I laughed. ‘Trust me. There’s absolutely no chance of that if you’re going to be nasty to your mother. So go down and make peace. It’s not her fault that her hormones are up the creek.’
‘But her hormones have been up the creek for years. Don’t they have a paddle?’
We laughed together — for the first time in a very long while.
He wasn’t really a bad kid. Not always, anyway.
On Monday morning I was at my desk, as usual, by seven thirty, having made myself a cup of coffee in the kitchen on the way through.
I glanced through the digital version of the Racing Post on my computer, to see if there was any news I needed to know — there wasn’t — and then set about contacting the eleven trainers of the Victrix horses.
Entries for most horse races have to be made by noon, six days before the race, or five days before those on Saturdays. Only for the most valuable races, such as Group 1 races like the Derby, did entries close at least a month or more earlier.
Having entered a horse, it was possible for me to look online at the list of other entrants, discuss them with the trainer, and decide if we wanted the horse to run. If so, we had to declare it as a runner by ten AM two days before the race, and advise the name of our jockey by one PM the same day. If we decided against or if we failed to declare in time, the horse wouldn’t run, and the entry stake money would be forfeited.
With currently forty horses under Victrix management, there were decisions to be made almost every day about entries and declarations.
I normally spent a couple of hours each morning at my desk, phoning or emailing the trainers. Many of the calls or emails were short, just confirming an entry or declaration, which would then be actioned by the trainer; while others would be much longer as we discussed future strategy for a given horse.
On average, a flat racehorse will take part in six or seven races each year, but many run as often as ten times, and the record is more than twice that. It is often the case that the better the horse, the less it races — maybe only three or four times a year, but that is not always true.
Frankel ran fourteen times in three years, winning every one, and the great Australian mare, Black Caviar, won every one of her twenty-five races over a four-year period — including travelling halfway around the world to land the Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot. And another stellar Australian mare, Winx, ran forty-three times over five years, winning thirty-seven of them — the last thirty-three in a row — amassing an incredible fourteen million pounds of prize money.
My syndicate members obviously liked their horses to race as often as possible, and preferably on Saturdays. That gave them more chance to go and watch their horses run, and I tried to accommodate their wishes where I could, provided it was the best thing for the horses.
Consequently, there were Victrix horses running somewhere every week — sometimes two or three of them on a single day — and finding the perfectly rated race for each horse, at an appropriate distance and carrying a favourable weight, such that it maximized its chance of winning, was like a game of three-dimensional chess. And of course, everyone else was doing exactly the same to try and make their horse the winner.
I employed two female assistants to help me, both working remotely on computers in their own homes. Every day, they would update the detailed spreadsheets, one for each Victrix horse, to ensure that entry deadlines weren’t missed, and all bills were paid on time. And every morning I would receive an email from each, showing me what I needed to do on that day. I was nominally their boss, but it was clearly they who bossed me, and I couldn’t imagine how I could now operate without them.
At ten past nine, I called my final trainer, Owen Reynolds, when I knew he would be back in his own office after an early summer morning spent on the gallops.
‘How was the barbecue?’ I asked.
‘Great,’ he replied. ‘But a few of the lads had sore heads this morning, especially for first lot at five thirty.’
‘How is Potassium today?’
‘He ate up really well last night. He just had a short loosening canter this morning, but he seems great.’
‘Good. So what’s next for him?’ I asked.
‘Depends on whether we want to stay at a mile and half, like the Derby, or drop down to a mile and a quarter.’
‘After Saturday’s close shave, I’d be happier at a mile and a quarter, especially against older horses.’
‘Me too,’ said Owen. ‘Shame, really. I’ve always wanted to win a King George and Queen Elizabeth Stakes or a Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. Not to mention the Breeders’ Cup Turf. All those are a mile and a half.’ I could hear him sigh down the line. ‘So, are we then agreed that the plan is to go for the International Stakes at York in August and, provided that goes well, the Champion Stakes at Ascot in October? Both at a mile and a quarter.’
‘How about the Breeders’ Cup Classic instead of the Champion Stakes?’ I said. ‘That’s also a mile and a quarter, and winning at York would give him automatic free entry to the Classic, and the Americans will even pay the travel costs for both the horse and connections.’
‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,’ Owen said with a laugh. ‘We’ll only consider the Breeders’ Cup if, and after, he wins at York. And remember, he’s never run on a dirt track before — always on turf.’
‘It’s a long time from now until the International Stakes in the second half of August. Are we ruling out Royal Ascot completely? The St James’s Palace Stakes is over only a mile, but it might suit him.’
‘He’s not entered for that. Entries closed at the beginning of May, and I think we decided against at the time. Maybe that was a mistake.’
Or an oversight, I thought.
The Group 1 St James’s Palace Stakes was run on the first day of Royal Ascot, in the third week in June, in just fifteen days’ time.
‘We could always supplement him.’
A supplementary entry was made only five or six days before a big race, when normal entries had closed early, and it was a very expensive way of getting a horse into a race late.
A normal entry for the St James’s Palace Stakes cost £8,125, paid in three separate tranches — £2,845 to enter in early May, £3,250 unless scratched by the end of May, and £2,030 on confirmation by noon six days before the race. Supplementary entry, however, cost a whopping £46,000.
A supplemented horse would have to finish in the first three just to recover its entry costs. But, if it won, it collected more than three hundred and sixty thousand in prize money, so it might be worth it.
‘We have some time to think about that,’ Owen said. ‘We’ll see how he recovers over the next week. And we could always consider the Eclipse at Sandown at the beginning of July, or even the Sussex Stakes at Goodwood — that’s also only a mile — and he’s provisionally entered for both of those.’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Let’s make a decision on the St James’s Palace next week. Meanwhile, enter him for the International, and let’s keep him in the others for now, other than the Arc. And we’ll also definitely skip the King George.’
‘I agree,’ said Owen.
We went on to discuss the three other Victrix horses in his yard, but those conversations were somewhat mundane in comparison to that of Potassium, including into which race to enter a late-developing three-year-old gelding called Dream Filler at the upcoming Saturday evening meeting at Lingfield. Our choices were either a Class 5 Novice Stakes, over seven furlongs, or a mile-long Class 6 Handicap — prize to the winner £4,100 or £3,250, respectively.
We opted for the Class 6 Handicap as the better chance for a win, a mere nine steps down the race-quality ladder from the Epsom Derby.