by Tim Pears
The maids agreed how scandalous the dope was. They asked how it was administered. Were the horses injected?
‘No,’ said Herb Shattock. ‘They was given this poison from a bottle.’ He told them that doping had been banned long ago. In 1904. Those caught doing it were warned off. Perhaps it still went on. It could give a bad horse energy, but made a good horse run itself out too soon. He said Americans were not all bad. He himself had learned much from them concerning the ventilation of stables. ‘We leave our doors open now. The horses is much cooler than we used to keep them, and they’re much happier,’ he said.
*
In the restaurant car the two friends were also reminiscing about Americans they had known. Their daughters sipped Brown Windsor soup.
‘You girls have heard, no doubt, of the new style of riding they brought with them at the end of the last century. The forward seat. We called it “the monkey on the stick”.’
‘The trouble is, they did win a deuced lot of races.’
‘That has nothing to do with it, Prideaux. It was ugly then and it’s ugly now.’
‘The odd thing is,’ Arthur said, turning to Alice Grenvil, ‘that they used to ride with even longer stirrups and straighter backs than we did. Your grandfather, Lottie, do you remember him?’
‘No, Papa.’
‘I suppose not. He travelled in America. Saw some racing in Kentucky. He told me they were most beautiful horsemen. What happened was this. What you have to remember is that America is vast. A continent. There used to be a good deal of remote, up-country meetings – primitive affairs with barely trained horses and local riders. Now Johnny Huggins told me this himself, Duncan. He used to send a decent old plater round, and if a young, local horse beat his, he’d buy it and bring it home. Under his training and his jockeys these horses often improved enormously. But then the trick stopped working.’ Arthur shrugged and opened his arms to demonstrate the depth of the mystery. ‘Johnny couldn’t fathom it.’
Arthur Prideaux stopped speaking in order to consume his soup before it grew cold.
‘Well?’ Duncan Grenvil said. ‘You’re going to tell us these up-country horses were being ridden by the Rieff brothers?’
‘I suspect,’ Alice Grenvil said, ‘that the horses were getting thinner. They’d been following these faddish Yankee diets.’
Lord Grenvil laughed at his daughter’s joke. Arthur Prideaux choked on his food. Duncan slapped him on the back. There were certain qualities that were particularly welcome in a woman. Intelligence was one, that was true, but wit was surely another.
‘Good try. Both of you,’ Arthur said. ‘Do you care to hazard a guess, Lottie, since this seems to have become a parlour game?’
‘No, thank you, Papa,’ the girl said.
Arthur Prideaux raised the side of his bowl and scooped a last spoonful of thick soup. He swallowed it. ‘One day,’ he resumed, ‘Huggins bought one of these winning horses, and the nigger boy who’d ridden him begged Huggins to take him too, for the boy loved this horse so. Huggins took him on as a stable hand.’ Arthur paused to take a sip of claret. ‘Now, Johnny Huggins raced this horse and the damned thing lost, to the very plater he’d beaten up country. Huggins couldn’t understand it. The black boy asked to be allowed to ride the horse. Sure enough, the boy won. In fact, he won on whatever he rode. He was the most successful jockey Huggins had ever had, though the boy claimed that riders just as good were ten a penny in the state of Georgia.’
‘And he rode in this manner?’ Alice asked.
‘Indeed. The reason being that no one had ever taught these boys to ride. They were thrown up on old broncos, without a saddle or even reins. So they held onto the mane and crouched up on the withers and held on as tight as they could. They found their balance and it turned out to distribute the rider’s weight upon the horse better. It wasn’t long before most of the top American riders were black. The very first Yank to come over here and win a race was a nigger – Willie Simms – almost twenty years ago now. Funnily enough, we had a boy on the estate rode like that, a ploughman’s son.’ Arthur sighed, lost in his memory of Leo Sercombe riding at Bampton Fair. ‘A sight to behold,’ he said. ‘Ugly, perhaps, but thrilling.’
Lost in thought, Arthur Prideaux seemed suddenly to realise where he was and that his daughter was there too, sitting next to Alice, beside the window. He looked over at her. She gazed at the passing landscape, giving no indication of having been listening to what he said. He shook his head, took another sip of claret.
‘And we’ll witness this style of riding in the Derby, Arthur?’ Alice said.
‘Not quite,’ he said. ‘You’ll see Danny Maher. Your father won’t agree, but I consider him the finest jockey we’ve ever seen. He told me that the good American courses are much flatter and more even than ours. Here, once a horse’s footing is disrupted, it’s almost impossible to get its balance back when you’re stuck up on its neck. So he rides a little lower and further back than he would in America.’
‘Arthur’s right, dear,’ Duncan Grenvil said. ‘I do disagree. There’s been no one to touch George Fordham. Not before him, not since. The greatest exponent of the waiting game we ever had. Another facet of the art of horsemanship I fear you girls will not see. Nowadays they’re all off and away and just dash em round like brainless whippets.’
‘True enough, Duncan,’ Arthur said. ‘I’m just old enough to remember Tom Cannon. So stylish a rider that during a race he had time to check how finely polished his boots were. No, the Derby’s not what it was. The House of Commons used to go into recess for the day, so that members could attend. It really meant something then.’
*
After lunch, as they made their way back to the compartment, Lottie visited the lavatory. She did not hurry. The hot and cold water in the washbasin impressed her, the flush toilet too. She wondered where the waste went. She switched the electric light on and off. The illumination was feeble and yellowish. When she came out, her father was waiting for her in the corridor, smoking at a window.
‘“Yes, Papa,”’ he said. ‘“No, Papa.” How long do you intend to continue this performance? It’s been almost a year now.’
Lottie looked up at him. ‘I don’t know, Papa.’
They stood aside to let a conductor pass. ‘Could we not call a truce?’ he said. ‘That we might all enjoy this excursion? Do you think it’s fun for the Grenvils?’
‘Will you have them back?’ Lottie said.
Her father smoked his cigarette. He leaned his head back and blew the smoke up to the open window. ‘The ploughman and his family?’ he said. ‘I don’t know where on earth they are.’
‘You could find out.’
Arthur Prideaux nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I suppose I could. But I cannot have them back. Nor the boy. If you truly do not understand that, all I can say is that one day you will.’
‘And one day, Papa,’ the girl said, ‘you will understand how wrong of you it was.’
Lord Prideaux shook his head. He turned and walked along the corridor, swaying with the motion of the carriage, back towards their compartment. His daughter turned and made her way in the other direction.
*
There were first-class and third-class carriages on the train. Second class did not exist. Perhaps it never had. Or perhaps an entire category of people had vanished. Second-class people were shipped out to man the Empire shortly after the railways were invented. That was probably it. The girl could not come up with a more rational explanation.
The third-class carriages were open. There were more people to look at, as an alternative to staring out of the window. She saw their party of valets and maids but passed them without a word. She walked along, counting the carriages. There were seven. The luggage van was the eighth. She walked along the corridor. A crewman sat upon a suitcase, dozing. When she reached the end of the train she gazed out of the back door, at the parallel lines of the track spooling out behind, converging in the far distance.
�
��Are you all right, Miss Charlotte?’
The girl turned. The figure of her father’s groom filled the corridor.
‘I saw you walk through the carriage,’ he said. ‘I trust that nothin is amiss.’
She assured him that she had merely wished to stretch her legs. He said that he too found the confinement difficult to deal with. It made him uneasy. To be seated while hurtling across the fields at a speed impossible by any other means – it was strange and disagreeable. He believed the speed of a horse was as fast as man was meant to go. The girl smiled and Herb Shattock acknowledged the partiality of his opinion.
‘The first horseman must a been a mighty strange sight,’ he said. He bent forward and they watched the view out of the back window together.
‘Can I ask you something, Mister Shattock?’ Lottie said, turning from the window. ‘You come to the Derby with my father every year.’
The groom straightened his back and stood up. ‘I do.’
‘Why?’
Herb Shattock smiled. ‘A fair question, Miss Charlotte,’ he said. ‘Few would ask it quite like that.’
‘I know you’re his groom,’ she said. ‘But from what he’s told me, he spends all his time with Lord Grenvil. He’s already got his valet to look after him. Do you love the Derby, Mister Shattock?’
Herb Shattock took a deep breath and gave out a long sigh. He pondered the question. Perhaps it was more difficult than Lottie had intended or realised. Then he nodded. ‘Your father,’ he said, ‘has a stake in a stable. It is only one of his business interests, he might have many for all I know, but I believe this one’s dear to his heart. The stable is known as Druids Lodge. You might have heard of the Druids Lodge Confederacy?’
‘No.’
‘Known also as the Hermits of Salisbury Plain?’
The girl shook her head.
Herb Shattock frowned. ‘There’s no one owner, but the ringmaster, if you like, is a Mister Cunliffe. It was he what brought the master on board. They was friends at school, as I believe.’ The groom paused, and pondered the matter a while, as before. ‘I don’t know as I should tell you all this,’ he said.
Herb Shattock had taught Lottie to ride. He’d chosen her ponies, first the little Welsh dun mare, then Embarr the blue roan, then Blaze. It was said he’d been particularly fond of her mother, a fine horsewoman and side-saddle rider; had been almost as heartbroken when she died as Lord Prideaux himself.
‘As you know, I go to Ireland periodically to buy a hunter for your father. I found your Embarr there. The Druids Lodge Confederacy buy their horses in Ireland. I am a scout. I meet Captain Forester and the vet Mister Pearl there, tell them if I seen any promisin foals for sale. They brings their purchases back here and trains them in seclusion up on the Wiltshire Downs.’ He raised his chin and gestured out of the window, as if should they look now they might see these gallops as the train passed close by.
‘Do they have a horse running tomorrow?’ the girl asked.
Herb Shattock nodded. He confessed that they did. It had been a lovely bay colt he himself had seen two years ago and recommended. Mister Cunliffe bought him, in a group of three yearlings. It was always a lottery buying yearlings, of course. ‘And unfortunately that colt has grown into a savage beast,’ the groom said. ‘Aboyeur by name. You’ll see him. And you’ll see Mister Cunliffe too. You can’t miss him. You might think the farmer Amos Tucker, on Manor Farm, is a weighty man, but Mister Cunliffe must be twenty stone.’
‘So Aboyeur won’t win?’ Lottie asked.
‘No chance at all,’ Herb Shattock said. ‘Except the outside chance that every horse has. And at the long odds he’ll be on, he’ll be worth a shillin or two of any punter’s money. But do not mention that to anyone, Miss Charlotte. Anyone at all. Not Lord Grenvil. And not Miss Alice, neither.’
The girl looked up at the stocky groom. He looked suddenly worried. He had said more than he should.
‘I won’t.’
‘Good. Now how about I escort you back to your carriage? The master’ll be wonderin where you’ve got to.’
2
On the day following, the party left the Grenvils’ town house in Belgravia and took a cab to Victoria Station. Arthur Prideaux and Duncan Grenvil wore morning dress, with silk top hats. Alice Grenvil wore a pale yellow gown of organdie, with a high-necked yoke and sleeves of transparent net. Bodice and skirt each had wide fluffy tucks. She wore long white gloves, and a hat decorated with flowers made of coloured material, and one enormous white feather. Lottie marvelled that it stayed upon Alice’s head. She herself wore as plain a dress as she’d been able to find, blue and white, made of dimity, with a minimum of lace trim around the skirt. Her own hat was really a straw boater adorned with another of those ridiculous feathers, and she had constantly to hold it in place for a breeze or the jostling throng threatened to upset it.
The Grenvils’ valet had all their tickets and they boarded the train. Herb Shattock was not among them. He had spent the night elsewhere. The maids were on holiday, and could barely contain their excitement. The heaving crowd in the station concourse appeared desperate to flee the capital. It might have been on fire again. All London, it seemed, was headed for Epsom.
3
The girl watched the jockeys come out of the weighing room, carrying their saddles. They walked along the path to the parade ring. Together, they were of a similar size and unremarkable, but as they entered the ring their lack of height became evident in comparison with other men. All were small and slight as boys, though they were of varying ages. Some were old, wind-wizened horsemen. The smallest looked particularly young. The boy had dark eyes, seemingly focused on something no one else saw. He reminded Lottie of Leo.
A pale-faced jockey passed close by them and Lottie saw that his teeth were chattering. Alice said she felt sorry for him, for what he was about to do was exceedingly dangerous. But Duncan Grenvil claimed that nerves were a good sign in a rider, just as they were in a horse, an indication of pluck.
Arthur Prideaux assured the girls that the man was the king’s jockey, Herbert Jones, and he always looked like this. They should not be concerned. Jones had won the Derby for the Prince of Wales at his first attempt and again, when Teddy was king, four years ago, on Minoru. That was an unforgettable occasion. ‘When the king led his victorious horse into the parade ring, right here, people threw their hats into the air, it was like a flock of birds taking off. Do you remember what Granville said about Teddy?’ he asked Duncan. ‘That he was loved because he had all the faults of which an Englishman is accused.’
Alice said it was a fine sentiment. Duncan wondered whether Teddy’s son, though blessed with countless virtues, could hope to match his father in the affections of the nation. Lottie said that she could scarce remember the old king.
Her father appeared to know half the people milling around them. She wondered how, for at home he led a socially isolated life and showed no apparent wish for more company. She thought they had come for the races, yet he was constantly stopping to chat with his fellow spectators. Some people studied their racecards, others strode purposefully though it was not clear where they were headed. Many wandered around, looking for faces they recognised in the crowd. Alice was most concerned with the women and their attire. The day was becoming increasingly warm but all were committed to whatever they had chosen to wear. Alice shared her observations with Lottie. That there could be such subtle variety of material, colour, cut and trim, was it not extraordinary?
Arthur Prideaux gave his daughter pin money, Duncan Grenvil likewise. They introduced the girls to a bookmaker who would take their bets. They bought Dorling’s Correct Cards, with their lists of runners and riders. Arthur Prideaux whispered information to Alice Grenvil: ‘This horse has a mouth like silk.’ Alice took note of what she considered relevant and ticked off her fancies on her card. She wondered what would happen to her money in the case of a dead heat. Arthur Prideaux said he did not know. Long ago there was a tie and the two ho
rses were sent back later in the afternoon to run the course again. A dead heat occurred once more, at the very first Derby he himself attended, in 1884, at the age of fourteen, the same as Lottie here. On that occasion those involved agreed to share the prize money and the crowd complained vociferously.
‘We all wanted a winner,’ Arthur said. Whether the bookmakers paid out he could not remember. He suspected not, for bookies never would unless they had to.
Lottie preferred to watch the horses in the paddock. They were extraordinary creatures, all taller and more elegant than the best of her father’s hunters. A beautiful blood-chestnut horse. A big lengthy filly, with glorious shoulders, straight hocks. A washy chestnut had four white legs. Lottie could not take her eyes off a great raking bay gelding. But beyond their equine beauty – the nap of their coats brushed till it shone, their manes plaited – it was as if she could see into them, their skeletons, their bones moving in the articulation of their joints. The girl wanted to know more, about their muscles, ligaments, blood. How everything worked.
Knowing that she was going to put money on them, Lottie estimated their likely prowess and found the prospect mesmerising; watching how a horse moved but also gleaning or guessing what one could of its character. Some of the animals were excited or made irritable by the crowd close around them; others remained placid. There was a little mare, all wire and whipcord, barely over fifteen hands. Lottie placed a bet on her to win the first race, the Woodcote Stakes. The mare came in last.
Alice had taken Arthur’s advice, placing an each way bet on a horse whose jockey’s colours she liked, and won. She wondered whether fillies as well as colts would run in the Derby, or whether men had barred them as they did women from the more important races of this world. Her father reprimanded her but Arthur Prideaux said that Alice had a point. Duncan Grenvil said that a filly had won just last year. Tagalie. Ridden by the yank, Jonny Reiff, who was on the favourite today.