The way things had been going in recent months, with increased inflation, higher wage costs, and people being more careful about buying racehorses, my personal finances, and those of the syndicate company, could really do with the boost. A year ago, when we’d planned the party and booked the marquee plus the caterers, my business had been buoyant. No expense had been spared. Now I was worried that we couldn’t afford it.
Too late to think of that now, I told myself. We’re committed.
As expected, the traffic between the M25 and Epsom Racecourse, through Ashtead, was bumper to bumper and mostly stationary with it, but I eventually drove into the car park reserved for owners and trainers just before midday.
I parked my Jaguar as close to the exit as I could, ready for a quick getaway, and climbed out, collecting my coat and hat from the car boot.
My hands were shaking.
‘Morning, Chester. Lovely day for it.’
I turned to find Owen Reynolds, a racehorse trainer in his mid-fifties. He was walking towards the car-park exit.
‘Ah, good morning, Owen,’ I said. ‘And how is Potassium today?’
‘Never better. He seems to have slept well and ate up his breakfast at six o’clock before departing my yard at seven. He’s already safely here in the racecourse stables and raring to go.’
‘All good then?’ I asked.
‘I think so,’ Owen replied. ‘We could have done without that band of rain that came through in the night, but I don’t think it will have made much difference to the going. And this sunshine should help dry it out.’
Potassium had shown that he preferred racing on firm ground, having suffered his only defeat at Newmarket in early May, when the turf had been very soft, almost a bog.
Owen and I walked across the road towards the racecourse entrance together.
‘Have you backed him?’ I asked.
Owen was renowned for being a betting man.
‘I put a grand on him to win this race the day he broke his maiden at Newbury, well over a year ago.’
‘What price did you get?’
‘Twenty-five-to-one.’
Some bookmakers were now quoting Potassium as short as two-to-one.
‘You did well.’
‘Only as long as he wins. How many of the syndicate are coming?’
I laughed. ‘What do you think? No one wants to miss out on this one.’
‘Have they all got badges?’
‘Some have had to buy them, as Epsom are so miserly with their allocation, and not all of them will be able to get into the parade ring, but they’re all here, some with their extended families too. Many have booked restaurant hospitality.’
‘Let’s hope Potassium doesn’t let them down.’
‘Or us,’ I agreed.
Being the favourite in the betting certainly didn’t guarantee success. Far from it.
In the past thirty years, only eight horses that were favourite or joint-favourite have gone on to win the Derby, and since its first running in 1780, there have been three winners returned at odds as high as a hundred to one.
Owen Reynolds and I walked towards the entrance into the Queen Elizabeth II enclosure.
‘Excuse me, Mr Newton,’ said a man on my left, just outside the gate. ‘Could I have a word?’
I looked across and recognised one of the BBC radio reporters, complete with microphone and headphones.
‘I’ll see you later, Owen. In the saddling boxes.’
Owen walked on, waving a hand while I turned to the reporter.
‘Just a quick interview for our listeners,’ he said. ‘Ready?’
I nodded.
‘I have here with me Chester Newton, syndicate manager for Victrix Racing, the owners of Potassium, which is the favourite for today’s big race. Well, Chester, do you expect Potassium to win?’
‘I wouldn’t exactly say that I expect him to win, but I hope he does.’
‘And will he make all the running as he has in the past?’
‘Race tactics are for the trainer and jockey to decide, not the owner. But the Derby is a mile and a half, and that’s a lot farther than the horse has ever raced over before, and all his six previous races have been on straight, mostly flat courses, while here he will have to negotiate the stiff rise to the top of the hill and then the sharp downhill bend at Tattenham Corner.’
‘Are you making your excuses early?’ asked the reporter, with good humour in his voice.
‘Not at all. I’m just saying that to win a Derby requires a special horse, but we feel that Potassium is that special horse.’
‘You heard it first here folks, straight from the horse owner’s mouth. Thank you, Chester Newton, and now back to the studio.’
The racecourse gateman scanned the Privilege Racecourse Access app on my mobile phone, and I walked into the enclosure.
In spite of what I had told the reporter, did I, in fact, expect Potassium to win?
He was certainly in the best shape of his life. Even though he had failed to triumph in the 2000 Guineas at Newmarket on his last outing, he had been training really well since. Sixteen days ago, Owen and I had opted for the horse to miss the ten-furlong Dante Stakes at York, instead running him over the full Derby distance at home on the gallops on the same day, upsides with two older horses from Owen’s yard, and Potassium had still been pulling at the end.
But if I’d learned just one thing during my more than thirty years working with horses, it was that nothing in racing is ever certain. It had a habit of producing the totally unexpected — Devon Loch’s collapse in the 1956 Grand National was testament to that. So, while I wouldn’t say that I exactly expected Potassium to win, I’d be sorely disappointed if he didn’t.
Hence my nervousness.
I looked again at my watch, desperate for the time to pass quickly, but the hands stubbornly refused to move round the dial any faster. I had been itching to get here early, and now that I was, I didn’t know how to fill my time.
Potassium was the only Victrix runner today.
In all there were forty horses owned by the Victrix Racing syndicates that I managed, all but six of them running on the flat. Owen Reynolds had four of them, including Potassium, while the others were spread amongst nine other trainers all around the U.K., and one in Ireland.
Some of the syndicates had twelve members, as with Potassium, but most had twenty or even twenty-five, depending on the original cost of the horse and my expected take-up of the shares.
I would buy the horses at the bloodstock sales in the autumn, in either the U.K. or Ireland, and then hold a ‘yearling parade,’ where prospective syndicate members were invited to view the horses, sign the ownership papers, and enjoy a good lunch.
I had now been doing this job for the past twenty-four years, having initially set up Victrix Racing when I was thirty with just a single syndicate made up of willing friends and family prepared to invest their hard-earned cash in my new venture.
Over time, I had acquired a pretty good idea of which horses to buy and how many shares in each to make available, as well as establishing a comprehensive list of people willing and able to participate in shared ownership.
I didn’t purchase the most expensive horses, those that went for in excess of half a million pounds. Indeed my top limit would be less than half of that, and most were around the hundred thousand mark.
Sometimes they turned out to be really good buys, and sometimes they didn’t. Potassium was definitely in the former category, having cost exactly a hundred thousand guineas at the Newmarket October yearling sale, a remarkably low price for a horse that turned out to be the champion European two-year-old of last year.
Now aged three, Potassium had stepped up to compete in the Classic races for three-year-olds, including the Two Thousand Guineas and The Derby, where success would put him into the ‘greats’ list.