent’s not a woman.’

  Cassie even took her turn keeping vigil outside the favourite’s stable on the Tuesday night, but the hours passed without incident, and by the time Nightie was loaded into the horse transporter at dawn the next morning with his precious legs carefully bandaged, and his feet freshly shod with his racing plates, the party from Claremore breathed a corporate sigh of relief.

  All except Cassie.

  ‘Come on, Ma,’ Mattie teased her as they sat up front in the cab. ‘Ease up! He’s home and hosed!’

  ‘I’ll ease up when I’m good and ready, Mattie,’ Cassie answered shortly. ‘For a start, when we get to the course.’

  Her worries were not unfounded. They had barely travelled two miles from the yard at Esher when a builder’s pick-up truck suddenly shot out from a side turning and forced Liam who was driving the box to stand on the air brakes.

  Cassie was out of her seat and through into the back of the lorry in a flash.

  ‘What’s the damage, Frank?’ she asked the lad who was already peering anxiously over the partition.

  ‘I think he’s fine, Guv’nor. It certainly threw the old fellow forwards right enough, but the knee pads’d take care of that.’

  The horse happily seemed completely unbothered by the emergency stop, and was good-naturedly trying to chew his way through the lad’s wind-cheater. Cassie stroked the horse’s neck, then having satisfied herself the horse was standing all square, told Liam to drive on.

  It wasn’t until they arrived at the course and unloaded Nightie they saw the actual damage.

  ‘He’s spread a plate, Guv’nor,’ Liam said as soon as he saw Frank lead the horse down the ramp.

  ‘Let’s just hope that’s all he’s done, Liam,’ Cassie replied, lifting the now stationary horse’s off-foreleg, where sure enough the lightweight racing shoe had come half adrift from the animal’s hoof. ‘Hand me the pincers, quickly Mattie.’

  ‘I’ll go and find the farrier,’ Liam said, while Mattie rummaged in a tool box.

  ‘No you won’t, Liam,’ Cassie replied, easing the racing plate to one side of the hoof. ‘You’ll call Mr Brogan. The horse has pricked his foot.’

  Even before the shoe was removed completely, the damage was clearly visible, in the shape of a tiny but angry red mark on the bottom of the foot.

  ‘Damn,’ said Cassie quietly. ‘Damn, damn, damn.’

  ‘Will he not be able to run then, Guv’nor?’ young Frank asked, barely able to keep the tears from his eyes.

  ‘He’ll run if I have anything to do with it, Frank,’ Cassie replied. ‘Now what we need is Mr Brogan, like I said. And a van load of ice.’

  Liam opened the cab door and reached inside for the mobile telephone.

  ‘What will we want the ice for, Guv’nor?’ the now ashen-faced Frank enquired.

  ‘To pack that foot of his, that’s what we want the ice for, Frank. We’re going to have to freeze this foot of his solid and hope and pray for the best. Now lead him off to his box, and stop looking as though it’s the end of the world. We’ve got to give the impression that nothing’s the matter.’

  Frank led the horse away, doing his best to look carefree, while Liam raised Niall Brogan at his nearby Surrey hotel. He arrived within half an hour, and after an initial examination of the injury, gave the horse absolutely no chance of running.

  ‘As we all know,’ he said, ‘this is the leg the horse leads with. If there is even a suspicion of pain here, he won’t stretch out. He’s not going to risk himself. Particularly a great long striding horse like this fellow.’

  ‘So what do you advise, Niall?’ Cassie asked.

  ‘Withdraw him,’ the vet answered. ‘Rather than have him disappoint the biggest racing audience in the world, and probably do himself more harm, I’d withdraw him, and we’ll have him one hundred per cent for the Irish Derby.’

  ‘I can’t withdraw him, Niall,’ Cassie replied.

  ‘Can’t, Cassie? Or won’t?’

  ‘Both, Niall. Look. I won’t run the horse if it’s going to harm him. But we’ve a good few hours before the off. Over seven in fact. And if we can get the inflammation out of his foot, and the foot stays cold for two hours before the race, I’ll run him. On condition that if Dex thinks the horse is feeling it at all on the way to post, he’ll be ordered to withdraw him. How’s that?’

  Niall chewed the inside of his
lip thoughtfully, and shook his head.

  ‘It’s a hundred to one shot, Cassie. There’s a fair amount of heat in that hoof already.’

  ‘I know. But that’s your responsibility, Niall,’ Cassie answered shortly. ‘Mine is whether to race the horse or not. This isn’t the first time this sort of thing has happened. What about the winner of the ’87 Guineas? Don’t Forget Me? This is more or less precisely what happened to him. So let’s go to school on that, right? They did it with ice, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.’

  ‘Where in hell do we get ice from at this time of morning?’ asked Mattie.

  ‘That’s for you to find out, Mattie,’ his mother retorted. ‘And not now! Yesterday!’

  In response to the urgency in his mother’s commands, Mattie doubled off to see if there was yet any sign of the caterers, while Niall and Cassie attended further to the horse’s hoof.

  ‘You’ll need more than ice, Cassie Rosse,’ her vet informed her gloomily. ‘You’re going to need a bloody miracle.’

  By now it was half past eight. By nine o’clock Niall had cleaned and cauterised the nail-prick in the sole of the horse’s foot, and a few minutes later Cassie stood holding the damaged hoof up while Liam kept a cold hose playing constantly on the wound.

  Once again, the big horse’s temperament was his salvation. He stood as quietly as could be, munching some hay, while the three of them took it in backbreaking turns to hold his up-turned hoof.

  Jonathan Keating’s head lad was the first to suspect that there might be some trouble with the favourite. On his way back from Millstone’s Grit’s box, he noticed the steady trickle of water coming out from under the door of The Nightingale’s stable.

  ‘Everything all right in there?’ he enquired, popping his head over the door.

  Niall Brogan stood up at once and tried to block the lad’s view of the proceedings, but in vain.

  ‘Nothing wrong with your horse I hope, Mrs Rosse?’ the lad said.

  ‘Nothing whatsoever, thank you,’ Cassie replied, leaving it at that. But the lad went on his way unconvinced and it wasn’t long before all sorts of rumours that all wasn’t right with the favourite began to circulate around the stables.

  ‘The best thing is to issue a statement,’ Cassie said, playing the cold water on the horse’s upturned hoof. ‘Otherwise there’s just going to be one almighty panic, and we’ll have the press all over us. So let’s nip it in the bud now, and hope that’ll take the pressure off.’

  Niall Brogan agreed, and Cassie dictated a short statement to him while holding The Nightingale’s leg up. The statement simply said that the Derby favourite was a little sore on the sole of one foot, due to an old injury when he’d struck a stone on the gallops at home. A further bulletin would be issued if it was felt necessary at midday, but as things stood, there was no doubt about the horse standing its ground.

  ‘That’s not true, Cassie,’ Niall pointed out.

  ‘As far as I’m concerned it is,’ Cassie replied.

  Shortly afterwards, when Mattie arrived with the first consignment of ice, packed tight in two large coldbags which he’d scrounged from Niall’s nearby hotel, there was still no sign of the press as he showed his pass to Security and entered the stable block. Liam and he put the horse’s leg in a large round feed bowl and packed ice all around it, as high as the fetlock joint.

  ‘He’s not going to stand still in that all morning,’ Niall prophesied gloomily.

  ‘He won’t have to,’ Mattie replied. ‘I rang a racing chum in Newbury, who’s bringing across one of those special boots. You know – a Jacuzzi boot.’

  ‘Newbury? Christ – that’ll take hours, Mattie. And by then it’ll be too late.’

  ‘It won’t take hours, Niall. This chap’s got his own helicopter. And he’s already on his way.’

  Mattie’s friend landed in the middle of the course thirty-five minutes later, and within another quarter of an hour Nightie was standing quite happily with one leg laced into an ice-filled special boot.

  ‘A Jacuzzi boot indeed,’ Niall Brogan muttered half to himself as Cassie and he went in search of some coffee. ‘I just hope the horse doesn’t develop herpes.’

  ‘If you had your way,’ Cassie laughed in reply, ‘you’d still be blowing medicines down horses’ necks with a blowpipe!’

  ‘You’ve little chance even so of leading in the winner.’

  ‘What are the current odds?’

  ‘It was a ten-to-ninety chance against at nine o’clock. I’ll give you forty-sixty now.’

  An hour and a half later the chances had improved to sixty-forty, when Niall took the boot off the horse’s hoof for the first time, and after drying the hoof thoroughly and allowing the horse to stand and move around its box unencumbered for ten minutes, could find no heat in the foot. Cassie then issued a final statement to say that any crisis there had been with the favourite had now passed.

  When Cassie returned to the horse’s box, she found Mattie had disappeared to collect more ice by helicopter, and Niall Brogan sitting on the upturned feed bucket reading Spotting Life.

  ‘Only The Times opposes you,’ he said, showing Cassie the table of Experts’ Selections.

  ‘The Times and my vet,’ Cassie answered.

  ‘Your vet has an open mind,’ Niall replied. ‘I have to admit I’d have given you no chance at all, even at ten o’clock. But now—’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Eighty-forty.’

  ‘I’ll drink to that,’ Cassie said.

  ‘Now there’s an idea,’ Niall Brogan agreed.

  And leaving Liam, Frank and Mattie in charge, they headed for the nearest racecourse bar.

  The day was going to be a scorcher. The mist which had blanketed the course at dawn, had long since lifted, and the sun was shining down from a cloudless sky. Cassie had been so concerned she hadn’t for a moment noticed what sort of day it was going to be.

  ‘They’re predicting a record attendance,’ Niall told her as he poured them their first glass of champagne. ‘Your fellow’s a bit of a star already it seems.’

  ‘I just hope he won’t let them down,’ Cassie said, thoughtfully enough to make Niall look round at her.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, ‘and what’s happened to the famous Rosse confidence?’

  ‘It’s perfectly all right when I’m with the horse, Niall,’ Cassie replied. ‘But as soon as I’m on my own, it’s down tilt.’

  ‘In that case,’ Brogan said, pouring some more wine, ‘time for another attitude adjuster.’

  Brough Scott came up to her, as dapper and debonair as ever.

  ‘Mrs Rosse,’ he said with a frown, ‘I hope what I’m hearing about your horse isn’t true.’

  Cassie turned and greeted him.

  ‘On the record, or off, Brough?’ she asked.

  ‘Off the record for the moment,’ he replied. ‘Though maybe if you’re in the mood a little later, Cassie, you might like to say hello to my hundred and one million viewers.’

  ‘Off the record, he spread a plate in the lorry this morning and pricked his foot. And Niall thought he’d done his chance. On the record, the horse runs.’

  ‘Is he sound?’ Scott asked.

  ‘I won’t – correction, I wouldn’t be running him otherwise,’ Cassie replied.

  ‘Can I use this in my run-up?’

  ‘Why not save it until after he’s won?’

  ‘Fine,’ Scott said, with a grin. ‘In that case, if there are no further setbacks, can I grab you for a pre-recorded interview say in one hour? You know where we are. On that little lawn in front of Members’.’

  Cassie agreed, and Brough Scott left to continue his field work.

  ‘I like that guy,’ Cassie said. ‘He speaks as he finds, and I think that’s most refreshing. So much of racing is such lip service. Now I’d best go and change, I suppose.’

  Brogan followed her out of the bar with the half-drunk bottle of champagne under one arm.

  ‘You’
ll never get to Esher and back in time now,’ he told her.

  ‘I’ve got my clothes with me. I can change in the weighing room. John Meredith’s an old chum of Tyrone’s. He said it’d be OK.’

  Having brought her case with her from the stables, Cassie hurried over to the weighing room. She now felt cautiously optimistic. There was still an hour and a half before the first race, and three hours altogether before the Derby. And the horse’s foot was still as cold as ever. Keeping her fingers crossed, she hurried up the steps of the weighing room and in through the doors.

  The first people she saw inside were Jonathan Keating and Leonora. Leonora’s husband apparently had talked her out of her rash threat to move Millstone Grit, although judging from the look of heavy boredom on her trainer’s face, he’d have been the last person to object had Leonora carried her warning through.

  Leonora was wearing a dress and matching coat of brilliant red, topped off with a stunning picture hat in the same colour, banded in white.

  Cassie was still in her slacks and old baseball jacket.

  ‘Well,’ said Leonora, spotting her, ‘if it isn’t the ex-favourite’s owner and trainer.’

  ‘I don’t have time to stop and bitch now, Leonora,’ Cassie said, ‘I have to change.’

  ‘Why?’ Leonora laughed. ‘Things gotten so bad you’ve taken up race riding?’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear about your horse,’ Keating said, with genuine concern and sympathy.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with my horse, Jonathan,’ Cassie replied, stopping on her way to the Clerk of the Course’s office.

  ‘I heard he’d pricked his foot.’

  ‘Maybe he did, but there’s nothing wrong with him now.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Keating replied. ‘Good luck, if I don’t see you before.’

  ‘Thanks, Jon,’ Cassie said. ‘You too.’

  She turned and continued on her way, but not before she’d heard Leonora laughing and saying purposefully loudly that horses with pricked feet don’t win Derbies. Jonathan Keating, it appeared, agreed with her.

  Cassie checked with John Meredith if it was still all right for her to change there, and in order to find out exactly what the favourite’s chances were, he personally escorted her to the room reserved for lady jockeys, where he left her to change into an outfit Josephine had persuaded her to have made, which matched her racing colours perfectly; a simple silk dress in a claret colour, and a beautifully tailored half coat in light grey, with a matching claret border. Her hat was a pillar box, in claret with a grey tassel. She examined herself in the mirror and decided that as usual her daughter had shown exemplary taste.