can’t,’ I said, explaining thoroughly so that he wouldn’t think I was being rude. ‘I’m only allowed to ride in fifty open races a season, and I’m already over the forty mark, and I’ve got mounts booked for Cheltenham and the Whitbread and so on. And if I ride too much now I’ll be out of those, but thank you very much for asking me.’
He nodded understandingly and hurried off to find someone else, and in irritation two hours later I watched his horse canter home to a ten lengths win[126]. It was some consolation, however, when immediately afterwards I was buttonholed by a large shrewd-faced man I knew very slightly, the father of another well-occupied amateur jockey. Between them, father and son owned and trained half a dozen good hunter chasers which they ran only in amateur events with notoriously satisfactory results. But on this particular afternoon Mr Thackery, a large-scale farmer from Shropshire, showed signs both of worry and indecision.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’ll not beat about the bush, I’m a blunt man, so I’m told. Now, what do you say to riding all my horses until the end of the season?’
I was astonished. ‘But surely Julian… I mean, he hasn’t had a bad fall or anything, has he?’
He shook his head. The worry stayed in place. ‘Not a fall. He’s got jaundice. Got it pretty badly, poor chap. He won’t be fit again for weeks. But we’ve a grand lot of horses this year and he won’t hear of them not running just because he can’t ride them. He told me to ask you, it’s his idea.’
‘It’s very good of him,’ I said sincerely. ‘And thank you, I’d like to ride for you very much, whenever I can.’
‘Good, then.’ He hesitated, and added, ‘Er… Julian told me to tell you, to ask you, if ten per cent of the prize money would be in order?’
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘That will be fine.’
He smiled suddenly, his heavy face lightening into wrinkles which made him look ten years younger. ‘I wasn’t sure about asking you, I’ll tell you that, only Julian insisted on it. There’s no nonsense about Henry, he said, and I can see he’s right. He said Henry don’t drink much, don’t talk much, gets on with the job and expects to be paid for it. A pro at heart[127], he says you are. Do you want expenses?’
I shook my head. ‘Ten per cent for winning. Nothing else.’
‘Fair enough.’ He thrust out his hand and I shook it.
‘I’m sorry about Julian’s jaundice,’ I said.
Mr Thackery’s lips twitched. ‘He said if you said that, that he hoped for the sake of our horses you were being hypocritical.’
‘Oh, subtle stuff[128]’. I pondered. ‘Tell him to get up too soon and have a relapse.’
The next afternoon I went on a flight to New York.
With Billy.
The ice between us was as cold as the rarefied air outside the pressurized stratocruiser which took us. Yardman, I reflected, wasn’t showing much sense in pushing us off together so soon, and on a two-day journey at that[129].
The wide cold stare was somewhat marred by the blackish streaks and yellow smudges left by my fist, and Billy was distinctly warier than he had been on the French journeys. There were no elementary taunts this time; but at the end of everything he said to me he tacked on the words ‘Lord Grey,’ and made them sound like an insult.
He tried nothing so crude as punching to make my trip memorable; instead he smashed down one of the metal bars as I was fixing a guy chain during the loading. I looked up angrily, squeezing four squashed right fingers in my left hand, and met his watchful waiting eyes. He was looking down at me with interest, with faintly sneering calculation, to see what I would do.
If anyone else had dropped the bar, I would have known it was accidental. With Billy, apart from the force with which it had landed, I knew it wasn’t. But the day had barely begun, and the cargo was much too valuable to jeopardise for personal reasons[130], which I dare say he was counting on. When he saw that I was not going to retaliate, or at least not instantly, he nodded in satisfaction, picked up the bar with a small cold private smile, and calmly began putting it into place.
The loading was finished and the plane took off. There were thick dark red marks across my fingers an inch below the nails, and they throbbed all the way to America.
With us on that trip, looking after a full load of twelve horses, we took two other grooms, an elderly deaf one supplied by Yardman, and another man travelling privately with one particular horse. Owners occasionally sent their own grooms instead of entrusting their valued or difficult animals entirely to Yardman’s, and far from resenting it I had learned from Timmie and Conker to be glad of the extra help.
The horse involved on this occasion had come from Norway, stayed in England overnight, and was bound for a racing stable in Virginia. The new owner had asked for the Norwegian groom to go all the way, at his expense, so that the horse should have continuous care on the journey. It didn’t look worth it, I reflected, looking over at it idly while I checked the horses in the next box.
A weak-necked listless chestnut, it had a straggle of hair round the fetlocks which suggested there had been a cart horse not far enough back in its ancestry[131], and the acute-angled hocks didn’t have the best conformation for speed. Norway was hardly famed for the quality of its racing any more, even though it was possibly the Vikings who had invented the whole sport. They placed heaps of valued objects (the prizes) at varying distances from the starting point: then all the competitors lined up, and with wild whoops the race began. The prizes nearest the start were the smallest, the furthest away the richest, so each rider had to decide what suited his mount best, a quick sprint or a shot at stamina[132]. Choosing wrong meant getting no prize at all. Twelve hundred years ago fast sturdy racing horses had been literally worth a fortune in Norway, but the smooth skinned long-legged descendants of those tough shaggy ponies didn’t count for much in the modern thoroughbred industry. It was sentiment, I supposed, which caused an American to pay for such an inferior looking animal to travel so far from home.
I asked the middle-aged Norwegian groom if he had everything he wanted, and he said, in halting, heavily accented English, that he was content. I left him sitting on his hay bale staring mindlessly into space, and went on with my rounds. The horses were all travelling quietly, munching peacefully at their haynets, oblivious to rocketing round the world at six hundred miles an hour. There is no sensation of speed if you can’t see an environment rushing past.
We arrived without incident at Kennedy airport, where a gum-chewing customs man came on board with three helpers. He spoke slowly, every second word an ‘uh’, but he was sharply thorough with the horses. All their papers were in order however, and we began the unloading without more ado[133]. There was the extra job of leading all the horses through a tray of disinfectant before they could set foot on American soil, and while I was seeing to it I heard the customs man asking the Norwegian groom about a work permit, and the halting reply that he was staying for a fortnight only, for a holiday, the kindness of the man who owned the horse.
It was the first time I too had been to the States, and I envied him his fortnight. Owing to the five hours time difference, it was only six in the evening, local time, when we landed at Kennedy,
his horse canter home to a ten lengths win – (
A pro at heart – (
subtle stuff – (
at that – (
to jeopardise for personal reasons – (
there had been a cart horse not far enough back in its ancestry – (
a quick sprint or a shot at stamina – (
without more ado – (
