Raise The Price

by Mark Stanley

  "The last of the stragglers are being given a gee-up by the starters assistant as they're going to be a few minutes late off, which isn't unusual. It gives me time to give you the latest betting: The Dante Trial winner Red Mungo is favourite at 7/2, next is Oasis Delight at 5/1, Fandango is 6/1, then it's Air Commander at 8/1. The Guineas winner and possible non-stayer, Royal Quest is 10/1. Quicksand and Tiergarten are both 12/1 and it's 16/1 the rest."

  The tension was still less than Newmarket, but the butterflies had arrived. Victoria was as ever, by my side, with her arm through mine and the children were equally close. Then, directly in front of us four trumpeters from the Household Cavalry announced to the crowd, by way of a fanfare, that the horses were being loaded. Victoria squeezed a little firmer and planted a kiss on my lips as Royal Quest was led forward and loaded into the starting stalls.

  "Monkfish will be the last to load. The handlers turn him around and now they're trying a blindfold. A couple of the horses already in Red Mungo and Tiergarten are getting restless. I don't think the starter will want to give Monkfish many more chances. He's led up again. He's half way in, a big heave from the handlers and...he's in! They're under starters orders and they're off. Royal Quest takes up his customary position at the head of affairs but he appears to be a little more tractable today, maybe he knows it's a half a mile further than he has raced before..."

  "Let's hope so." Mumbled Simon who had invested heavily on him at all prices and stood to win, or lose a packet.

  "...Exalted, this big outsider is trying to bridge the gap which has grown to about four lengths between Royal Quest and the pursuers. They're just coming to the top of this long hill which will bring them to the one mile start. It's Royal Quest by four lengths, seemingly going well within himself, Exalted is in second, Oasis Delight is third, just shading that position from the improving Air Commander, Quicksand is fifth, a head in front of a improving Manton Marauder as they start to go around the bend and begin the run across the top of the course which will lead them to the downhill decent to Tattenham Corner. It's Royal Quest still going well in front for his jockey, James Doyle. Exalted is hanging on in there, as Oasis Delight closes to within a length of second placed horse. Air Commander tracks this one's every move and then there's a little gap to Quicksand, now Ryan Moore is threading Red Mungo through the field and passes Tiergarten who are all vying for fifth, sixth and seventh. They start the decent to Tattenham Corner and still Royal Quest leads, Exalted hasn't come down the hill very well and begins to drop away. Oasis Delight and the ever improving Red Mungo are starting to get into closer contention. A half mile to go. This is now uncharted territory for Royal Quest but he has five lengths, will he stay? Passing the three furlong marker and Royal Quest has now gone six lengths clear..."

  "C'MON MY BABY! Screamed Simon, quickly followed by my Father and Robert as the excitement grew in the box and in the stands as the crowd became even more animated, the boys were starting to shake their arms as if they were whipping the horse, but Royal Quest didn't need whipping, not yet.

  "...The jockey goes for the persuader on Red Mungo and administers three very sharp cracks as Royal Quest pours on the coals! He still appears to be going well and I'm looking back for dangers, horses that might bridge the ever increasing gap but they’ve all cried enough!. It's relentless, it's extraordinary, it's fantastic, its, ROYAL QUEST! Down to the final furlong and the further they go the further Royal Quest goes clear it must be ten lengths and still James Doyle asks him to stretch. Tiergarten is having a battle with Red Mungo and Quicksand for the minor places but they're having a different race for The Derby is going to be won by ROYAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLL QUEST!"

  We were having our own extraordinary scenes as people picked up other people twirling them around, kisses for everyone, well except the boys. Tears from Robert as he lost all emotional control and Katie joined him. A win in two classics for this expanding stable would bring lots of new owners. Me? I was almost knocked over as Victoria followed by Lulu tried to swamp me with love and I was enjoying every moment.

  The Winners Enclosure at Epsom is at the front of the stands to give as many people as possible a view of the most important winner of any horse race in any part of the World, The Derby. We took a lift down and with the help of Epsom security and our own guys, got to the ring. Victoria and Lulu went off to lead the horse in and we stood waiting for another fanfare as the broadcaster pushed a microphone in front of me.

  "Lord Mark Stanley, you must feel like the luckiest man in the World. Firstly you escape certain death with a bullet to the brain and now you own not only the Cheltenham Gold Cup winner in Verbier but also Royal Quest, what an extraordinary few months for you and your family?"

  "We're so blessed to be able to be here and to share the day with so many people. Robert's a fabulous trainer and convinced me that this was Royal Quest's race and thank goodness I listened to him!"

  "It was reported that he had doubts about running today?"

  "If he did he never expressed them to me. I'm delighted that his faith, skill and absolute belief in the horse have been vindicated." At that the fanfare started to herald the arrival of Royal Quest into the coveted enclosure led by my girls who had never looked happier.

  "So Billy, what's all this about your stag in Dublin, how come I'm the last to know?"

  "It was muted but nothing definite, how could it be, no one knew if he would win?"

  "So now it's The Curragh the weekend preceding our wedding? You had better behave; no salacious tales or you'll be losing your own tail!"

  The celebrations went on and on. In quiet anticipation, I had arranged for Adelice to provide another feast, the last one had been a huge success and this wasn't any different as the celebrations went on into the night as we all watched endless re-runs of this most illustrious horse.

  "Do you ever think when this run of good luck might end?" Asked my Mother at breakfast the following day.

  "I'm not sure Mum, because I didn't know that it had to end, is that just a requirement because your son is having too good a time?"

  "Careful, don't antagonise me for I still bite."

  "Surely the bad luck of Christmas had to come to an end and now it has, I'm certainly not going to worry about when this good luck will end, I've too much to do and too much to accomplish."

  "How's the new house?"

  "We're all going across their shortly to have a look so you'll be able to judge for yourself. I haven't been since the day that we last all went together but Victoria has."

  “Tell us more Victoria.”

  "No Margaret for I want it to be a surprise for Mark as well as everyone else.”

  She wasn't joking about the surprise. The change was immense. The old ruined building had long been demolished and cleared away. In its place were the foundations of what would eventually be our future home. Eighty bricklayers can achieve a substantial amount in a day but they'd been here a lot longer than that, as the corners were already up to first floor level.

  "What height are the ceilings Mark?"

  "Eighteen feet Dad, you can't have anything less as you lose the overall sense of size and grandeur."

  "It's quite simply…massive."

  "Go on then you measure fields in acres, how many acres do you think?"

  He stood looking and pacing and then looking some more and still nothing was said until. "It's difficult because of the basements and sub-basements."

  He rubbed his chin as he ruminated a while longer.

  "How many bedrooms are there?"

  "Excluding the staff ones, there are twelve on the first floor which is for the family and then another eighteen on the second floor so a total of thirty usable bedrooms."

  "But why so many?"

  I didn't answer my Mother, but Victoria did.

  "I expect to have, so long as your son proves up to the task and doesn't get himself shot again, five children, added to the three existing one's that's eight. Then we need bedrooms for visitors of w
hich there will be numerous, all of the time. The house will be lived in and used and we expect it to be busy, all year and then there are Christmas's, celebrations, no I think thirty will be about right."

  Funnily enough Mother never argues with Victoria, just smiles and nods, proud as punch at having such a daughter-in-law, shame about the son!

  "Seven?"

  "What Dad?"

  "Seven acres?"

  "No, each floor is over a hundred thousand square feet and a little over two and a half acres, so that's ten acres above ground, then you have the basement, the sub-basement and the sub-sub-basement so it totals a tad over seventeen."

  There were no sounds from my Father, he took Lulu's hand and just wandered off.

  Outside of the tent, work was well underway.

  "What are those enormous holes?"

  "We’ve extended and enlarged the existing lakes and increased them from two to three, which will be for fishing, boating, water skiing, anything really. Over here you can see how the bulldozers are reshaping the land to make the golf course and then it all needs to be landscaped after which, sixteen thousand trees need to be planted. The problem that we've faced with the existing grounds is that they were never designed to compliment a house of this stature and so the landscaping is...challenging, and we expect it'll be many years before it starts to look like the designs that we've signed off on? To mitigate this we're buying a lot of specimen plants, large trees and shrubs that have been grown, some for many years, to a suitable size so that when you eventually plant them they look right and not like those twigs that you get at the garden centres, because if we bought those, well I'm not sure that I'd ever see what I hope to see in say five years? But it'll be developing, constantly and in twenty years and fifty years, it'll look completely different as everything matures."

  "Let's hope that it matures faster than its owner."

  Said as my Mother went off to catch-up with my Father.

  Everyone wandered off to look at what particularly interested them. Victoria stayed close at hand, I had a feeling, just a feeling that something was brewing.

  "Billy?"

  "Mm?"

  "I had the agents on Friday and the farm that's adjacent, but the other side of the village has come on the market and they wanted to know if we were interested?"

  "Why would we be interested?"

  "Because it comes with the title-deeds to the Village, Church, everything really in Shrimpton? I've got it on my laptop and so I can show you, but if you can imagine one enormous horseshoe with Shrimpton in the middle, we would then own the entire horseshoe. I think that it would make for great security. It hasn't been sold for nearly three hundred years and even if we tenant it out it'll be a good investment and it also gives us the ultimate say over what can and can't happen within the village."

  "How big?"

  "Two thousand four hundred acres"

  "Cost?"

  "Thirty two million. That's everything, farmland, buildings, and village."

  I had to do some calculations and to think it through but I rarely get the chance with Victoria around. "I don't have half; I'll have to wait until I sell either Weybridge or Hill Street."

  "Don't start Billy!"

  "I'm not starting anything, you rattle figures off as if they're loose change and I know you find this hard to understand, but thirty two million pounds is a little bit more than loose change."

  "I'm not getting into this. Do you think we should do it?"

  I took a deep breath, exhaling very slowly. "Yes."

  She threw her arms around my neck. "I love ya Billy!"

  Monday and we were finally at work. This morning Victoria had taken me to see yet another of Brompton's Estates properties, this one was a commercial building and what a building. Located in Carlton House Terrace, once the headquarters of a mining company who now needed to downsize with the prolonged falls in metal prices, the building consisted of four interlinked buildings and provided almost seventy thousand square feet of luxurious office space. This was the creme de la creme of office buildings. Designed by John Nash, the terrace is probably the foremost address for a company to be located in London as its location is unsurpassed, close to St. James's Palace, still a Royal residence and located in the centre of some of the most iconic roads in London, The Mall, Pall Mall, I was suitably impressed.

  "I never knew you owned this."

  "It's been let out on a long lease but now they've gone I want to move Brompton Estates and MSP in, together." Victoria said this completely matter of factly as I wandered around taking in the scale and grandeur.

  "But we have offices already and I don't think we have a break-clause for a number of years?"

  "We own the freehold of your building too through a fully owned subsidiary so that wouldn't be a problem."

  I looked at Victoria as yet another disclosure smacked me between the eyes.

  "How much would the rent be?"

  She smiled as I nibbled the bait. "Same rent as you currently pay in Bruton Street."

  "Why?"

  "Because I've got and had for almost a year planning permission to demolish our current offices and erect apartments on the site, but I've been waiting for premises to become available which wouldn't be seen as a step down."

  "These could never be termed that. I'd love to but I need to speak with Giles. We wouldn't need all of the room you're offering, well not yet anyway."

  "That's fine, there are three interlinked buildings and so we can shut off a building or not, maybe there are things that you want to do, who knows?"

  She's great a dropping a hand grenade into the room and then walking out, shutting the door behind her and waiting for the explosion. She knew darn well that my mind would go into overdrive with this opportunity and all I needed to do was sell it to Giles. That didn't prove very difficult as he knows the value of its location.

  "Carlton House Terrace for the same money as we pay at Bruton Street? When do we move in?"

  My phone rang 'Robert' hardly a surprising call. "Good morning Robert and how's the trainer of a classic winner today?"

  "My phone hardly stopped at all yesterday with people ringing up to congratulate me and to give me orders for the bloodstock sales, do you know I think I'll need more stables. I've always known that you were out of the top drawer but what you said on television on Saturday and to the newspapers about The Derby being my idea...words fail me Markey. Even at the pinnacle of your racing ownership you were switched on to remember us, it was really kind."

  "Oh do shut up, I was just trying to get a reduction on the training bills. How's the Superstar?"

  "I told you I'm really well. Oh you mean Nipper? I tell you Markey, he could do it all again today, he's a monster, ate all his food when we got him back on Saturday and when we weighed him, he had actually put on three kilo's, and he’s unbelievable."

  "Irish Derby next then?"

  "Never in doubt Markey, never in doubt. Anyway the purpose of the call, of course I wanted to thank you for everything but also to tell you that I've had another offer, well three actually. One from Hooray Henry of twenty one, one from Japan for twenty five and to top it all Coolmore have offered a big three zero."

  "Thirty million, goodness."

  "That's knocked the wind out of your sails."

  I had to digest the figures, the offers weren't unexpected, but the size was. "You know the drill Robert, thanks but no thanks."

  "Really?"

  "Onward and upward. Ireland, Ascot, Doncaster and Paris and then we'll reassess his targets for next season."

  "You intend keeping him in training as a four year old...with me?"

  "Victoria would never forgive me if I didn't do both."

  Chapter 9 - July

  July the fourth, a date imprinted in the memories of all Americans and if I valued anything it had better be imprinted in mine after today, for today I'm getting married.

  The day had begun the way lots of days begin in the Stanley house ver
y early and with a pillow fight. The boys were at their normal exuberant best and so was I, as I now gave as good as I got and fought hard and long for an honourable draw. We then went for a swim and more games before, eventually, our hunger overtook the need for play. Dried, we reconvened in the kitchen and joined some of the house guests.

  "Good morning Holl's, sleep well?" I kissed my big sister and gave her a hug, ruffling the hairs of her young children and smiling at Toby her husband.

  "You were all up bright, early and very noisy!"

  "You should have joined us; I haven't beaten you up in a pillow fight for far too long."

  "As I remember it, it was you who used to get beaten up!"

  "That's the trouble with living in a Third World country it addles one's brain."

  "Hey Pommie, I just happen to have been born in that Third World country!"

  "Toby, I still struggle to equate a terribly English Christian name to a descendent of a convict, anyway if God had meant Australia to be a First World country he wouldn't have put it so far away."

  "He had to because he didn't want us to be contaminated with you foolish Europeans, all joining together to form a market that costs you all a fortune, only for the French to take all of the money. Anyway Pommie, I'm descended from settlers and not convicts."

  "Enough! We're eating and Toby, don't let him wind you up, he knows jolly well that your family were settlers and he's just trying to goad you into an argument his done it all of his life and sadly he's very good at it."

  "A real treat to eat something other than Kangaroo I bet."

  "Look Pommie, after breakfast we're going to kick your backsides at cricket."

  "No, there's no time for cricket." Said Holly.

  This was something that we could all agree on as we joined forces to shoot my sister down with.